William Ingraham Russell

“ I had to fight against practically unlimited wealth in the hands of a score of bitter enemies, men without conscience in the matter of crushing a competitor. Anything to beat Stowe was the war-cry; get the orders away from him, no matter what the cost, the plan of campaign. Those men knew I could not long survive if they could keep me from getting business.
To fight them back I had complete knowledge of the trade, great personal popularity with my customers, and only eighty-five hundred dollars capital. ”

“ The life at Knollwood in those days was to my mind ideal.
The beauty of the place, its facilities and conveniences are still there, improved and increased. Its social life, now on a totally different scale, has expanded to meet the tastes of the people. With the large increase in population came the break in the circle. Cliques defining the difference, not in culture or refinement, but in wealth, have developed. The old charm of every resident my friend, is lacking. Gossip, unknown in the early days, showed its ugly head in later years.
It is the way of the world. All struggle to gain wealth. ”

“ The landlord wants his rent and I have not a friend in the world that I can think of to help me. I have humiliated myself in the dust in my efforts to borrow a little money. I have asked it as a loan or charity, if they chose to regard it as the same thing, from men of wealth who have known me intimately for many years, but all in vain.
And so I am going to destroy myself that my family may get immediate relief through the paltry few thousand dollars of life insurance, all that remains of the nearly two hundred thousand dollars I carried in my prosperous days. ”

“ He sat in his palatial office and never let an opportunity pass to thrust a knife in my back. His blows, less coarse and brutal, were even more effective, for they were backed by the weight of great wealth and respectability. An adept in the refinement of cruelty, between Sundays, when as a vestryman of a prominent church he presumably asked forgiveness of his sins, he did all that he could by false insinuations to help along the work of putting down and out forever the man who had never done him an injury, or conquered him in any way not warranted by fair and generous business competition. ”

“ Admitting that sentiment has no place in business and brotherly love is not to be expected amongst business competitors, I feel safe in saying that in no other trade has jealous rivalry so nearly approached to personal animosity.
Preeminent in the trade stands a firm with name unchanged for three generations, of world-wide reputation for its wealth and the philanthropy of its individual members, past and present, all of whom have been prominent in New York's religious and social life. ”

“ The market advanced by leaps and bounds, until finally the price in London reached one hundred and sixty-seven pounds sterling per ton, with an equivalent value in all other markets. This represented an advance of more than one hundred per cent.
Then the members of the syndicate awakened from their pleasant dream to find a nightmare.
The hand of every man in the trade throughout the world was raised against them. They were in the meshes of an endless chain. For every ton they could sell they must buy five, or more, in order to sustain the price. ”

“ Despondency followed. Where is the use? I asked myself. "To succeed is to win fame; to fail, a crime." "The world has no use for an unsuccessful man." Thus I gave up the attempt to raise a sum of money that, before I made the effort, seemed but a trifle, "light as air."
During the summer two of our Connecticut friends, who had been members of the syndicate, between them made me a loan of six thousand dollars, and this gave me a capital of eighty-five hundred dollars. With this I attempted to save what I could of the enormous business I had built up. ”

“ In my twentieth year under the largest salary I was ever paid, my income was five hundred dollars—in my thirty-fourth year it was thirty thousand and earned by my own efforts, out of a business that I alone had created; for the business of that time bore no relation whatever to the one in which I succeeded my old employer. Surely I had cause for congratulation, no matter how dull business might be for the time being.
Knollwood had been growing these years with astonishing rapidity, and our social circle was now a fairly large one. ”

“ She, poor, beautiful woman, left much to herself evening after evening while her husband was at his club or elsewhere planning with allies his huge business operations, fell a victim to a fiend in the guise of a man.
When that husband looks at his children, deserted by their mother, he must think that for his millions he has paid a stupendous price.
Wealth brings with it fashionable life. Of what horrors the fashionable life of New York is continually giving us examples, the columns of the daily papers bear witness. ”

“ For the first time in my life I had become "slow-pay" to small tradesmen. "Buy nothing you cannot pay for" is all right in theory, but let those who preach it put themselves in my place in those dark days. There were days and weeks when the house would have been bare of food if the grocer and butcher had refused me credit. There were days at the office when letters had to be held over night for lack of money to pay postage.
My wife, unknown to me and in hope of helping me over the hard spot, wrote to Mr. Viedler, asking him for a loan of a few hundred dollars. ”

“ I thought he might make a good business man, and it occurred to me that if he was a hard worker and his father was willing to buy him an interest in my business, I might get efficient aid to my efforts and at the same time get a cash surplus to relieve my mind of financial worry, which I knew to be very desirable; for a man who has to worry about the small expenses of living can never do himself full justice in his business efforts. ”

“ Why compelled to humiliate himself by laying bare to any man, judge though he be, his poverty and then have to argue on that point as an excuse for not doing jury duty? If a man is prepared to prove that it would be a serious injury to himself to serve, he ought to be excused. ”

“ Of still another firm, the most active member is a leader of Brooklyn's annual Sunday-school processions, though he prides himself on his cold blood, and before leaving his home in the morning to go to his office replaces his heart with a paving-stone. But why go on? Suffice it to say that the trade is eminently respectable and rich, in some instances possessed of enormous wealth, and this is the trade in which I began my career. ”

“ The spectacle of that man, with his social position and his enormous wealth, driving under such conditions, struck me first as ludicrous and then as a living example of the great leveling power that in the end makes all men equal regardless of wealth or position. ”

“ The Standard Oil Company had absorbed all the refining concerns and had then established its own broker. It paid him a salary for his services and he paid to the Company the brokerages he collected from the sellers. I had been doing a large business with the constituent companies which would now cease. The leading firm with which my relations had been most intimate had taken into its employ as a confidential man my most active competitor and I knew his influence would work against me to the utmost. New competitors, young men who had been clerks in the trade, were coming into the field. ”

“ She knew how I needed her fond encouragement, particularly at that period, and she gave it to me daily, always with the same sweet smile and tender caress.
That winter will never be forgotten by me for the torture which I suffered from the almost nightly attacks of that awful rheumatism. Medicine did not seem of any use.
Night after night until long past midnight my devoted wife, with ceaseless energy, would apply every few moments hot applications to relieve the cruel pains, until finally I would fall asleep for a few hours' rest. ”

“ The trade conceived the idea that our London friends and ourselves were selling the market short. They never dreamed that we were unloading for the syndicate, which was daily bidding £167 for spot, while we were selling futures far below that figure. They did not know that at four o'clock London time, when the official market closed on the thirtieth day of April, the syndicate would cease buying and that a collapse would then be inevitable. It was not our business to enlighten them, and strange to relate, not one man asked us our opinion of the market. ”

“ To bear testimony to the love and devotion of a noble woman; to set straight before the world certain matters now misunderstood; to give evidence of the insincerity of friendship that comes to one in prosperity only to vanish in adversity ”

“ Every consumer and dealer in the country was bare of supplies and a very active demand from all sources set in immediately.
When we abandoned the brokerage business to become importers and dealers, our relations with our London friends changed. We bought of them all that we imported and they sold to no other American firm. If they bought in this market, their orders came to us. With their movements we worked in sympathy. If they advanced the price in London we did the same in New York and vice-versa. ”

“ Economy in personal and family expenditures was the text from which the lesson was drawn.
In my prosperous days when I made large annual profits, I did not realize how foolishly extravagant was my scale of living, for every year I was adding a handsome amount to my accumulations which were steadily increasing, and yet, looked at from the standpoint of this clear-headed, successful business man, I was expending far more than what should have been regarded as my income. ”

“ I was trying to cheer him up, when he said, "I tell you, Walter, I could be perfectly contented and happy, no matter how little money I had, if everybody around me had just a little less."
George Lawton, a jolly, good-natured fellow, was liked by everybody, and his wife, a pleasant, cheerful, good-hearted little woman, was equally popular.
The Lawtons were the least prosperous of any of our little circle. George was always just a little behind in his finances, but so constituted that this did not worry him. ”

“ There was nothing of the cheap real estate scheme about the place. The owner would sell or rent only to such people as he deemed desirable.
Although the water supply and sewerage system had been established, miles of roads built, a handsome railroad station erected, and a large Casino in course of erection, there were at that time but six houses completed.
Knollwood was to be a park, and as a unique feature no two houses were to be alike. How successful it has been is shown by the fact that to-day there is no more beautiful or flourishing residence park in the vicinity of New York. ”

“ The residents, loaning from their homes rugs, draperies, paintings, statuary, and fine furniture, transformed that large auditorium into an immense drawing-room. The green-houses contributed palms and blooming plants in profusion. In the enormous fire-place burned great logs. At one end of the room a long table from which was served, as wanted, all that could be desired by the inner man. The stage, set with pretty garden scene and rattan furniture, where the men lounged as they had their smoke. Music by a fine orchestra, interspersed with occasional songs by our own local talent. ”