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PUBLISHED ON THE 5TH OF EACH MONTH AT 88 WABASHI AVE., CHICAGO
Copyrighted 1908, by Common-Sense Publishing Co. (Not Inc.)

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Men who have left their name to posterity, never faltered at the critical moment--to have done so they would have encouraged disaster, but like Columbus, they headed for a place wholly unknown and pressing ever on with no thought of defeat, they have realized their ambition, and have bettered the human race by their indomitable courage.

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John Pierpont Morgan.

International Banker and Organizer of Industries

The name of this great financier again floats to the surface of America's present tumultuous water. While it is superfluous to ask who this interesting personage is, it nevertheless is of abounding interest to know what Mr. Morgan has done in the way of aiding the financial progress of the world. And if ever a niche should be saved in any great hall for integrity there could be no name more worthy of filling an appropriate space in that niche than that of John Pierpont Morgan.

Mr. Morgan has not only saved corporations, placed business men upon their feet and put financial strength into wavering concerns, but he has proved to be a modern living example of the worthy man whose ideal qualities generally can only be found in print.

Not more than seven years ago when panic seized Wall Street the moneyed men looked to Morgan to save the situation, and he did. Again business flourished when the gold dollar was declared the standard unit of value. New enterprises and new combinations were almost daily announced to an eager and interested public.

Business in Wall Street increased to tremendous proportion and at this time there came conspicuously into public notice a number of bold financiers, who amazed the country and in fact the world by the magnitude of their operations.

Conspicuous among the men who represented the achievements of this era was Mr. John Pierpont Morgan. He was full of vim, strength and success and his bold conceptions attracted the attention of both hemispheres. He promoted the United States Steel Corporation and advanced it $25,000,000 in cash receiving in return $106,800,000 in its preferred and common stock. He saved Wall street by putting $40,000,000 into circulation and did it with as much ease as a child would spend five pennies for candy.

Perhaps the most remarkable of Morgan's feats, was his assistance to the national treasury. It is the one step in his career that favors strong criticism but it is a step that nevertheless will be given the greatest praise as time rolls on. In 1892 he with a Mr. Belmont successfully undertook to maintain the gold reserve in the federal treasury when the undertaking appeared to all eyes as a mere impossibility.

Indeed Morgan is the name of the most conspicuous man in the world to-day. The eyes of all nations are fixed upon him with an

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expression of awe and wonderment. schemes for multiplying small fortunes into gigantic accumulations of wealth gave food for talk abroad as well as in America. He was termed a modern Midas whose very touch would turn things into gold. Success not crowning every effort in any of his undertakings seemed an impossibility.

In Morgan we have cited one instance of a successful man who was not cast out to earn his own means of support, for Morgan's parents were well styled artistocrats.

The reconstructing and saving of other companies and their credit is found to be a special characteristic of the Morgans. Mr. Morgan's grandfather Rev. John Pierpont likewise owes much of his success to the shrewdness with which he secured control of a Connecticut fire insurance company at the time when the New York fire of 1835 placed it on the verge of bankruptcy. He strengthened the company and saved its credit.

It is scarcely possible for any man of power to exist without enemies, but be his opponents ever so great, it would not be possible for one to cite a single instance where any of the Morgans have made their money by plotting the overthrow of other people's legitimate

business.

John Pierpont Morgan was born at Hartford, Connecticut, April 17, 1837. He was given every opportunity to become thoroughly educated and is a man of cultivated tastes. In his early years he was inclined for a time toward the scholar's life. He graduated at the English High School of Boston. He persued his studies at the Boston Latin school where he read the classics leisurely. Later in Germany he spent some time at the University of Gottingen where he became interested in lectures in History and Political Economy. He won such distinction by his mathematical work, that he received the offer of a professor's chair in that historic institution.

In after years he became a connoisseur of the fine art, a collector of fine arts and manuscripts and a patron of science and learning. But these were only the diversions of an extraordinary career.

In 1857 he entered the bank of Duncan Sherman and Company and in 1860 became the agent in the United States for the English banking house of Peabody and Company of London. His father was a partner in this firm and it was thus easy for young Morgan to get a start in the financial world.

From the time that he interested the financial industries by reviving a railroad which had suffered from a fight between its president and the firm of Fisk and Gould, Morgan's career has been one of the most brilliant the world has known.

In going over thirty years. of Morgan's history we find the following as it effects the finance of the nation.

In 1871 he created a market in Europe for $25,000,000 worth of New York Central stock and sold it there at a profit which amazed old Commodore Vanderbilt.

In 1887 he handled an issue of $260.000,000 of government bonds in preparation for putting the national currency on a gold basis.

In 1880 he provided $40,000,000 for the extension of the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Pacific Coast.

In 1880 his was the master hand in the reorganization of the Reading Railroad and the reorganization of the Baltimore and Ohio, involving syndicate work and the loan. of $10,000,000.

In 1893 the Southern Railway was created out of the Richmond Terminal and allied lines.

In 1895 the Erie Railroad was rehabilitated.

In 1897 the Lehigh Valley was put on its feet, the soft coal combination formed and the Central Railroad of New Jersey leased by the Reading.

There is also to record the organizing and the floating of the securities of the United States Steel Corporation with a capital of $1,100,000,000, the securing of American sub

scriptions to the amount of $50,000,000 to the British war loan of April, 1901, the fathering of the agreement between the anthracite coal operators and the federating of soft coal interests in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. And then there is the work which has given him interests in 50,000 miles of railways, in American and British shipping companies and English traction companies.

Mr. Morgan has distributed many of his millions for purpose of building a private library an art gallery to be filled with the choicest col tion of books and paintings on this continent. He takes active interest in the Metropoli an Museum of Art to which he has made many valuable presentations. He own's the famous Gainsborough.

Mr. Morgan is a consistent churchman, warden of St. George's in New York. He never plays poker and he never speculates on margins. His interests in financial and industrial institutions are wide and extensive and his position in the social " 1 is equally as strong.

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Gems of Thought.

We can help make people bright by our keenness, but we can never accomplish anything toward making people good except by our tenderness.-C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.

He will certainly fail who hopes to know men deeply and only to get happiness, never to get anxiety, distress, disappointment, out of knowing them; and he has mistaken the first idea of human companionship who seeks companionships, friendships and contacts with mankind directly and simply for the pleasure they will give him.-Phillips Brooks.

Take care that your profession does not outrun your possession. Artificiality and hypocrisy tear character to shreds eventually. -Maltbie D. Babcock, D. D.

When we allow our best life to unfold and express itself in word or deed, or to go out from us as pure influence, we grow like God,

we find it more blessed to give than to receive. We are ourselves served best by serving others.-C. G. Ames.

We may throw ourselves away, but God will not throw us away. We belong to Him still, and He "gathereth up the fragments which remain, that nothing be lost."

Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias or trowel of the Egyptians. or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different. from all these.-Emerson.

No man can gauge the value, at this present critical time, of a steady stream of young men, flowing into all professions and all industries, who have learned resolutely to speak in a society such as ours, "I can't afford."

A Corrsepondence School Experience

The following was clipped from the Typographical Journal and shows the result of allowing a few dollars difference in price to interfere with your enrollment in a practical school.

I can double your salary, if you earn less than $25 a week, by teaching you how to do r-to-date advertising. A year ago a $10 clerk comr' ted my system of instruction, and I procured him - position with a land company. Demand for skill advertisers greater than ever.

I was a proof reader, earning $21 a week, I was ambitious, and it was not likely I would ever earn much more than that in my line of business, as I was considered competent, and had worked in this line for many years. The above ad sounded tempting, especially as the advertising ma connected with our firm drew $100 a cek. I entered into correspondence with th. n who advertised, stating my occupation a salary. Here is an extract from his re

Your experience as proofreader and knowledge of spelling, grammar, punctuation and type faces will be of essential benefit, should you take up my course of instruction. If you prove competent, there will not be the slightest difficulty in putting you in the way of obtaining a position which will pay you more than your present salary. Many ad writers earn large salaries, and the field is by no means overcrowded. Brains count everywhere, and judging by your letter, I am very certain you would be successful.

I invested $35 in this "course of instruction." It was entirely conducted by correspondence. I called several times at the gentleman's office, but he was always too busy to see me. Nearly all my leisure time for the next five months was occupied in the study of ad writing. My teacher's comments were always encouraging, and once or twice he praised me highly. His criticisms, quite lengthy at first, grew briefer by degrees, until toward the end he noticed only the headlines and illustrations suggested.

I finished the course; then I asked my preceptor to fulfill his promise of "putting me in the way of obtaining a position." He replied that "business was very dull, and he could do nothing at present, but would bear me in mind. At the same time, he would have me remember that the only road to success was by keeping everlastingly at it."

Full of confidence in my ability, I tried to obtain work from various advertising agencies. my amazement, nobody wanted a graduate of a correspondence school. My teacher had

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repeatedly stated that he was well and favorably known among business men; but the mention of his name elicited most unfavorable comment.

“That man is a fake, pure and simple," said one advertising agent. "His course of lessons was printed years ago, and has never been changed. His ideas are away behind the times."

I could find no opening, though I certainly tried hard. Evidently my teacher found none either, for three years have passed, and I have had no word from him, except a point-blank denial that he ever promised me anything, coupled with a threat of legal proceedings should he hear of any unfavorable comment on my part. I am still reading proof, the poorer by $35, the richer by experience.

New York, N. Y.

Mrs. K. J. Murray.

The Editor of Common-Sense can only draw one solution in this affair, and that is that Mrs. K. J. Murray is more to blame than any one else. She paid $35.00 for a course of instruction and expected to be taught a profession that pays $25.00 a week for this small amount. She claims to be a proof reader and to receive a salary of $21.00 per week at the present time and yet when she received the lesson of proof reading that this school issues, she did not even recognize that the teacher had copied the lesson verbatim from the pages of an ancient book. If Mrs. Murray will go to the Public Library and inspect the old "Hill's Manual,” printed in 1871 she will find on page 496 the original of the main part of the proof reading lesson she received. Mrs. Murray should have realized the outcome of that cheap course of instruction as soon as this paper on proof reading came into her hands. What would anyone think of a carpenter who tried to build a modern home with a set of tools that the Puritans used. If Mrs. Murray will take a mental inventory of her position she will not. wonder so much why her experience was not more satisfactory.

The whole thing is simply this: A school that makes the tuition price the important feature must necessarily make the instruction conform to the price.

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