* * * * *

James Oliver had no fear of death. He had an abiding faith that the Power that cared for him here would never desert him there. He looked upon death as being as natural as life and probably just as good. For the quibbles of theology he had small patience. "Live right here—wait, and we shall know," he used to say.

When his wife died, in Nineteen Hundred Two, he bore the blow like a Spartan. Fifty-eight years had they journeyed together. She was a woman of great good sense, and a very handsome woman, even in her old age. Her husband had always depended on her, telling her his plans and thus clarifying them in his own mind. They were companions, friends, chums, lovers—man and wife. After her death he redoubled his activities, and fought valiantly to keep from depressing the household with the grief that was gnawing at his heart.

A year passed, and one day he said to his son, "Joe, I do miss your mother awfully—but then, I'll not have to endure this loneliness forever!"

And this was as near a sign of weakness as he ever showed.

James Oliver was a successful man, but it was not always smooth sailing. In the early days, the Plow Plant caught fire at night and was absolutely consumed. Returning home at three o'clock in the morning, exhausted, and with clothing wet and frozen in a sheet of ice, this man, sorely kicked by an unkind Fate, turned a chair over on the floor before the fireplace, and reclining on it there with eyes closed, endeavored to forget the trying scenes of the night.

Mrs. Oliver had made coffee and prepared a simple breakfast for the tired man. But rest was never for her or her family when there was pressing work demanding attention. "James, why are you wasting time? Drink this coffee, put on these dry clothes and go at once before daylight and order lumber and brick so the men can begin at seven o'clock to rebuild. We have orders to fill!" And the man arousing himself obeyed the command. At seven o'clock the lumber was on the ground and the men were at work preparing to rebuild.

James Oliver was a man of courage, but his patience, persistency and unfaltering faith were largely the reflection of his wife's soul and brain. When seventy years of age, a neighbor once dropped in for a little visit, and in conversation referred to Mr. Oliver's being a rich man.

"Yes," said this kindly old Spartan, "yes, they say I am rich, but if I didn't have a dollar, I would still be rich—with a wife like that!" and he pointed to his partner of nearly half a century.

Mrs. Oliver smiled and said chidingly, "Now, James!"

But he continued, "I say, mother, if we did not have a dollar, we could still earn our living with our hands at just plain hard work, couldn't we?"

And the old lady (who really was never old) replied, "Yes, James, we could still earn our living with our hands, and we would not be miserable over it, either." Near the close of his wonderful career, Pericles said, "I have caused no one to wear crape." The Honorable Marvin Campbell, in a speech at South Bend, once quoted this remark of the man who built the City of Athens and added, "Not only can we pay James Oliver the compliment of saying that he never caused any one to wear crape, but no one ever lost money by investing in either his goods or his enterprises, and moreover no one ever associated with him who did not prosper and grow wiser and better through the association."

A few weeks before his passing, some one told him this little story of Tolstoy's: A priest, seeing a peasant plowing, approached him and said, "If you knew you were to die tonight, how would you spend the rest of the day?"

And the peasant promptly answered, "I would plow."

It seems the priest thought the man would answer, "In confession," or "In prayer," or "At church." The priest heard the answer in surprise. He thought a moment, and then replied, "My friend, you have given the wisest answer a man can possibly make, for to plow is to pray, since the prayer of honest labor is always answered."

The story impressed Mr. Oliver. He told it to several people, and then made a personal application of it, thus, "If I knew I were to die tonight, I would make plows today."



STEPHEN GIRARD

I do not value fortune. The love of labor is my sheet-anchor. I work that I may forget, and forgetting, I am happy.

—Stephen Girard



When we make a census of the sensible, and count the competent, we can not leave out the name of William Penn. He was the founder of the City of Philadelphia, and of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and gave name and fame to both.

In this respect of being founded by an individual, Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, and the State of Pennsylvania, are unique and peculiar in all the annals of American history.

Yet Philadelphia has no monument to Penn, save the hazy figure of a dumpy nobody surmounted by an enormous hat, all lost in the incense of commerce upon the topmost pinnacle of the City Hall.

If Philadelphia has been sky-piloted by her orthodox Witherspoons and Albertsons, by her Converses and Conwells, and if they have taught her to love her enemies and then hold balances true by hating her friends, let Clio so record, for history is no longer a lie agreed upon. In her magnificent park and in her public squares Philadelphia has done honor in bronze and marble to Columbus, Humboldt, Schubert, Goethe, Schiller, Garibaldi and Joan of Arc. But "Mad Anthony Wayne," and that fearless fighting youth, Decatur, are absolutely forgotten. Doctor Benjamin Rush, patriot, the near and dear friend of Franklin, and the man who welcomed Thomas Paine to Pennsylvania and gave him a desk where he might ply his pen and write the pamphlet, "Common Sense," sleeps in an unknown grave. You will look in vain for effigies of Edgar Allan Poe, who was once a Philadelphia editor; of Edwin Forrest, who, lionlike, trod her boards; of Rittenhouse, mapping the stars; of Doctor Kane, facing Arctic ice and Northern night; of Doctor Evans, who filed and filled the teeth of royalty and made dentists popular; of Bartram, Gross, or Leidy. Fulton lived here, yet only the searcher in dusty, musty tomes knows it.

Benjamin West, who founded England's Academy of Painting, is honored in Westminster Abbey; but Harrisburg, too busy in her great game of grab and graft, knows not his name. Robert Morris, who was rewarded for his life of patriotic service by two years in a debtors' jail, is still in a cell, the key of which is lost—and Sully, Peale, Taylor, Walter and Fitch mingle their dust with his.

Yet all this might be forgiven on the plea that where so many names of the strong and powerful bid for recognition, a good way to avoid jealousies, is to ignore them all. So speaks proud and pious Philadelphia—snug, smug, prosperous, priggish and pedantic Philadelphia. But how about these five supremely great names—William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Stephen Girard and Walt Whitman!

Oh! ye Friends, innocent of friendship, will ye forever try to smother these by your silence, simply because they failed to do theological goose-step on your order, as your bum-beadles marked time with their staves?

Oh! ye cities and nations, cherish, I pray you, the names of your heroes in business, art, finance and poetry, for only by them and through them shall the future know you. Have a care, ye cities! for the treatment that ye accord to these, living, and to their memories, dead, is but the telltale record of your own heart and brain!

* * * * *

Benjamin Franklin founded the Philadelphia Public Library, the Philadelphia Hospital, the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum and the University of Pennsylvania.

Franklin was also much interested in good roads, the building of canals—steam-railroads were then, of course, a dream unguessed.

Girard got his philanthropic impetus from Franklin. Girard had watched the progress of the University of Pennsylvania, and he had become convinced that it fell short of doing the good it might do. It shot too high.

Franklin had a beautiful contempt for Harvard. He called it a social promotion plan, and thereby got the lasting enmity of John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, and also of John Hancock.

Franklin had hoped to make the University of Pennsylvania a different school. But after his death it followed in exactly the Harvard lines. It fitted prosperous youth for the professions, but it left the orphan and the outcast to struggle with the demons of darkness, discarded and forgotten. Girard founded his college with the idea of helping the helpless. Thomas Jefferson, also, had impressed Girard greatly. Girard once made a trip to Monticello; and he spent two days at the University of Virginia. This was really remarkable, for time with Girard was a very precious commodity.

Thomas Jefferson was the man who introduced classic architecture into America. All of those great white pillars that front the mansions of Virginia, and in fact of the whole South, had their germ in the brain of Jefferson, who reveled in all that was Greek. Jefferson was a composite of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and if Socrates was not the first Jeffersonian Democrat, then who was?

Socrates dwelt on the rights and virtues of the "demos"—the Common People. Jefferson uses the expression again and again, and was the one man to popularize the word "Democrat." When Jefferson, wearing his suit of butternut homespun, rode horseback up to the Washington Capitol and tied his horse and walked over to the office of the Chief Justice and took the oath of office as President of the United States his action was essentially Socratic.

Girard got his ideals both of architecture and of education from Jefferson.

Girard was too busy to do much original investigating, for he was a very rich man—so he did the next best thing, and the thing that all wise, busy men do: he picked a few authors and banked on them.

Girard loved Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. And one reason why he was drawn to them was because they all spoke French, and he had a high regard for the French people. Franklin and Jefferson were each sent on various important diplomatic missions to France. Paine was a member of the French Assembly, and Girard never ceased to regret that Paine was saved from the guillotine by that happy accident of the death-messenger chalking the inside of his cell-door instead of the outside. "If they had only cut off his head, he then would have been recorded in American schoolbooks as the Honorable Thomas Paine, assistant savior of his country, instead of being execrated as Tom Paine, the infidel," said Girard.

In the time of Girard, the names of Franklin, Jefferson and Paine were reviled, renounced and denounced by good society; and it was in defending these men that Girard brought down upon himself the contumely that endures—in attenuation, at least—even unto this day.

Let these facts stand: Franklin taught Girard the philosophy of business and fixed in his mind the philanthropic bias.

Jefferson taught Girard the excellence of the "demos," and at the same time gave him an unforgetable glimpse of Greek architecture.

Paine taught Girard the iniquity and folly of a dogmatic religion: the religion that was so sure it was right, and so certain that all others were wrong, that it would, if it could, force humanity at point of the sword to accept its standards.

Franklin and Paine were citizens of Philadelphia, and Jefferson spent many months there. The pavements that had echoed to their tread were daily pressed by the feet of Girard. Their thoughts were his. And when pestilence settled on the city like a shadow, and death had marked the doorposts of more than half the homes in the city with the sign of silence, Girard did not absolve himself by drawing a check and sending it to a committee by mail. Not he! He asked himself, "What would Franklin have done under these conditions?" And he answered the question by going to the pesthouse, doing for the stricken, the dying and the dead what the pitying Christ would have done had He been on earth.

Girard believed in humanity; he believed in men as did Franklin, Jefferson and Paine, and as did that other great citizen of Philadelphia who, too, was willing to give his life in the hospitals that men might live—Walt Whitman.

No one ever called Walt Whitman a financier. Some have said that Stephen Girard was nothing else. In any event, Girard and Whitman, between them, hold averages true. And they both believed in and loved humanity. And here is a fact: when we make up the composite man—the perfect man—taking our human material from American history, we can not omit from our formula Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Stephen Girard and Walt Whitman.

* * * * *

Stephen Girard was born at Bordeaux, France, in Seventeen Hundred Fifty. He died at Philadelphia in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-one.

Immediately after his death there was printed a book which purported to be his biography. It was the work of a bank-clerk who had been discharged by Girard. This man had been close enough to his employer to lend plausibility to much that he had to say, and as the author called himself Girard's private secretary, people with prejudices plus pointed to the printed page as authority. The volume served to fill the popular demand for pishmince. It was written with exactly the same intent that Cheetham, who wrote his "Life of Thomas Paine," brought to bear. The desire was to damn the subject for all time. Besides that, it was a great business stroke—calumny was made to pay dividends. To libel the dead is not, in the eyes of the law, a crime.

No such book as this "Life of Girard" could ever have been circulated about a living man. "Once upon a time an ass kicked a lion, but the lion was dead."

Yet this libelous production was reprinted as late as Eighteen Hundred Ninety. Cheetham's book was quoted as an authority on Thomas Paine until the year Nineteen Hundred, when Moncure D. Conway's exhaustive "Life" made the pious prevaricators absurd.

From being a bitter "infidel," a hater of humanity, grossly ignorant and wholly indifferent to the decencies, we now view Girard as a lonely and pathetic figure, living out his long life in untiring industry, always honest, direct, frank, handicapped by physical defects, wistful in his longing for love, helpless to express what he felt, with a heart that went out to children in a great welling desire to give them what Fate had withheld from him.

Stephen Girard's parents were lowly and obscure people. They were Catholics. His father was a sailor and fisherman. Fear, hate, superstition, ignorance, ruled the household. When the father had money it went for strong drink, or to the priest. Probably it would have been as well if the priest had gotten it all. The mother went out as servant and worked by the day for her more fortunate neighbors. The children cared for one another, if the word "care" can be used to express a condition of neglect and indifference.

It might be pleasant to show, if possible, that the mother of Stephen Girard had certain tender, womanly qualities, but the fact is that no such qualities were ever manifested. If there was ever any soft sentiment in her character, the fond father of his flock had kicked it out of her. That she was usually able to hold her own in fair fight was the one redeeming memory that the son held concerning her.

Stephen was the eldest of the brood. He attended the parochial school and learned to read. His playmates called him by a French term meaning "Twisted." He was eight years of age before he realized that the names his mother called him by, were of contempt and not of endearment—"Wall-Eye" and "Mud-Sucker"—literally the vocabulary of a fishwife. Then he knew for the first time that his eyes were not like those of other children—that one eye had a bluish cast in it and turned inward. That night he cried himself to sleep thinking over his dire misfortune.

At school when he read he closed one eye, and this made the children laugh. So much did their taunts prey upon him that he ran away from school to escape their gibes.

One of the Friars Gray caught him; whipped him before the whole school; put a dunce-cap on his head, and stood him on a high chair. Then his humiliation seemed complete. He prayed for death. At home when he tried to tell his mother about his trouble she laughed, and boxed his ears for being a "cry-baby brat."

Back in this boy's ancestry, somewhere, there must have been a stream of gentle blood. He was a song-bird in a cuckoo's nest. When the military band played, his spirit was so moved that he shed tears. But when his mother died, and her body was placed in a new board coffin made by a neighbor who worked in the shipyard, he admired the coffin, but could not cry even when the priest pinched him and called him hard-hearted. He could not cry, even with his twisted eye. His mother, as a lovable being, had gone out of his life, even before she died. He could only think what a beautiful coffin she had and what a great man it was who made it. And this man who made the coffin gave him a penny—perhaps because the boy so appreciated his handiwork.

Stephen, unconsciously, won him on the side of art.

It's a terrible thing to kill love in the heart of a child. That popular belief that we are "born in sin and conceived in iniquity," Girard once said was true in his case, at least.

Yet so wondrous are the works of God, the hate and brutality visited upon their child went into the making of his strong and self-reliant character. He never said, "My mother's religion is good enough for me." He despised her religion, and that of the Friars Gray who punished boys to make them good. His mind turned inward—he became silent, secretive, self-centered, and his repulsive exterior served him well as a tough husk to hide his finer emotions.

In a few months—or was it a few weeks—after his mother's death, the father married again. The stepmother was no improvement on the mother. She had lofty ideas of discipline and being "minded." No doubt that little Stephen, crooked in eyes, crooked in body, short and swart, with brown, bare legs, was stubborn and wilful. He looked the part all right. His brown, bare legs were a temptation for the stepmother's willow switch. He decided to relieve everybody of the temptation to switch his legs by running away to sea and taking his brown, bare legs with him. There was a ship at the docks about to sail for the West Indies. He could secrete himself among the bales and barrels, and once the ship was out of port he would come out and take chances on being accepted as cabin-boy. They could do no more than throw him overboard, anyway!

He told his little sisters of his intention. They cried, but he didn't. He hadn't cried since he was eight years old, and his cheerful biographer says he never shed a tear afterward, and I guess that is so.

At two o'clock in the morning, he whispered good-by to his little sleeping sisters. He did not kiss them—he never kissed anybody in his whole life, his biographer says, and I guess that may be so, too. He stole downstairs and out into the moonlight. The dock was only a quarter of a mile away. The ship was to sail at daylight, on the turn of the tide. There was much commotion going on around the boat, battening down hatches and doing the last few necessary things before braving the reeling deep.

Little Stephen was watching his chance to get aboard. He was going as a stowaway. A man came up to him. It was the captain, and before the lad could escape the man said, "Here, I want a cabin-boy—will you go?"

The boy thanked God that it was night, so the captain could not see his crooked eye, and gasped, "Yes—yes!"

The cook was making coffee in the galley for the stevedores, who had just finished loading the ship. The captain took the boy by the hand and leading him up the plank to the galley told the cook to give him a cup of coffee and a biscuit.

The ship pushed off and hoisted sail just at daylight, on the turn of the tide.

The tide, too, had turned for Stephen Girard.

* * * * *

A very little observation will show that physical defects, when backed up by mental worth, transform themselves into "beauty-spots." To be sure, no one was ever so bold as to speak of Girard's blemishes as beauty-spots, but the fact is that his homely face and ungraceful body were strong factors in making him a favorite of fortune. Handsome is that handsome does. Disadvantages are often advantages—they serve as stimulus and bring out the best.

Young Girard had long arms and short legs, and could climb fast and high. And he could see more with his one eye than most men could with two. He expected no favor on account of his family or his good looks, and so made himself necessary to the captain of the craft as a matter of self-preservation.

Not all sea-captains are brutal, nor do all sailors talk in a hoarse guttural, shift their quids, hitch their trousers, and preface their remarks with, "Shiver my timbers."

That first captain with whom Stephen Girard sailed was young—twenty-six, a mere youth, with a first mate twice his years. He was mild-mannered, gentle-voiced and owned a copy of Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary." His name is lost to us; even the name of his ship has foundered in the fog; but that he was young, gentle, and read Voltaire, are facts recorded in the crooked and twisted handwriting of Stephen Girard, facts which even his blackguard biographer admitted.

The new cabin-boy was astonished that one so young could be captain of a ship; he was also astonished that a person who gave orders in a gentle voice could have them executed. Later, he learned that the men whose orders are always obeyed do not talk loudly nor in guttural. This first boyish captain taught Girard a splendid lesson—to moderate both manner and voice and be effective.

Of that first voyage, about all we know is that the boy slept on a pile of gunny-sacks; that the captain let him read from the "Philosophical Dictionary"; that he polished the bright work until it served as a mirror; that the captain smiled his approval, and that the boy, short and swart, with bullet head, followed him with one eye and worshiped him as deity.

Men do not succeed by chance. Chance may toss you into a position of power, but if you do not possess capacity, you can never hold the place.

Young Girard gravitated from the position of cabin-boy to clerk.

From this to mate came by easy stages, and so much as a matter of course that it isn't worth while to mention how.

By the law of France no man under twenty-five could be captain of a ship, but when Girard was twenty-two we find a shipowner falsifying the record and putting the boy down as twenty-five, on the obliging oath of the boy's father, who we hope was duly paid for his pains.

At twenty-four, Captain Stephen Girard sailed his sloop, "L'Amiable Louise," around Sandy Hook and up New York Bay. Ship-captains then were merchants, with power to sell, trade and buy.

The venture was a success, and young Girard took the liberty of picking up a cargo and sailing for New Orleans—his knowledge of French being a valuable asset for that particular destination.

Matters were prosperous, and Girard was twenty-six, just the age of that heroic captain under whose care he first set sail, and the age of the Corsican when he conquered Italy.

Girard had ceased to wonder about boys braving waves and going upon the stormy sea in ships.

It was in July, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six,—call it July Fourth—that Captain Stephen Girard was skirting the coast of the Atlantic, feeling his way through a fog toward New York. He was not sure of his course and was sailing by dead-reckoning.

Suddenly the fog lifted. The sun stood out, a great golden ball in the sky. The young captain swung his glass along the horizon and with his one good eye saw a sail—it was bearing down upon him.

It was coming closer.

In an hour it was a mile away. He realized that he was the objective point.

It was a British cruiser, and he realized that he was to be forced upon the beach or captured.

Girard was not a praying man, but he prayed now for a friendly cove or bay, or the mouth of a river. The fog rolled away to the west, the shore-line showed sharp and clear—and there a half-mile away was the inviting mouth of Chesapeake Bay. At least Girard thought it was, but it proved to be the mouth of the Delaware. Girard crowded on all sail—the cruiser did the same.

Night settled down.

Before morning Girard's little craft was safe under the frowning forts of the Delaware, and the cruiser had turned back seeking fresh prey.

* * * * *

On one of his trips to the West Indies, the ship of which Stephen Girard was mate stopped at the Isle of Martinique.

The captain and mate went ashore, and were invited to dine at the house of a merchant and planter up on the hillside overlooking the sea. The sugar with which the ship was loaded belonged to this planter, hence the courtesies to the seafaring men. Of that seemingly uneventful day one incident stood out in the mind of Girard to the day of his death. It seems the merchant and planter had a niece who lived in his household. This girl sat at the table next to Girard. She was only a child, about twelve years of age. But women mature young in that climate, and her presence caused the little first mate to lose all appetite. However, nothing worse happened than the spilling of a dish of soup in his lap when the girl tried to pass the plate to him, which was surely more polite than to spill it in hers.

After dinner the young lady accompanied the party to the wharf. Going down the hill she talked a good deal, but Girard could only say it was a fine day and looked as if there was going to be a storm.

The girl was tall, angular and strong. She climbed the rigging to the lookout, and then was scolded by her uncle, who was really proud of her and chuckled at her performance. Her features were rather coarse, but her lustrous eyes and bubbling vitality caused the one sound peeper of Girard to follow her in awe and reverence.

She came into the cabin and looked at his books; this pleased Girard. He asked her if she could read, and she loftily wrote her name for him, thus: Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. She handed him the slip of paper and remarked, "You could never remember my name, so I write it out for you like this."

In a few minutes the order was given, "All ashore who are going ashore!"

Girard kept that slip of paper, and a few years afterward, in a generous mood, sent the girl a present of a blue shawl. She wrote in acknowledgment, and incidentally said she was soon to sail for France "to get an education."

Girard was surprised that any woman would want an education, and still more amazed at the probability that she could acquire one. In fact, when the girl had written her name for him, he kept the slip of paper more as a curiosity than anything else—it was the handwriting of a woman! Girard never received but that one letter from the young lady, but from his shipping agent in Martinique word came that Marie Josephine Rose had married, when sixteen, the Vicomte Beauharnais. Some years after, Girard heard from the same source that she was a widow.

Later, he learned she had married a Corsican by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte.

* * * * *

Girard used to say that he did not come to Philadelphia of his own accord, but having been sent there by Providence, he made the best of it.

War was on, and all American ports were blockaded. How long this war would last, no one knew. Girard's sympathies were with the Colonies, and the cause of liberty was strong in his heart. He was glad that France—his La Belle France—had loaned us money wherewith to fight England. Yet all his instincts were opposed to violence, and the pomps of army life for him had no lure.

He unloaded his ship, put the craft at safe anchorage and settled down, trying to be patient. He could have sold his cargo outright, but he had a head for business—prices were rising, and he had time—he had all the time there was. He rented a store on Water Street and opened up at retail. It was the best way to kill time until the war closed.

The rogue biographer has told us that Girard's ship was loaded with "niggers," and that these were sold by the mercenary captain and the money pocketed by himself, "all being fair in love and war."

This tale of business buccaneering has long been exploded, but it is a fact that the cargo was used by Girard as his first capital. He used the money wisely and well, and repaid the other owners—one-third being his own property—with interest.

When the war was over, it was expected that Captain Girard would again take to the deck and manage his craft. But this was not to be. That there was a goodly dash of sentiment in his nature is shown in that, after ten years, he bought the boat and would have kept her for life, had she not been wrecked on the Florida Reefs and her bones given to the barracuda.

In front of Girard's little store on Water Street there was a pump, patronized by the neighbors.

Girard had been there about three months. He was lonely, cooped up there on land, sighing for the open sea. Every day he would row across to his ship and look her over, sweeping the deck, tarring the ropes, greasing the chains, calculating how soon she could be made ready for sea, should news of peace come.

The weeks dragged slowly away.

Girard sat on a box and watched the neighbors who came to the pump for water. Occasionally there would toddle a child with jug or pail, and then the crooked little storekeeper would come forward and work the pump-handle.

Among others came Pollie Lumm—plump, pretty, pink and sixteen.

Girard pumped for her, too.

He got into the habit of pumping for her. If he was busy, she would wait.

Pollie Lumm was a sort of cousin to Sallie Lunn. Neither had intellect to speak of. Pollie had the cosmic urge, that is all, and the marooned sea-captain had in him a little—just a little—of the salt of the sea.

Fate is a trickster. Her game is based upon false pretenses—she should be forbidden the mails.

She sacrifices individuals by the thousand, for the good of the race. All she cares for is to perpetuate the kind.

Poor sailorman, innocent of petticoats, caught in the esoteric web, pumping water for Pollie Lumm—Pollie Lumm—plump, pert, pink and pretty.

And so they were married.

Their wedding-journey was in a scow, across to the bridegroom's ship, riding at anchor, her cordage creaking in the rising breeze.

Pollie Lumm, the bride of a day, was frightened there alone with a one-eyed man, when the rats went scurrying through the hold. She wasn't pink now; her color had turned to ashy yellow and her heart to ashes of roses. Girard could face the wind of the North, but a crying woman on a ship at anchor, whose rusty chains groaned to the dismal screech of tugging cordage, undid him. A lesser man—a devil-may-care fellow—could have met the issue. Girard, practical, sensible, silent, was no mate for prettiness, plump and pink. He should have wedded a widow, who could have passed him a prehensile hawser and taken his soul in tow.

The bride and groom rowed back, bedraggled, to the room over the store.

Pollie could not cook—she could not figure—she could not keep store—she could not read the "Philosophical Dictionary"—nor could she even listen while her husband read, without nodding her sleepy head. No baby came to rescue her from the shoals, and by responsibility and care win her safely back to sanity.

Poor Pollie Lumm Girard!

Poor Silly Sailorman!

Venus played a trick on you—didn't she, and on herself, too, the jade!

Pollie became stout—enormously stout—the pearl-like pink of her cheek now looked like burnt sienna, mixed with chrome yellow. She used to sit all day in front of the store, looking at the pump.

She ceased to hear the pump; she did not even hear its creak, which she once thought musical.

Her husband sent for a doctor. "Chronic dementia," the doctor diagnosed it.

She was sent to an asylum, and there she lived for thirty-eight years.

Religiously, once a month, her husband went to visit her, but her brain was melted and her dull, dead eyes gave no sign. She was only a derelict, waiting for death.

* * * * *

The first six years that Girard was in Philadelphia he made little headway. But he did not lose courage. He knew that the war must end sometime, and that when it did, there would be a great revival of business.

When others were beaten out and ready to give up, and prices were down, he bought. Merchant ships were practically useless, and so were for sale. He bought one brand-new boat and named it "The Water-Witch," for this was the name he had for Pollie Lumm when she used to come with her jug to his pump.

As soon as the war closed and peace was declared, Girard loaded his two ships with grain and cotton and dispatched them to Bordeaux.

They were back in five months, having sold their cargoes, bringing silks, wines and tea. These were at once sold at a profit of nearly a hundred thousand dollars.

The ships were quickly loaded again. The captains were ordered to go to Bordeaux, sell their cargoes and load with fruit and wine for Saint Petersburg. There they were to sell their cargoes and buy hemp and iron, and sail for Amsterdam. At Amsterdam they were to buy drygoods and sail for Calcutta.

There they were to sell out and with the proceeds buy silks, teas and coffees and make for America. These trips took a year to make, but proved immensely profitable.

Girard now bought more ships, and very properly named the first one "Voltaire" and the next "Rousseau."

By Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, he owned twenty-two ships and was worth more than a million dollars. In fact, he was the first man in America to have a million dollars in paying property at his disposal.

After he was thirty he was called "Old Girard." He centered on business, and his life was as regular as a town clock. He lived over his warehouse on Water Street and opened the doors in the morning himself. He was regarded as cold and selfish.

He talked little, but he had a way of listening and making calculations while others were arguing. Suddenly, he would reach a conclusion and make his decision. When this was done, that was all there was about it. The folks with whom he traded grew to respect his judgment and knew better than to rob him of his time by haggling. His business judgment was remarkably good, but not unerring. Yet he never cried over lacteal fluid on the ground. When one of his captains came in and reported a loss of ten thousand dollars through having been robbed by pirates, Girard made him a present of a hundred to enable him to get his nerve back, and told him he should be thankful that he got off with his life.

He loaded the ship up again, and in a year the man came back with a cargo that netted twenty-five thousand dollars. Girard gave him a silver watch worth twenty dollars and chided him for having been gone so long.

Then Girard made a pot of tea for both, on the little stove in the office back of his bank, for the millionaire always prided himself on being a cook.

His brother Jean had now come to join him. Jean was also a ship-captain. Stephen bought a third ship and called it "The Two Brothers," in loving token of the ownership.

When his brother Jean proved to be a bad businessman, although a good sailor, Stephen presented him his own half-interest in the ship, and told him to go off and make his fortune alone. Jean sailed away, mortgaged his boat to get capital to trade upon, lost money and eventually lost the boat. When he wanted to come back and work for his brother, Stephen sent him a check, but declined to take him back. "The way to help your poor relatives is to remit them. When you go partners with them everybody loses."

Girard was a man of courage—moral, financial and physical. When his ship, the "Montesquieu," arrived at the mouth of the Delaware on March Twenty-sixth, Eighteen Hundred Thirteen, she was headed off and captured by an English gunboat. Word was sent to Girard that he could have his boat by bringing an inventory of the craft and cargo and paying over British gold to the amount. He went down the bay in a small boat, met the enemy on a frank business basis, paid over one hundred eighty thousand dollars in English guineas, and came sailing back to his own calm satisfaction, even if to the embarrassment of the crew. The boat was loaded with tea, and Girard was essentially a tea-merchant. He knew his market and sold the "Montesquieu's" cargo for just five hundred thousand dollars.

When yellow fever came like a blight to the city, and the grass grew in the streets, Girard gave bountifully to relieve the distress of the people. But a panic of fear was upon them. They forgot how to live and began to pray. Preachers proclaimed that the Day of Judgment was at hand. Whole families died and left no one to look after their affairs.

Every night, wagons went through the streets and the hoarse cry was heard: "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"

Then the old millionaire showed the heroic side of his nature. He organized a hospital at Bush Hill, and took personal charge of it. Every office that could be done for the sick and dying, he did. With his own carriage he would go to houses, and lifting the stricken ones in his arms, carry them out and transport them to a place where they could have attention.

As the spirits of others sank, his soared. To the men who walked in the middle of the street with a sponge to their noses, he would call in banter. He laughed, danced and sang at the pesthouse—things he was never known to do before. "Fear is the only devil," he wrote on a big board and put it up on Chestnut Street. He would often call at fifty houses a day, carrying food and medicine, but best of all, good-cheer. "If death catches me, he'll find me busy," he used to say.

He showed the same courage when the financial panic was on in Eighteen Hundred Ten. At this time every one was hoarding and business was paralyzed. Girard had one million dollars to his credit with Baring Brothers in London. He drew out the whole sum and invested it in shares of the United States Bank. This bold move inspired confidence and broke the back of the panic.

In Eighteen Hundred Eleven, when the charter of the United States Bank had expired, and Congress foolishly declined to renew it, Girard bought the whole outfit—or all there was left of it—and established "The Bank of Stephen Girard," with a capital of one million two hundred thousand dollars.

When near the close of the war the Government was trying to float a loan of five million dollars, only twenty thousand was taken. "The Colonies are going back to the Mother Country," the croakers said. If so, all public debts would be repudiated.

Girard stepped forward and took the entire loan, although it was really more than his entire fortune.

The effect was magical. If Old Girard was not afraid, the people were not, and the money began to come out of the stockings and ginger-jars.

Girard believed in America and in her future. "I want to live so as to see the United States supreme in liberty, justice and education," he used to say.

He loved pets and children, and if he was cold it was only to grown-ups.

On each of his ships he placed a big Newfoundland dog—"to keep the sailors company," he said. The wise ones said it was because a dog was cheaper than a watchman. Anyway, he loved dogs, and in his yellow gig, or under it, was always a big, shaggy dog. He drove a slow-going, big, fat horse, and used to say that if times got hard he at least had a horse that could plow. During the last twenty years of his life he used to make daily trips to his farm, where Girard College now stands, and work there like a laborer with his trees and flowers. If he did not love Venus, he certainly did Ceres and Pomona. "If I knew I should die tomorrow, I would plant a tree today," he once wrote.

* * * * *

By his will Girard left many benefactions for the betterment of humanity. His bequests to the City of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania were these: To the Philadelphia Hospital, thirty thousand dollars; to the Pennsylvania Institute for the Deaf, twenty thousand dollars; to the Philadelphia Orphan Asylum, ten thousand dollars; to the Philadelphia Public Schools, ten thousand dollars; to the City of Philadelphia for the distribution of fuel among the poor, ten thousand dollars; to the Masonic Loan Association, twenty thousand dollars; to the City of Philadelphia for the improvement of its streets and public squares, five hundred thousand dollars; to the Philadelphia Public Library, forty thousand dollars; for the improvement of canals in the State of Pennsylvania, three hundred thousand dollars; and greatest of all, two million dollars for the founding of Girard College. Besides this was a residue of the estate which went also to Girard College, the total value of which endowment has increased until it is now more than sixteen million dollars.

At the time of the death of Girard his bequests to public institutions had never been equaled by individual philanthropies in the history of the world.

And since then, I believe, only two men have given as much for the cause of education.

However, it so happened that no public statue nor material acknowledgment of Girard's great gifts to Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania was made—except at his own expense—until the year Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven, when a bronze statue of this great businessman and philanthropist was erected on the north plaza of the City Hall. This statue has no special setting and is merely one of a dozen decorative objects that surround the square.

That particular clause in Girard's will which provided that no clergyman, preacher or priest should ever be allowed to act as trustee for the school, or ever be allowed to enter the school, is still respected, outwardly at least.

The gatekeeper challenges you thus: "Are you a clergyman?" And those who fail to say flatly, "No," are not allowed to enter.

Horace Greeley once approached the gate at Girard College wearing his usual little white necktie, his spectacles and his beatific, innocent smile.

"You can't enter," said the grim Saint Peter.

"Why not?" was the astonished reply.

"You are a clergyman!"

"The hell I am!" said Horace.

"Excuse me—walk right in," said Saint Peter.

The heirs tried to break the will, basing their argument on that item concerning clergymen.

The Supreme Court upheld the will, finding nothing derogatory in it to the Christian religion or public policy.

Girard did not say, "Christian clergymen"—he was opposed to all formal religions.

Girard had very positive ideas on the subject of education, and he was the first man in America to put manual training to a practical test as a part of the school curriculum.

At Girard College there are now constantly more than two thousand boys, who have a home and school advantages. There are certain grave dangers about institutional homes for children, in that there is a strong tendency to kill individuality. But certain it is that Girard College has ever labored, and in a great degree succeeded, in minimizing this tendency. It is the proud boast that any boy who is graduated at Girard is able to take care of himself—he can do things that the world wants done and is willing to pay for.

The boys are graduated at eighteen, which is the age that most students who go to universities enter. But Girard boys, almost without exception, go right into practical business, and Philadelphia merchants are not slow to hire them. Girard College has a long honor-roll of noble men who have succeeded beyond the average, helping themselves by adding to the wealth and happiness of the world.

Great was the mariner and merchant who made these things possible!



MAYER A. ROTHSCHILD

It takes a great deal of boldness, mixed with a vast deal of caution, to acquire a great fortune; but then it takes ten times as much wit to keep it after you have got it as it took to make it.

—Mayer A. Rothschild



That the Jews are a joyous people and find much sweet solace in their sorrowful religion is proven by one fact too obvious to be overlooked—they reproduce.

Children are born of love and joy. The sorrows of Jewry are more apparent than real. After every Black Fast, when the congregations used to sit shoeless on the stone floors of the synagogues, weeping and wailing on account of the destruction of Jerusalem, the youngsters, and the grown-ups as well, were counting the hours before the Feast of Pentecost would begin.

The sorrow over the loss of things destroyed a thousand years or so ago is reduced by the lapse of years to rather a pleasant emotional exercise.

Fasts were followed by feasts, also pro and con, as Mrs. Malaprop would say; so that in the home of an orthodox Jewish family there was always something doing. Fasts, feasts, flowers, sweetmeats, lights, candles, little journeys, visits, calls, dances, prayers, responses, wails, cries of exultation, shouts of triumph—"Rejoicing of the Law"—these prevented monotony, stagnation and introspection.

And these are the things which have pressed their influences upon the Jew until the fume and reek of the Ghetto, the bubble and squeak of the rabble, and the babble of bazaars are more acceptable to him than the breeze blowing across silent mesa and prairie, or the low, moaning lullaby of lonely pine-forests.

The Jew is no hermit—if anything is going on, he is literally and poetically in it.

The sense of separation is hell. If continued it becomes insanity. The sense of separation is a thing that seldom presses upon the Jew, and this is why insanity passes him by and seeks a Christian as a victim. The Jew has an animating purpose that is a saving salt, even if this purpose is not always an ideal one. His family, friends, clan, tribe, are close about him.

Zangwill, himself a child of the Ghetto, comes to the rescue of the despised and misunderstood Christian, and expresses a doubt as to whether the Ghetto was not devised by Jews in order to keep Christians at a safe and discreet distance.

For certain it is that the wall which shut the Jews in, shut the Christians out. The contempt of the Christian for the Jew is fully reciprocated. One-sided hate does not endure any more than does a one-sided love.

The first Ghetto was at Venice. It came into being during the Italian Renaissance, say about Fourteen Hundred Fifty. The Jews had settled in one corner of the city, as they always have done, and are still prone to do. They had their own shops, stores, bazaars, booths, schools and synagogues. There they were packed, busied with their own affairs, jostling, quibbling, arguing, praying, taking no interest in the social life outside. Jehovah led them out of captivity in order that He might make them slaves to Himself. He surely was a jealous God!

Of course, they traded with Christians, bought, sold, ran, walked with them, but did not dine with Christians nor pray with them. There were Jewish architects, painters, printers, lawyers, doctors, bankers, and many of the richest and most practical men in Venice were Jews.

They made money out of the Christians, and no doubt helped the Christians to make money, for, as I have said, things not founded on reciprocity do not last long.

One fact that looks like corroborating proof of Zangwill's pleasantry is that upon one of the Ghetto gates was a marble slab, warning all Jews that if any of them turned Christian he would never be allowed again to live in the Ghetto, nor would he be saluted or spoken to if he returned, nor so much as be given a cup of water, but that the cord, scourge, gallows, prison and pillory should be his portion.

It was a curse almost like that cheerful one visited upon Spinoza, the lens-maker, when he forsook the synagogue and took up his home with the Mennonites.

Children born and brought up in the Ghetto always felt a certain pity for those who were obliged to live beyond the gates, in the great, selfish, grasping, wicked world. Those inside the Ghetto were the Chosen People of God; those outside were the Children of the Devil.

No matter who built the wall, it is a fact that the Government of Venice, which was Christian and under the immediate jurisdiction of the Church, kept guards at the gates and allowed no Jew to leave after a certain early hour of the evening, nor on Sundays or holidays, or when the Emperor visited the city. The only exception to this was on Holy Cross Day, which occurred once a year. On this day all adult Jews were ordered out and marched by the soldiers to some Christian Church, where they were compelled to listen to the service and repeat the Apostles' Creed. Robert Browning says that they were rounded up all right, but when it came to saying the Creed they twiddled their thumbs and said Ben Ezra's Prayer. It is also quite probable that they crossed their fingers, for the Jews are a stubborn sort, given to contumacy and contravention.

On all other days, any Jew who went out into the city had to wear a big yellow O on his breast, and a yellow hat on his head. The Jewish women wore the O and also a veil across which were yellow stripes.

These chromatic signs were changed a few times in the course of the three hundred years that the Ghetto existed, and so were the hours in which the Jews were allowed to come and go, but five o'clock in the evening and seven in the morning were the regular closing and opening times. The watchmen at the gates and the guards who rowed round and round in their barcas were paid out of a special tax collected from the Jews. It was argued that it was all a sort of beneficent police protection, devised by kindly persons who loved their enemies, and did good to those who despitefully used them.

The man who can not make a good argument for the Ghetto lacks imagination.

Gibbon, who was a deist or monotheist and really liked the Jews, intimates that it was lucky for the Christians that Constantine didn't embrace Judaism instead of Christianity, for, if he had, the Jews would have treated the Christians exactly as the Christians have since treated the Jews. Of course, nobody claims that Christianity is the religion of Christ—it is the religious rule of pagan Rome, with the Jewish Christ as a convenient label. Just why Christians should worship a Jew, and pray to a Jewess, and yet despise Jews, is a matter so subtle that it has never been explained. Gibbon in this connection says at least one irrefutable thing, and that is, that the Jewish people are men and women. Christians are men and women, also. All are human beings, and it is quite likely that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happeneth to them all.

I am not sure that Gibbon is right when he says that the Christians were lucky in that Constantine did not turn Jew. To be persecuted is not wholly a calamity, but to persecute is to do that for which Nature affords no compensation. The persecutor dies, but the persecuted lives on forever.

The struggle for existence which the Jew has had to make is the thing that has differentiated him and made him strong. Those first Christians—Primitive Christians—who lived from the time of Paul to that of Constantine, were a simple, direct, sincere and honest people—opinionated no doubt, and obstinately dogmatic, but with virtues that can never be omitted nor waived. They were economical, industrious and filled with the spirit of brotherhood, and they possessed a fine pride concerning their humility, as most ascetics do. Humility is a form of energy. It is simply going after the thing by another route, and deceiving yourself as to the motive.

The Primitive Christians had every characteristic that distinguished the Jew of the Middle Ages—those characteristics which invite persecution and wax strong under it.

Poverty and persecution seem necessary factors in fixing upon a people a distinctive and peculiar religion. Persecution and poverty have no power to stamp out a religion—all they do is to stain it deeper into the hearts of its votaries. Centuries of starvation and repression deepened the religious impulses of the Irish, and it has ever been the same with the Jews.

If the Jew is criticized in America, it is on account of that buttinski bumptiousness upon which he has no monopoly, but which goes with the newly-made rich of any nationality who have little to recommend them beyond the walletoski.

There are no poor Jews natives of America, and it is worth while noting that our richest citizens are not Jews, either. American-born Jews have enough. The poverty-stricken Jews in this country come from Russia, Bulgaria and Roumania; and their children will have money to loan, if not to incinerate, because they possess the virtues that beckon all good things in their direction.

America is the true Judaic Zion. Here there are nearly two million Jews, and their religion is fast taking the form of a healthful Roycroftism.

The downfall of primitive Christianity dates from the day Constantine embraced it, and thereby made it popular. Prosperity is a form of disintegration—a ripening of the fruit. Things succeed only that they may wither. The business of every great religion is to die, and thus fertilize others. The Jew has survived every foe save success. Civilization is now adopting him, and Liberal Judaism is fast becoming a Universal Religion, taught in fact, if not in name, by priests, preachers and muftis of all denominations. The end of the Jew is near—he has ceased to be peculiar.

* * * * *

Wolfgang Goethe was born in the city of Frankfort in Seventeen Hundred Forty-nine. Goethe gives us a very vivid description of Frankfort as he remembered it in his childhood days. He describes it as a town within a town, a fortress within a fortress. Then he tells us of a walled enclosure in this walled city, which was to him a very terrible place—it was the Ghetto, or Jews' Quarter. Through it ran the Judengasse, or street of the Jews. It was a place packed with human beings—houses, hallways, alleys, sidewalks and porches swarming with children. Goethe tells how he at times would peep through the iron gates of the Ghetto, but as a child he never ventured in. The children told one another how human sacrifices were offered in the synagogues, and as proof, pictures of Abraham and Isaac were brought forth—that proved the point. There were plenty of men in the Ghetto who looked exactly like Abraham—goodness gracious! In this Ghetto at Frankfort was born, in Seventeen Hundred Forty-three, Mayer Anselm, afterward Mayer Anselm Rothschild. When Goethe took his peep into the Ghetto, this lad was about twelve years old—Goethe was six. Forty years later these men were to meet, and meet as equals. The father of Mayer Anselm was Anselm Moses. He could not boast a surname, for Jews, not being legal citizens, simply aliens, had no use for family-names. If they occasionally took them on, the reigning duke might deprive them of the luxury at any time, without anesthetics.

If a man had two names, say, "Anselm Moses," it meant that his name was Anselm and that he was the son of Moses. Mayer Anselm was the son of Anselm. Rothschild means "Red Shield," and this was the distinguishing sign on the house. All the people in that house were "Red Shields." The house was seven stories high, and at one time a hundred people lived in it.

Later, when the name became popular, all of the people in that house called themselves "Rothschilds." In Goethe's time, there were just one hundred sixty houses in the Frankfort Ghetto, and these were occupied by two thousand three hundred Jews.

Goethe says that the practise of walling the Jews in was to facilitate taxation—the Jews being honored by an assessment quite double that which Christians paid. At one time any Jew who paid two hundred fifty florins was exempt from wearing a yellow hat and the yellow O on his breast.

Many private houses, everywhere, have walls around them, and the plan of dividing different nationalities from each other, by setting apart a certain section of the town for each, was a matter of natural selection, everywhere practised. Mayer Anselm grew up with never a thought that he belonged to a "peculiar people," nor did the idea of persecution ever trouble him. The only peculiar people are those who do not act and think as we do. Who are peculiar? Oh, the others, the others, the others.

There was a big family for Anselm Moses to look after. All were hearty and healthy. The Mosaic Law says nothing about ventilation, but outside of this little lapse it is based on a very commonsense plan of hygiene.

One thing which adds greatly to the physical endowment of Jewish children, and almost makes up to the child of the Ghetto for the lack of woods and fields, is that he is not launched on the sea of life with a limited supply of love. Jewish children do not refer to their father as "the Gov'ner," and elderly women as "Salem Witches," because the Jews as a people recognize the rights of the child.

And the first right of a child is the right to be loved.

In the average Christian household, until a very few years ago, the child grew up with the feeling constantly pressed upon him that he was a usurper and an interloper. Such questions as, "Where would you get anything to eat if I did not provide it?" were everywhere flying at the heads of lisping babyhood. The words "must" and "shall" were often heard, and that obedience was a privilege and not a duty was nowhere taught. All parents quoted Solomon as to the beauties of the rod; and that all children were perverse, obstinate and stiff-necked was assumed to be a fact. To break the will of a child was a very essential thing to do.

The lack of the spirit of brotherhood that the Jew has encountered from the outside world has found a balance in an increased expression of love within his family. That most atrocious English plan of taking the child from his parents at a tender age and placing him in a boarding-school managed by holluschickies has never been adopted by the Jews.

Fear, repression and shock to vibrating nerves through threats, injunctions and beatings have fixed in the Christian races a whole round of "children's diseases," which in our ignorance we attribute to "the will of God."

Let this fact be stated, that old folks who are sent over the hill to the poorhouse have invited their fate. And conversely, elderly people who are treated with courtesy, consideration, kindness and respect are those who, in manhood's morning, have sown the seeds of love and kindness. Water rises to the height of its source; results follow causes; chickens come home to roost; action and reaction are equal; forces set in motion continue indefinitely in one direction. The laws of love are as exact as the laws of the tides that moan and cry and beat upon the shores, the round world over. A family of ten children born and reared in a noisome Ghetto, and all strong and healthy? Impossible, you say, yet such is the fact, and not a rare exception either. Happiness is the great prophylactic, and nothing is so sanitary as love, even though it be flavored with garlic.

* * * * *

The father of Mayer Anselm was a traveling merchant—call him a pedler, a Jewish pedler, and have done with it. He made trips outside of the Ghetto, and used to come back with interesting tales of adventure that he would relate to the household and neighbors who would drop in.

Not many Jews ventured outside of the Ghetto—to do so was to invite insult, robbery and violence. However, to get out is to grow. This man traded safety for experience and so got out and grew. He evidently knew how to take care of himself. He was courageous, courteous, intelligent, diplomatic. He made money. And always he wore the yellow hat and the yellow patch upon his breast.

In the "Red Shield" there was usually at least one Rabbi. One of the sons of Anselm Moses must be a Rabbi. The parents of little Mayer Anselm set him apart for the synagogue—he was so clever at reciting prayers and so glib with responses. Then he had an eczema for management, and took charge of all the games when the children played Hebrew I-Spy through the hallways and dark corners of the big, rambling and mysterious "Red Shield."

Little Mayer must have been nine years old when his father first took him along on one of his trips. It was a wonderful event—they were gone three days, and when they returned the boy entertained the whole Judengasse with tales, slightly hand-illumined, about the wonderful things they had seen.

One thing he learned, and that was that Christians were not the drunken, fighting, treacherous and bloodthirsty people he had supposed—at least, they were not all bad. Not once were they insulted or molested.

They had called at the great house or castle of the Landgrave to sell handkerchiefs, combs and beads to the servants, and accidentally they had met the Landlord, himself. He it was who owned the "Red Shield." The agent of the Landgrave came every month to collect the rent from everybody. That word "Landgrave" simply meant "Landlord," a term still used even in America, where there are, of course, no Lords, only "ramrods."

The Landgrave had invited Anselm Moses into his library to see his wonderful collection of coins, and Mayer Anselm, of course, slipped in, too. To describe the wonders of that house would take a book as big as the Torah—I think so!

The Landgrave had a son, aged eleven, going on twelve, and his name was William. He wasn't so big as Mayer, and Mayer wouldn't be so old as William for a year, and even then he wouldn't.

Children know nothing of social caste. Caste is a disease of grown-ups. It is caused by uric acid in the ego. Children meet as equals—they respond naturally without so much as a thought as to whether they ought to love one another or not.

William got acquainted with Mayer by holding up a big speckled marble, and then in a burst of good-fellowship giving the marble to the little stranger boy, all before a word had been said. Then while the Landgrave was showing his treasures to Anselm who himself was a collector in a small way, the boys slipped out of the door, and William took Mayer to see the stables. "What's it for?" asked William, pointing to the yellow patch sewed tight to the breast of Mayer's jacket. "That?" answered Mayer proudly, "why, that means that I am a Jew, and I live in the Ghetto!" William gave a little start of alarm. He looked at the other lad, so brown and sturdy and frankly open-eyed, and said slowly, "You can't be a Jew, because—because Jews eat children!"

"I'm a Jew—my father is a Jew—all our folks are Jews—the Jews are the Chosen People of God!" Little Mayer spoke slowly and with feeling.

"The Chosen People of God?" echoed William.

"Yes!"

They saw the horses, and Mayer looked at them with wondering eyes. There were no horses in the Ghetto—just pushcarts and wheelbarrows. William had been lame—hip disease, or something, and so had never been away down to the city, except with a nurse, or in a carriage with his tutor. The boys entered the house and the Landgrave was still explaining to Anselm Moses how all coins made by the Assyrians were modeled by hand, not stamped out with a die, as was done by the Greeks.

The boys hadn't been missed. "Can't I have one of those to wear on my coat, too?" asked William, pulling at his father's sleeve, and pointing to the yellow patch on Mayer's jacket.

"One of what, my son?" asked the Landgrave seriously.

"One of those yellow medals!"

The Landgrave looked at Mayer's yellow patch, and then involuntarily at the badge worn by the boy's father.

The Landgrave's fine face flushed scarlet. His gaze met the steady, manly look of Anselm Moses.

They understood each other. No one was near, save the two boys. They met as equals, as men meet on the plain or desert. "It's all a mistake—a foolish mistake, Anselm, and some day we will outgrow it. A man's a man!"

He held out his hand. The Jew grasped it firmly and both men smiled—the smile of friendship and understanding.

As the Jew and his son started to go, the Landgrave gave little Mayer a big copper penny, and asked him to come back some day and play with William.

And Anselm Moses, the Jew, took up his pack that he had left at the servants' quarters, and holding the hand of little Mayer Anselm, they walked out of the castle yard, down among the winding trees to the road.

* * * * *

Mayer Anselm took to his father's business as a bird takes to the air. From selling trinkets he began dealing in jewelry, old coins, curiosities and paintings. He picked his customers, and knew the weaknesses of each—certain things were bought for certain people.

The idea of becoming a Rabbi was abandoned—he wanted temporal power, not spiritual. Money to the intelligent Jew is the symbol of power—of independence. There may be men who love the money itself, but surely this man didn't. He was daring in its use—he had the courage to take risks. His was a quest for power.

When about twenty, he traveled as far as Hanover to visit a kinsman, and there he served for several months in a bank. He had a mind like those Japanese who travel to absorb, and waste no time in battling error.

Returning to Frankfort he transformed his father's little store into a bank and filled the window with real money, to the great delight and astonishment of the neighbors. From Hanover he brought a collection of rare coins. The business his father had established gradually took on a cosmopolitan look. The house of the Red Shield became a sort of center of trade for the whole Judengasse.

And all the time the friendship with the Landgrave and his son had continued. Commissions were given to Mayer to buy certain coins and pictures. Finally he was entrusted to collect the rents of the Red Shield. He did this so thoroughly and well, and was so prompt in his reports, that he was finally named as custodian of the property. Other property was given to him to look after.

Jews came to him for advice, and Christians counseled with him as to loans.

He became known as the "Honest Jew," which title, we hope, carried with it no reflection on his co-religionists. There are men—a very, very few—who are thus honored with the title of "Honest John." Gamblers can be recalled whose word was worth more than their bond. There are horsemen—gamblers, too, if you please—who have little respect for the moral code, but who never prove false to a trust.

Mayer Anselm had the coolness and the courage of a good gambler—in business he surely was ever ready to back his opinion. He would pay five hundred thalers for a jewel, give the man his price and pocket the gem silently, while the hagglers and quibblers were screwing up their courage to offer a hundred for it. But here was the difference—Mayer Anselm knew what he was going to do with the jewel. He had a customer in mind. He knew the customer, he knew the jewel, and he knew his own mind.

The Landgrave grew to lean on Mayer Anselm of the Red Shield. He made him "Court Jew," or official treasurer of the principality. This carried with it "the freedom of the city," and being a free man—no longer technically a Jew—he had a name, and the name he chose was "Rothschild," or the Red Shield, Mayer Anselm Rothschild.

He no longer wore the yellow badge of a despised race. Yet he refused to leave the Ghetto. The House of the Red Shield was his birthplace—here his parents had lived and died, here would he live and die. He was still a Jew, earnest and zealous in keeping the Law, the "President" or head of the synagogue.

He was happily married to Letizia—she had no other name—and babies were coming along with astonishing regularity.

To him and his good wife were born five sons and five daughters. The Red Shield was now his own property, he having purchased the freehold—a thing he could not do until he had attained "the freedom of the city."

Then we get the rather curious condition of Mayer Anselm supervising the municipal affairs of the whole city; and his sons, grown to manhood, still wearing the yellow badge and obliged to keep within the Ghetto at certain hours, on serious penalty.

And it is worth while noting that Mayer Anselm kept the laws of the Ghetto, and asked no favor for himself beyond that granted to other Jews, save that he did not wear the badge. Beyond this he was a Jew, and his pride refused to allow him to be anything else. And yet he served the Christian public with a purity of purpose and an unselfishness that won for him the reputation of honesty that was his all his life.

By his influence the Ghetto was enlarged, several of the streets widened, and all houses were placed under sanitary inspection. He established a compulsory free-school system and maintained an art-gallery in the Ghetto that was a center of education for the entire district.

When this gallery was dedicated, Goethe came, and made a speech of congratulation. He was the guest of the Red Shield. Afterward, Rothschild returned the visit and spent several days at Weimar with the great poet, and always they were on very friendly terms.

* * * * *

The son of the Landgrave became, himself, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and afterward Elector. He is also known as William the Ninth. He was a booklover, a numismatist, and a man of many gentle virtues. I know of only one blot on his official 'scutcheon, but this was so serious that, for a time, it blocked his political fortune. In this affair, Rothschild was co-respondent. Rothschild was Court Jew, and beyond a doubt attended to all details.

During the American Revolutionary War, William the Ninth loaned twelve thousand soldiers, a goodly portion of his army, to one George the Third of England, to go and fight the American Colonies. This is the first and only time that Germans have ever carried arms against Americans. These Hessians were splendid, sturdy soldiers and would have been almost invincible if fighting to protect their homes, but in America they were only half-hearted.

The bones of many of these poor fellows were scattered through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and most of those who survived until Cornwallis offered his sword to Washington—and had it refused—settled down and became good Pennsylvania Dutch.

Around Reading and Lancaster are various worthy Daughters of the Revolution, whose credential is that their grandsires fought with Washington. The fact that the grandsires aforesaid were from Hesse, sold at so much a head by a Governor in need of ready cash, need not weigh in the scale. A woman's a woman for a' that.

The amount of money which the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel received from the English Government for the use of his twelve thousand men was six hundred thousand thalers; and while a thaler is equivalent to only about seventy-five cents, it was then worth as much as an American dollar is worth now.

These six hundred thousand thalers were a straight bonus, for the English Government agreed to pay the Hessian soldiers the same as they paid their own English soldiers, and to treat them in all other ways as their own.

A second division of four thousand men was afterward supplied, for which the Landgrave of Hesse was paid two hundred thousand thalers.

Alluring tales of loot were held out to the soldiers, also educational advantages, somewhat after the style of the recruiting-posters in this Year of Grace, Nineteen Hundred Thirteen, that seek to lead and lure the lusty youth of America to enlist in the cause of Mars.

Of course the common people knew nothing of the details of this deal of Hesse with England. The Americans were represented to them as savages who had arisen against their masters, and were massacring men, women and children.

To stop this bloodshed was looked upon as a duty for the sake of humanity. Let it be stated that these Hessian soldiers were not sent to America against their will. They voted by regiments to go to the defense of their English Cousins. All of the officers were given a month's pay as a bonus, and this no doubt helped their zeal. The soldiers were to go simply until the war was over, which, it was represented, would be in one year, or possibly less.

The money came so easily that the Landgrave of Hesse, in Seventeen Hundred Ninety-four, supplied the English with a third detachment of four thousand troops—this time, to fight the French.

It is not always the case that the terms of sale of human beings in war-time are so well known as are these particular deals. The Hessian officials kept no books. They made no records, and wrote no letters. Boards of Investigation were powerless. The business was transacted by personal messengers, who went to London and closed the deal by word of mouth, and later brought back the coin. Wise men write few letters. What would you? Is Farley a rogue and a varlet? However, things in Threadneedle Street can not be done in secret.

England has a wonderful system of bookkeeping and bureaucraft—there are spies upon spies, and checks and counterchecks, so that filching a large sum from the Bank of England has been a trick never so far successfully turned.

England's share in this transaction was not dishonorable—that is to say, to buy a man is not so bad as to sell one. All she did was to hire strike-breakers. English statesmen generally regarded the matter as a bit of necessary war-time expediency. If the rebel Colonies could be put down by hiring a few extra soldiers, why, hire them, of course.

Not so, said Edmund Burke, who gave the matter an unlooked-for publicity by denouncing the Hessians as "hired assassins." He prophesied that the Americans would not consider these hirelings as amenable to the rules of civilized warfare, but would "welcome them with bloody hands to hospitable graves"—a phrase so fine that it was, years after, seized upon by Tom Corwin and applied to the conquest of Mexico.

Charles Fox took a like view of the situation, and between him and Burke the word "Hessian" reached America with a taint upon it which a century of use has not been able to disinfect.

The protest in the House of Commons did not directly avail, but there is a suspicion that a wise protest against a great wrong never dies on the empty air. Burke's accusation of barter and sale rumbled throughout Europe, and created a sentiment of sympathy for America, especially in France. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Silas Deane made capital of it, and repeated the words "hired assassins" and thereby helped us to borrow money to fight said assassins. So much for the Law of Compensation.

As for the Landgrave, there was a cool million in bullion in his strongbox. He smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and calmly explained that George Washington, the Rebel, had united with the Indian Savages and was murdering all loyal English subjects in America, and for a few good Germans to go to the rescue of England and help put down the insurrection was a Christian act, and moreover, "it was nobody's business but their own." He thought that this disposed of the matter, but the ghost would not down.

In Eighteen Hundred Eight, an Imperial Decree was issued by the Emperor to this effect: "Whereas, it seems that the House of Hesse-Cassel has for some years persisted in selling its subjects to the English Crown, to bear arms in quarrels that are none of ours, and that by this means has amassed a large fortune, therefore this detestable avarice has now brought its own punishment, and the Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel from now on ceases to exist, being incorporated with the Kingdom of Westphalia."

* * * * *

Troubles, we are told, never come singly. Of this William the Elector was convinced. The Emperor had cut off his official head with a stroke of the pen. The money he possessed was to be taken by legal attachment, its lawful ownership to be determined in the courts.

The lawsuit would have been a long and tedious one, but happily it was not to be. Napoleon with his conquering army was sweeping Europe. The Corsican was approaching Frankfort. The rumor was that the city was to be wiped out of existence. Napoleon hated the Hessians—he knew all about their having hired themselves out to fight the Americans. Aye! and the French! The Hessians must be punished. Justice! The late Elector of Hesse-Cassel was now only a private citizen, but his record was his offense. Word had been brought to him that Napoleon had said he would hang him—when he caught him. It is not at all likely that this would have happened—Napoleon must have secretly admired the business stroke that could extract so large a sum from England's exchequer. It was on this same excursion that Napoleon placed a guard in Goethe's house to protect the poet from possible harm. "If I were not Napoleon, I would be Wolfgang Goethe," bluntly said the little man without removing his cocked hat, when he met the King of Letters, thus paraphrasing his prototype, Alexander. Goethe gave him a copy of his last book. "It lacks one thing—your autograph!" said the man who was busy conquering a world.

Goethe, being an author, had waited, expecting this, and so was not disappointed. Frankfort was looted, but not burned. Money, jewelry and portable wealth were all the French wanted. The Castle was used as a stable, and the paintings and statuary served as targets for the rollicking soldiers who had exploited the wine-cellars. The vast amount of specie which it was reported the Elector possessed, was missing—the strongboxes were empty. Soldiers were set to work digging all about the house for signs of hidden treasure, but none was found. The Elector and his family were distributed, as they say of the type in limited editions. Gone—no one knew where!

The French visited the Ghetto, but by order of Napoleon, his soldiers were never severe upon the Jews. The Jews had little or nothing to do with politics, and Napoleon, with his usual nonchalance, said, "They have suffered enough!" Napoleon called himself "The Protector of the Oppressed," and tried occasionally to live up to his self-conferred title.

The Red Shield received a call, and Mayer Rothschild handed over his keys to the officer, in person. The house was searched, and cash to the extent of ten thousand thalers appropriated. The officer gave Rothschild a receipt for the amount, and assured the banker it was but a loan. He thanked Rothschild for his courtesy. They drank a bottle of wine together, and the Frenchman, with profuse apologies, excused himself, having pressing duties to perform, and withdrew, first cordially shaking hands. The French were convinced that when William the Elector fled, he had taken with him his money. That he should have entrusted it to another, and especially a Jew, seemed preposterous. Yet such was the case. William had fled, disguised as a civil engineer, carrying with him in his chaise an outfit of surveying-instruments. All of his money had been turned over to Mayer Anselm Rothschild. The many biographers place the sum anywhere from one to fifty million dollars. The fact seems to be that it was a little less than two million. Not even a receipt was given for the money, for such a document might have led to locating the gold. The Elector would not even count it. He said: "If I do not come back, it is yours—you helped me get it. If I return, you are an honest man—and that is all there is about it." The Jew was touched to tears. The obligation was one fraught with great risk for the money, and for himself. But there was only one thing to do—assume the responsibility.

That this vast sum of money was given into the hands of Rothschild, no one has ever denied. But as to how he secreted it from the French has been explained by the very childlike tale that he buried it in the garden back of his house. In the first place, there were no gardens in the Ghetto, and in the second place, money buried in a garden yields no return, and can not to advantage be left there forever.

At this time England was just becoming a Mecca for Jews, for no matter how much the Corsican had to say about his regard for the Jews, they had no regard for him. He stood for war and violence, and his soldiers, as a rule, knew not their master's leniency for the Jew. Banks, vaults, and the shops of jewelers stood small chance in the face of an advancing army, drunk on success.

Many Jews, rich and poor, were fleeing to England. Rothschild had special boats under his direction upon which he sold passages to his brethren. Even before the treasure of the Elector was placed in his hands he had inwardly planned for its transportation. England was then the safest country in Europe. England, alone, was the one country that had not been seriously threatened by revolution. And it was the one country that was reasonably safe from the grasp of the French.

Rothschild's faith in England was proven when he sent all of his own spare cash to London. That he would transport there the treasure of William the Elector was the one purpose in his mind. And how to carry it! You may send treasure by armed guards, in which case you invite attack by advertising what you are doing. Or you can divide your money up among poor travelers, and by sending your people at different times, thus lessen the risk. Rothschild had been entrusting the safe transportation of money to London in the care of Jews—poor Jews. And now he picked his immigrants and took them into his confidence.

He was an honest man—the title of the "Honest Jew" was his by divine right. To serve him was looked upon as a precious privilege. And now almost every mother of a big family, bound for England and freedom, carried around her ample waist a belt of gold. As soon as she and her brood reached London, it was to be given to Nathan Rothschild, the son of Mayer Rothschild, who was now established as a banker in London.

Rothschild trusted the poor and lowly, and in so doing his faith, so far as we know, was never misplaced. It is not at all likely that the Jews knew whose money it was they were carrying, nor did they know that several hundred other Jews were being trusted in a similar way. All they knew was that Mayer Anselm had come to them and asked them as a great favor, as a friend, to carry this belt and give it to his dear son Nathan, in England. Of course Rothschild's confidence was not misplaced. A few years later this was the Rothschild method of transporting treasure all over Europe—to dispatch, say, a hundred poor Jews at different times, and mixed up among them was the treasure. Honest men can safely trust others—honest men, as a rule, are safe even with rogues. There is a spiritual law which governs here—ask Ben Lindsey!

And so the treasure which had originally come from England found its way back to Britain. It was deposited among various banks and bankers, to the personal credit of the House of Rothschild, drawing interest at five per cent.

In the meantime Mayer Anselm remained at Frankfort, living in the Red Shield, occupying the little shop which had been occupied by his father. He smoked his big pipe, smiled, went to prayers—and waited. When the French soldiers had gutted his safe, he sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and said: "It is the Lord's will—those whom He loveth He chasteneth. Blessed be the name of the Lord." He waited.

* * * * *

Rothschild brought his children up to economize time and money, and to be useful. In childhood, all had served as clerks and helpers in the little bank—the girls included. They were bankers by prenatal tendency and by education. So strong was the banking instinct in the family that three of the girls married men who afterward became bankers, probably being led into the financial way they should walk through marital influences. And so they were duly absorbed into the great House of Rothschild. In order to facilitate the business of the Landgrave, who had considerable property in Hanover, Rothschild sent his third son, Nathan, there and established a bank. This boy Nathan was the financial genius of the family. He was the only one of the five boys who surpassed their father in initiative. And this is saying much, because the other four were all strong and able men. Anselm, the oldest boy, took his father's work and became head of the Frankfort house. Solomon managed the branch at Vienna; Nathan founded the branch in Hanover, and turned it over to one of his brothers-in-law and went to London; Carl did good work in Paris, and James was at Naples and Rome. In addition to these six principal banks, the House of Rothschild had agencies in more than forty different European cities.

William the Elector had turned his money over to Rothschild in the year Eighteen Hundred Six. He had remained in hiding for four years. The French had placed a price upon his head on account of his having sold his troops to the English to fight the French. He had not communicated with Rothschild for fear of involving him.

And now behold! Like lightning put of a clear sky, came a pardon from Napoleon, "for all alleged offenses," and a reinstatement of the House of Hesse-Cassel to its former proud position. This whole procedure was essentially Napoleonic. The Corsican killed or kissed, as the mood took him. Napoleon hated the Emperor Frederick the Second, who had done the deposing, and as a sort of insult or rebuke to that particular royal party, he sought out the man's enemies and exalted them.

William came out of hiding, back to Frankfort, and was received by the people with open arms. He sought out Rothschild at his office in the Judengasse of the Ghetto. The banker received him with courtesy, but without emotion.

"My money—my treasure, Mayer Anselm,—the French stole it from you, I know," said William. "Spare me the details, I only come to you now for a loan—you will not refuse me—we were boys together, Mayer Anselm, boys together. I loved you. Fate has smitten me sore, but now I have my name back and my broken estate—I must begin all over. The loan—you will not refuse me?" The banker coughed gently, smiled, and answered: "I regret I have no money to loan now, but the funds you deposited with me are safe. The best I can do is to give you Exchange on London, with such little ready money as you now require. I have been expecting you, so here is the schedule. The principal, with interest at five per cent, makes me your debtor for a little over two million thalers. My son Nathan, in London, has the money subject to your check."

William stared, started, clutched the bars across the little window for support, and burst into tears. He was taken to the residence part of the house, and Letizia served him with tea and things Kosher. William became calm, and then declared: "The principal, Mayer, I shall never touch. I should not know what to do with it, anyway. Pay me two per cent interest on it, and it is all I shall ever ask." And it was all done as William desired. To his credit let it be said that he spent the money wisely and well: he did much for the development of the economic and intellectual improvement of the country.

* * * * *

Mayer Anselm died in Eighteen Hundred Twelve, aged sixty-nine. But long before he passed out, he had fixed in the minds of his children the wisdom of being loyal to the family interests. "One banking-house may fail, but five standing true to each other, in different countries, never can," he said.

Nathan had gravitated by divine right to the head of the concern. In times of doubt all the others looked to him.

To Nathan Rothschild must be given the credit for a financial stroke that lifted the Rothschilds absolutely out and away from competition.

It was in the spring of Eighteen Hundred Fifteen.

Napoleon had been banished to Elba, and now returned like a conquering hero. His magnetic name was rolling opposition before him as the sun dissipates the clouds. Europe was in a tumult of terror!

Would Napoleon do again what he had done before—trample the cities beneath his inconsiderate feet and parcel out the people and the land among his favorites?

England was shaken to her center. "This time Britain shall not go unpunished," declared the Corsican.

Business was paralyzed. The banks were not loaning a dollar; many had closed and refused to honor the checks of depositors. People with money were hoarding it. England was trying to raise funds to strengthen her defenses, and fit out her soldiery in better fighting shape, but the money was not forthcoming. Government bonds had dropped to sixty-five, and a new loan at seven per cent had met with only a few straggling applications. This was the condition on the First of June, Eighteen Hundred Fifteen. The Armies of the Allies were gathering gear for a final struggle, but there were those who declared that if Napoleon should walk out before certain divisions of this Army, wearing his uniform of the Little Corporal, bearing no weapons, and address the soldiers as brothers, they would throw down their guns and cry, "Command us!"

Nathan Rothschild there in London made his plans. With him to think was to act. There was no time to consult his brothers or his mother, as he usually did on affairs of great moment. He called his cashier and gave him quick and final orders: "I am going across to the Continent. I shall see the downfall of Napoleon—or his triumph. If Napoleon goes down, I shall send a letter to myself—a blank sheet of paper in an envelope. When you get this, buy English bonds—buy quickly, but use a dozen different men, so as not to stampede the market. We have a million pounds in British gold—use it all, and buy, if necessary, up to five points of par." He rode away on horseback. He left a man with a strong and fast horse every forty miles from London to Dover, then from Calais to Brussels. A swift-sailing yacht waited at Calais, with a reward of one hundred guineas for the captain if he crossed the Channel inside of four hours, after getting a special letter addressed to Nathan Rothschild. There was a rich reward also for each rider if he rode his forty miles in less than four hours. Rothschild watched away the night of the Seventeenth of June, circling uneasily the outposts of Brussels.

He saw the Battle of Waterloo—or such of that mad confusion as was visible. He saw the French ride headlong into that open ditch; and he saw the last stand of the Old Guard.

Whether Napoleon was beaten or not no one could say. "He'll be back tomorrow with reinforcements," many said. Nathan Rothschild thought otherwise.

At nightfall he drew the girth of his saddle two holes tighter, threw away his pistols, coat and hat, and rode away, on a gentle patter. After two miles this was increased to a stiff gallop. He knew his horse—he was turning off each mile in just five minutes. He rode sixty miles in five hours, using up three horses. The messenger to whom he tossed his saddlebags asked no questions, but leaping astride his horse, dived into the darkness and was gone. Rothschild's men were twenty-four hours ahead of the regular post.

When the news reached London that Wellington had won, the Banking House of Rothschild had no cash, but its safe was stuffed with English Securities.

Nathan Rothschild made his way leisurely back to London. On arriving there he found himself richer, by more than five hundred thousand pounds, than he was when he rode away.

* * * * *

In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-two, the Emperor of Austria conferred the title of Baron on the sons of Mayer Anselm Rothschild.

It was the first and only time in history where five brothers were so honored at one time.

Certain sarcastic persons have pointed out the fact that this wholesale decoration was done immediately after the Rothschilds had floated a rather large and risky loan for his Kingship. This is irrelevant, inconsequential, and outside the issue. That the House of Rothschild with its branches had an open sesame upon the purse-strings of Europe for half a century is a fact. Nations in need of cash had to apply to the Rothschilds. The Rothschilds didn't loan them the money—they merely looked after the details of the loan, and guaranteed the lender that the interest would not be defaulted. Their agencies everywhere were in touch with investors. The nobility are a timid sort—they like to invest their hard-earned savings outside of their bailiwick—nobody knows what will happen!

The Rothschilds would not float a loan until they were assured that the premises were not mortgaged. More than this, there was a superstition all 'round that they were backed up by J. Bull, and J. Bull is a close collector.