Bancroft-Whitney Company

“ One publishes books, another manufactures paper, and so each is large in one thing, whereas the Bancrofts, collecting from the manufacturers of all the world, and manufacturing according to the requirements of their trade, cover under one management the ground occupied by all others combined. ”

“ Mor., 89. ↑ In a short time time hundreds of the mob gathered around the printing-office (a two-story brick building) , which they soon threw down. The press was thrown from the upper story, and all the books, stock, and material scattered through the streets. After destroying the printing house, they proceeded to Gilbert and Whitney's store for the same purpose, but Gilbert agreeing to shut it, and box the goods soon, they concluded to let it alone.' Times and Seasons, i. 18 ”

“ On the 5th of Feb. troops were despatched to the disturbed districts. Pan. Mercantile Chronicle, March 3, 1867.
[XX-5] One of his plans was to destroy the rum-stills belonging to a monopoly, from which the treasury derived a large revenue. The cry of Down with the aguardiente company! raised by any popular man would bring him stanch followers. Carrera himself had used it in his early days.
[XX-6] He had signed a pledge not to return to Guat. without leave of the govt, and neither directly nor indirectly to disturb the public peace. Nic., Gaceta, Apr. 27, May 25, 1867; Pan. ”

“ To make matters worse, the monopoly of aguardiente in the departments of Guat., Sacatepequez, Escuintla, and Amatitlan, was given to a single company, in consideration of money advances to the treasury. Carrera was supposed to share in the profits.
[XIII-35] The Indians rose against the ladinos, who deprived them of their lands, and forced them to work at raising grain. ”

“ We have already related that the Treaty of Utrecht conferred upon a company of English merchants the monopoly of supplying slaves to the Spanish colonies. Whilst this was the case on one hand, the African company of independent traders, on the other, were conveying over thousands of negro slaves to the British colonies. England, says Bancroft, valued Africa as returning for her manufactures abundant labourers for her colonies. The African coast for thirty degrees in extent was traversed for the supply of the human cargo ”

“ Bancroft proceeds: "But the greater apprehensions were raised by a requisition that the Letters Patent of the Company should be produced in England—a requisition to which the emigrants returned no reply."
"Still more menacing," says Mr. Bancroft, "was the appointment of an arbitrary Special Commission [April 10, 1634] for all the colonies. [64]
"The news of this Commission soon reached Boston [Sept. 19, 1634;] and it was at the same time rumoured that a Governor-General was on his way. The intelligence awakened the most intense interest in the whole colony, and led to the boldest measures. ”

“ Afterwards Gyfford occupied himself in establishing the factory at Hien. In letters to Bantam and the Court, Gyfford, James and Waite, the factors, enumerated the goods that were likely to be most profitable. They concluded; "'Tis not convenient to send much goods hither. Principally send what pieces of eight you can; for the life of this trade is money, and unless the most part of the Company's stock sent hither be in money this factory cannot yield profit." ”

“ The idea that a man should leave wife and home, and endure the perils of a mid-winter journey to the States, to persuade Congress "To buy sheep" and "make his Mission a stopping place," or the American Board to allow him to work sixteen hours a day for the Cayuse Indians, is a heavy task on credulity, and is so far-fetched as to make Whitman's maligners only ridiculous.
But it is Hubert Howe Bancroft, the author of the thirty-eight volume History of the Pacific States, who is the offender-in-chief. As a collector and historian, Bancroft necessarily required many co-workers. ”

“ It was to be in force 49 years, and the New Granadan government was to receive three per centum of the net profits. It subsequently received $10,000 a year additional on the mails. Passengers, merchandise, and everything else passing in transitu over the railroad, were to be free of duties and imposts. The contract was amended July 5, 1867. Under the new arrangement the company was to own the railway for 99 years; and pay the Colombian government one million dollars in gold, and thereafter $250,000 a year in quarterly instalments, Colombian mails passing over the road free of expense. ”

“ Again one finds the best succeeds, and there is always room at the top, hence the Bancroft triumph.
One of their innovations was to rope off the front rows of the pit, which then occupied the entire floor of the house, and call them “stalls,” for which they dared ask 6/-apiece. They got it—more were wanted. Others were added, and gradually the price rose to 10/6, which is now the charge: but half-guinea stalls, though now universal, are a modern institution.
At a dinner given by the Anderson Critchetts in 1891 I sat between Squire Bancroft and G. Boughton, R.A. Mr. ”

“ He sent for Joe Goodman to come and help him organize a capital-stock company, in which Senator Jones and John Mackay, old Comstock friends, were to be represented. He never for a moment lost faith in the final outcome, and he believed that if they could build their own factory the delays and imperfections of construction would be avoided. Pratt & Whitney had been obliged to make all the parts by hand. With their own factory the new company would have vast and perfect machinery dedicated entirely to the production of type-setters. ”

“ Should more negroes be required, 4,800 extra might be exported, for each of whom 161⁄3 pesos were to be paid. Negroes carried to the windward coast were not to be sold for more than 300 pesos each, but there was no limit to price in Tierra Firme or New Spain. No other company was to be allowed to engage in this traffic, and no merchandise could be carried under penalty of confiscation. The ships of the contractors could sail from either British or Spanish Ports. ”

“ But, if a man wanted one of these firms to publish a book for him, why, they would have told him that he must pay for his plates and his printing. Thus Mr. Bancroft, fortunately for himself, owned the plates and the printed copies of his own History from 1833 until he died.
Charles Sampson and Moses Dresser Phillips made an admirable combination, and the early death of both of them made a break in the book business of Boston which it did not easily recover from. These young men were not satisfied with the gilt-edged retail “trade” of Boston and Cambridge. They went far afield with their wares. ”

“ He had made a good clean-up about that time and increased it by some lucky trading on the Denver stock exchange. Then he went to New Mexico, kept the name of Bancroft, engaged in other business as well as mining, and settled down to be a permanent citizen.
“I congratulate you upon the successful termination of our long chase. I understand Bancroft [Pg 366] is a man of considerable property and I hope you will be able to make him disgorge some of the goods he stole so long ago. ”

“ Come along girls, and see you don't waylay all the millionaires. I hear every garage in the village is bursting with classy cars, and the livery stable can't take another single boarder. Ted, you take Velma and Maud, and be careful not to divulge any club secrets; Janet, you tag along with Winifred and just gush to death over that timid little blonde who seems to have a whole bag full of hand made handkerchiefs for weeps. Jane, may I have the honor of your company? ”

“ Bancroft’s college career was a disappointment, and he was evidently regarded as a man spoiled by vanity and self-consciousness, and not commanding a strong influence over his pupils. My father wrote of these two teachers:—
Cambridge, Mass., 21 Nov., 1833.
Cogswell at New York to negotiate. He is much better fitted for a City. He loves society, bustle, fashion, polish, and good living. He would do best in some Mercantile House as a partner, say to Bankers like Prime, Ward, and King. He was at first a Scholar, a Lawyer in Maine. ”

“ Although I had entered the service only for experience, I was in earnest and did my duty conscientiously; but I soon found out that my colleagues were genuine adventurers, only after money, and caring nothing for their work except as a means of getting it.
Bancroft was the most dishonest of all. He loved his bottle too well and got private supplies for it from Santa Fé, and worked harder with the brandy-flask than with his surveying instruments. Riggs, Marcy, and Wheeler, the three surveyors, emulated Bancroft in this unprofitable pursuit ”

“ The present educational enterprise of this company was started in May, 1904, and the first two schoolbooks of the present list were a school edition of The Man Without a Country, and the series known as the Wide Awake Readers. Little, Brown & Company are known as the publishers of Bancroft’s History of the United States, also of Daniel Webster’s works. ”

“ After the independence was secured, foreign trade became so much favored that manufacturing interests continued to suffer; indeed, though the government did something to revive them, and some cotton mills sprang into life in Victoria's administration, the industry did not acquire a healthy growth. In 1823 the factories were little better than prisons. [41] The policy of protection to home industry was initiated in 1828, exempting from taxation all manufactures of the country, and also the raw cotton produced therein, and the twist or yarn made therefrom. ”

“ Here in California the advice of Plautus, " Habeas ut nactus: nota mala res optima' st," " keep what you've got; the evil that we know is best," was sadly out of place. To be "stuck in stocks," made sweating sore by them, screwed tighter in them than the village villain's feet in that old-time punishing-machine, was at one time common to all.
In stock speculation there" is wanting that same element of utility which we find lacking in faro and monte, and by which alone society is benefited in the interchange of values among its members. ”

“ When speaking in the Literary Industries of work done for him by others, Mr. Bancroft shows a habit which is derived from his long experience as manager of a business concern. His constant tendency is to speak of work done by those in his employ as his work, neglecting a distinction between a publisher and an author, which is a vital one. The reputation of a publishing house depends upon the workmanship of its employés, but that of an author depends solely upon his own talents and the work of his own hands. ”

“ The first of every new month she'd take the money out, count it and put it in the Chesterford Trust company for us."
"But suppose we save quite a lot, what would we do with it?" asked Barbara Tennant. "We244 wouldn't need it for ourselves. We'd have to——"
"That's what I'm coming to," interposed Jane. "We'd start a fund to help the poorer Wellington students along. There is no College Aid Society here. I don't know why none has ever been organized. I suppose there haven't been so very many poor girls at Wellington. ”

“ Young Whitney’s friend Miller furnished him money, not only to secure his patent rights and make the machines, but to go into the courts and fight those who were trying to steal his rights as they had stolen his model. These people made him so much trouble and expense that it took thirteen years to beat them by lawsuits. A patent protected an inventor, by keeping others from making and selling that machine, for only fourteen years. When his rivals were beaten, Whitney had but one year left in which he and his friends could sell the machine so as to pay for all his time, labor, and expense. ”

“ I have read nearly the whole volume, and shall read it nearly all over again; you have no rivals!
Bancroft's HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, even in a centenary edition, is essentially heavy fare; a little goes a long way; I respect Bancroft, but I do not love him; he has moments when he feels himself inspired to open up his improvisations upon universal history and the designs of God; but I flatter myself I am more nearly acquainted with the latter than Mr. Bancroft. A man, in the words of my Plymouth Brother, 'who knows the Lord,' must needs, from time to time, write less emphatically. ”

“ Neither time, nor money, nor personal attention would be spared. Agents were appointed in all the leading book marts of the world; no book must be lost because of its high price; no opportunity was to be missed to obtain everything in existence on the subject. By buying up at auction in European cities individual collections, and even libraries, the Bancroft Library was enriched beyond measure. In 1869, we are told, Mr. Bancroft found in his possession, including pamphlets, about 16,000 volumes. ”

“ Bancroft may not be without earth's purest form of innocence—a newborn babe.
To feed, clothe, educate, and find house-room for several children, was more than the father could well do on a thousand dollars a year. But this was not required. During the five or six years that have elapsed, he has passed from the insurance office into a banking institution as book-keeper, at a salary of twelve hundred dollars, thence to the receiving teller's place, which he now holds at fifteen hundred dollars a year. As his means have gradually increased, his style of living has altered. ”