Philip D. Armour’s Business Career

IMET Mr. Armour in the quiet of the Armour Institute, his great philanthropic school for young men and women. He was very courteous, and there was no delay. He took my hand with a firm grasp—reading with his steady gaze such of my characteristics as interested him,—and saying, at the same time, “Well, sir.”

In stating my desire to learn such lessons from his business career as might be helpful to young men, I inquired whether the average American boy of to-day has equally as good a chance to succeed in the world as he had, when he began life.

“Every bit and better. The affairs of life are larger. There are greater things to do. There was never before such a demand for able men.”

“Were the conditions surrounding your youth especially difficult?”

“No. They were those common to every small New York town in 1832. I was born at Stockbridge, in Madison county. Our family had its roots in Scotland. My father’s ancestors were the Robertsons, Watsons, and McGregors of Scotland; my mother came of the Puritans, who settled in Connecticut.”

“Dr. Gunsaulus says,” I ventured, “that all these streams of heredity set toward business affairs.”

“Perhaps so. I like trading well. My father was reasonably prosperous and independent for those times. My mother had been a schoolteacher. There were six boys, and of course such a household had to be managed with the strictest economy in those days. My mother thought it her duty to bring to our home some of the rigid discipline of the school-room. We were all trained to work together, and everything was done as systematically as possible.”

“Had you access to any books?”

“Yes, the Bible, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and a History of the United States.”

It is said of the latter, by those closest to Mr. Armour, that it was as full of shouting Americanism as anything ever written, and that Mr. Armour’s whole nature is yet colored by its stout American prejudices; also that it was read and re-read by the Armour children, though of this the great merchant did not speak.

“Were you always of a robust constitution?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. All our boys were. We were stout enough to be bathed in an ice-cold spring, out of doors, when at home. There were no bath tubs and warm water arrangements in those days. We had to be strong. My father was a stern Scotchman, and when he laid his plans they were carried out. When he set us boys to work, we worked. It was our mother who insisted on keeping us all at school, and who looked after our educational needs; while our father saw to it that we had plenty of good, hard work on the farm.”

“How did you enjoy that sort of life?” I asked.

“Well enough, but not much more than any boy does. Boys are always more or less afraid of hard work.”

The truth is, I have heard, but not from Mr. Armour, that when he attended the district school, he was as full of pranks and capers as the best; and that he traded jack-knives in summer and bob-sleds in winter. Young Armour was often to be found, in the winter, coasting down the long hill near the schoolhouse. Later, he had a brief term of schooling at the Cazenovia Seminary.

FOOTING IT TO CALIFORNIA

“When did you leave the farm for a mercantile life?” I asked.

“I was a clerk in a store in Stockbridge for two years, after I was seventeen, but was engaged with the farm more or less, and wanted to get out of that life. I was a little over seventeen years old when the California gold excitement of 1849 reached our town. Wonderful tales were told of gold already found, and the prospects for more on the Pacific coast. I brooded over the difference between tossing hay in the hot sun and digging up gold by handfuls, until one day I threw down my pitchfork and went over to the house and told mother that I had quit that kind of work.

“People with plenty of money could sail around Cape Horn in those days, but I had no money to spare, and so decided to walk across the country. That is, we were carried part of the way by rail and walked the rest. I persuaded one of the neighbor’s boys, Calvin Gilbert, to go along with me, and we started.

“I provided myself with an old carpet sack into which to put my clothes. I bought a new pair of boots, and when we had gone as far as we could on canals and wagons, I bought two oxen. With these we managed for awhile, but eventually reached California afoot.”

Young Armour suffered a severe illness on the journey, and was nursed by his companion Gilbert, who gathered herbs and steeped them for his friend’s use, and once rode thirty miles in the rain to get a doctor. When they reached California, he fell in with Edward Croarkin, a miner, who nursed him back to health. The manner in which he remembered these men gives keen satisfaction to the friends of the great merchant.

“Did you have any money when you arrived at the gold-fields?”

“Scarcely any. I struck right out, though, and found a place where I could dig, and I struck pay dirt in a little time.”

“Did you work entirely alone?”

“No. It was not long before I met Mr. Croarkin at a little mining camp called Virginia. He had the next claim to mine, and we became partners. After a little while, he went away, but came back in a year. We then bought in together. The way we ran things was ‘turn about.’ Croarkin would cook one week, and I the next, and then we would have a clean-up every Sunday morning. We baked our own bread, and kept a few hens, which kept us supplied with eggs. There was a man named Chapin who had a little store in the village, and we would take our gold dust there and trade it for groceries.”

THE DITCH

“Did you discover much gold?” I asked.

“Oh, I worked with pretty good success,—nothing startling. I didn’t waste much, and tried to live carefully. I also studied the business opportunities around, and persuaded some of my friends to join me in buying and developing a ‘ditch,’—a kind of aqueduct, to convey water to diggers and washers. That proved more profitable than digging for gold, and at the end of the year, the others sold out to me, took their earnings and went home. I stayed, and bought up several other water-powers, until, in 1856, I thought I had enough, and so I sold out and came East.”

“How much had you made, altogether?”

“About four thousand dollars.”

This was when Mr. Armour was twenty-four years old,—his capital for beginning to do business.

HE ENTERS THE GRAIN MARKET

“Did you return to Stockbridge?”

“A little while, but my ambition set in another direction. I had been studying the methods then used for moving the vast and growing food products of the West, such as grain and cattle, and I believed that I could improve them and make money. The idea and the field interested me and I decided to enter it.

“My standing was good, and I raised the money, and bought what was then the largest elevator in Milwaukee. This put me in contact with the movement of grain. At that time, John Plankington had been established in Milwaukee a number of years, and, in partnership with Frederick Layton, had built up a good pork-packing concern. I bought in with those gentlemen, and so came in contact with the work I liked. One of my brothers, Herman, had established himself in Chicago some time before, in the grain-commission business. I got him to turn that over to the care of another brother, Joseph, so that he might go to New York as a member of the new firm, of which I was a partner. It was important that the Milwaukee and Chicago houses should be able to ship to a house of their own in New York,—that is, to themselves. Risks were avoided in this way, and we were certain of obtaining all that the ever-changing markets could offer us.”

“When did you begin to build up your Chicago interests?”

“They were really begun, before the war, by my brother Herman. When he went to New York for us, we began adding a small packinghouse to the Chicago commission branch. It gradually grew with the growth of the West.”

MR. ARMOUR’S ACUTE PERCEPTION OF THE COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS FOR BUILDING UP A GREAT BUSINESS

“Is there any one thing that accounts for the immense growth of the packing industry here?” I asked.

“System and the growth of the West did it. Things were changing at startling rates in those days. The West was growing fast. Its great areas of production offered good profits to men who would handle and ship the products. Railway lines were reaching out in new directions, or increasing their capacities and lowering their rates of transportation. These changes and the growth of the country made the creation of a food-gathering and delivering system necessary. Other things helped. At that time (1863), a great many could see that the war was going to terminate favorably for the Union. Farming operations had been enlarged by the war demand and war prices. The state banking system had been done away with, and we had a uniform currency, available everywhere, so that exchanges between the East and the West had become greatly simplified. Nothing more was needed than a steady watchfulness of the markets by competent men in continuous telegraphic communication with each other, and who knew the legitimate demand and supply, in order to sell all products quickly and with profit.”

SYSTEM AND GOOD MEASURE

“Do you believe that system does so much?” I ventured.

“System and good measure. Give a measure heaped full and running over, and success is certain. That is what it means to be the intelligent servants of a great public need. We believed in thoughtfully adopting every attainable improvement, mechanical or otherwise, in the methods and appliances for handling every pound of grain or flesh. Right liberality and right economy will do everything where a public need is being served. Then, too, our

METHODS

improved all the time. There was a time when many parts of cattle were wasted, and the health of the city injured by the refuse. Now, by adopting the best known methods, nothing is wasted; and buttons, fertilizers, glue and other things are made cheaper and better for the world in general, out of material that was before a waste and a menace. I believe in finding out the truth about all things—the very latest truth or discovery,—and applying it.”

“You attribute nothing to good fortune?”

“Nothing!” Certainly the word came well from a man whose energy, integrity, and business ability made more money out of a ditch than other men were making out of rich placers in the gold region.

“May I ask what you consider the turning-point of your career?”

“The time when I began to save the money I earned at the gold-fields.”

TRUTH

“What trait do you consider most essential in young men?”

“Truth. Let them get that. Young men talk about getting capital to work with. Let them get truth on board, and capital follows. It’s easy enough to get that.”

A GREAT ORATOR, AND A GREAT CHARITY

“Did you always desire to follow a commercial, rather than a professional life?”

“Not always. I have no talent in any other direction; but I should have liked to be a great orator.”

Mr. Armour would say no more on this subject, but his admiration for oratory has been demonstrated in a remarkable way.

It was after a Sunday morning discourse by the splendid orator, Dr. Gunsaulus, at Plymouth Church, Chicago, in which the latter had set forth his views on the subject of educating children, that Mr. Armour came forward and said:—

“You believe in those ideas of yours, do you?”

“I certainly do,” said Dr. Gunsaulus.

“And would you carry them out if you had the opportunity?”

“I would.”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Armour, “if you will give me five years of your time, I will give you the money.”

“But to carry out my ideas would take a million dollars!” exclaimed Gunsaulus.

“I have made a little money in my time,” returned Mr. Armour. And so the famous Armour Institute of Technology, to which its founder has already given sums aggregating $2,800,000, was associated with Mr. Armour’s love of oratory.

One of his lieutenants says that Gerritt Smith, the old abolitionist, was Armour’s boyhood’s hero, and that to-day Mr. Armour will go far to hear a good speaker, often remarking that he would have preferred to be a great orator rather than a great capitalist.

“There is no need to ask you,” I continued, “whether you believe in constant, hard labor?”

“I should not call it hard. I believe in close application, of course, while laboring. Overwork is not necessary to success. Every man should have plenty of rest. I have.”

“You must rise early to be at your office at half past seven?”

“Yes, but I go to bed early. I am not burning the candle at both ends.”

The enormous energy of this man, who is too modest to discuss it, is displayed in the most normal manner. Though he sits all day at a desk which has direct cable connection with London, Liverpool, Calcutta, and other great centers of trade, with which he is in constant connection,—though he has at his hand long-distance telephone connection with New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco, and direct wires from his room to almost all parts of the world, conveying messages in short sentences upon subjects which involve the moving of vast amounts of stock and cereals, and the exchange of millions in money, he is not, seemingly, an overworked man. The great subjects to which he gives calm, undivided attention from early morning until evening, are laid aside with the ease with which one doffs his raiment, and outside of his office the cares weigh upon him no more. His mind takes up new and simpler things.

“What do you do,” I inquired, “after your hard day’s work,—think about it?”

“Not at all. I drive, take up home subjects, and never think of the office until I return to it.”

“Your sleep is never disturbed?”

“Not at all.”

A BUSINESS KING

And yet the business which this man forgets, when he gathers children about him and moves in his simple home circle, amounts in one year, to over $100,000,000 worth of food products, manufactured and distributed; the hogs killed, 1,750,000; the cattle, 1,080,000; the sheep, 625,000. Eleven thousand men are constantly employed, and the wages paid them are over $5,500,000; the railway cars owned and moving about all parts of the country, four thousand; the wagons of many kinds and of large number, drawn by seven hundred and fifty horses. The glue factory, employing seven hundred and fifty hands, makes over twelve million pounds of glue. In his private office, it is he who takes care of all the general affairs of this immense world of industry, and yet at half-past four he is done, and the whole subject is comfortably off his mind.

TRAINING YOUTH FOR BUSINESS

“Do you believe in inherited abilities, or that any boy can be taught and trained, and made a great and able man?”

“I recognize inherited ability. Some people have it, and only in a certain direction; but I think men can be taught and trained so that they become much better and more useful than they would be, otherwise. Some boys require more training and teaching than others. There is prosperity for everyone, according to his ability.”

“What would you do with those who are naturally less competent than others?”

“Train them, and give them work according to their ability. I believe that life is all right, and that this difference which nature makes is all right. Everything is good, and is coming out satisfactorily, and we ought to make the most of conditions, and try to use and improve everything. The work needed is here, and everyone should set about doing it.”

When asked if he thought the chances for young men as good to-day as they were when he was young. “Yes,” he said, “I think so. The world is changing every day and new fields are constantly opening. We have new ideas, new inventions, new methods of manufacture, and new ways to-day everywhere. There is plenty of room for any man who can do anything well. The electrical field is a wonderful one. There are other things equally good, and the right man is never at a loss for an opportunity. Provided he has some ability and good sense to start with, is thrifty, honest and economical, there is no reason why any young man should not accumulate money and attain so called success in life.”

When asked to what qualities he attributed his own success, Mr. Armour said: “I think that thrift and economy had much to do with it. I owe much to my mother’s training and to a good line of Scotch ancestors, who have always been thrifty and economical. As to my business education, I never had any. I am, in fact, a good deal like Topsy, ‘I just growed.’ My success has been largely a matter of organization.

“I have always made it a point to surround myself with good men. I take them when they are young and keep them just as long as I can. Nearly all of the men I now have, have grown up with me. Many of them have worked with me for twenty years. They have started in at low wages, and have been advanced until they have reached the highest positions.” Mr. Armour thinks that most men who accumulate a large amount of money, inherited the money-making instinct. The power of making and accumulating money, he says, is as much a natural gift as are those of a singer or an artist. “The germs of the power to make money must be in the mind. Take, for instance, the people we have working with us. I can get millions of good bookkeepers or accountants, but not more than one out of five hundred in all of those I have employed has made a great success as an organizer or trader.”

Mr. Armour is a great believer in young men and young brains. He never discharges a man if he can possibly avoid it. If the man is not doing good work where he is, he puts him in some other department, but never discharges him if he can find him other work. He will not, however, tolerate intemperance, laziness or getting into debt. Some time ago a policeman entered his office. In answer to Mr. Armour’s question, “What do you want here?” he replied: “I want to garnishee one of your men’s wages for debt.” “Indeed,” said Mr. Armour, “and who is the man?” Asking the officer into his private room he sent for the debtor. “How long have you been in debt?” asked Mr. Armour. The clerk replied that he had been behind for twenty years and could not seem to catch up. “But you get a good salary, don’t you?” “Yes, but I can’t get out of debt.” “But you must get out, or you must leave here,” said Mr. Armour. “How much do you owe?” The clerk then gave the amount, which was less than a thousand-dollars. “Well,” said Mr. Armour, handing him a check, “there is enough to pay all your debts, and if I hear of you again getting into debt, you will have to leave.” The clerk paid his debts and remodeled his life on a cash basis.

PROMPT TO ACT

In illustration of Mr. Armour’s aptitude for doing business, and his energy, it is related that when, in 1893, local forces planned to defeat him in the grain market, and everyone was crying that at last the great Goliath had met his David, he was all energy. He had ordered immense quantities of wheat. The opposition had shrewdly secured every available place of storage, and rejoiced that the great packer, having no place to store his property, would suffer immense loss, and must capitulate. He foresaw the fray and its dangers, and, going over on Goose Island, bought property at any price, and began the construction of immense elevators. The town was placarded with the truth that anyone could get work at Armour’s elevators. No one believed they could be done in time, but three shifts of men working night and day, often under the direct supervision of the millionaire, gradually forced the work ahead, and when, on the appointed day, the great grain-ships began to arrive, the opposition realized failure. The vessels began to pour the contents of their immense holds into these granaries, and the fight was over.

FORESIGHT

The foresight that sent him to New York in 1864, to sell pork, brought him back from Europe in 1893, months before the impending panic was dreamed of by other merchants. It is told of him that he called all his head men to New York, and announced to them:—

“Gentlemen, there’s going to be financial trouble soon.”

“Why, Mr. Armour,” they said, “you must be mistaken. Things were never better. You have been ill, and are suddenly apprehensive.”

“Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not. There is going to be trouble;” and he gave as his reasons certain conditions which existed in nearly all countries, which none of those present had thought of. “Now,” said he to the first of his many lieutenants, “how much will you need to run your department until next year?”

The head man named his need. The others were asked, each in turn, the same question, and, when all were through, he counted up, and, turning to the company, said:—

“Gentlemen, go back and borrow all you need in Chicago, on my credit. Use my name for all it will bring in the way of loans.”

FOREARMED AGAINST PANIC

The lieutenants returned, and the name of Armour was strained to its utmost limit. When all had been borrowed, the financial flurry suddenly loomed up, but it did not worry the great packer. In his vaults were $8,000,000 in gold. All who had loaned him at interest then hurried to his doors, fearing that he also was imperiled. They found him supplied with ready money, and able to compel them to wait until the stipulated time of payment, or to force them to abandon their claims of interest for their money, and so tide him over the unhappy period. It was a master stroke, and made the name of the great packer a power in the world of finance.

SOME SECRETS OF SUCCESS

“Do you consider your financial decisions which you make quickly to be brilliant intuitions?” I asked.

“I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did anything I have come that way. No, I never decide anything without knowing the conditions of the market, and never begin unless satisfied concerning the conclusion.”

“Not everyone could do that,” I said.

“I cannot do everything. Every man can do something, and there is plenty to do,—never more than now. The problems to be solved are greater now than ever before. Never was there more need of able men. I am looking for trained men all the time. More money is being offered for them everywhere than formerly.”

“Do you consider that happiness consists in labor alone?”

“It consists in doing something for others. If you give the world better material, better measure, better opportunities for living respectably, there is happiness in that. You cannot give the world anything without labor, and there is no satisfaction in anything but such labor as looks toward doing this, and does it.”