Houghton Mifflin Company

“ Within the combination, prosperity in plenty, but always subject to the guiding judgment of G. Hyde Bigelow, hence a certain loss of identity and of control to self-respecting heads of companies; without the combination, a fight to a finish against the combined power and momentum of Bigelow & Company and the “Lumber Trust.” Just how great was this momentum no one exactly knew: but Bigelow was a magic name, no doubt of it.
“You have gone over it, have you, Mr. Halloran?” said Mr. Higginson. ”

“ The seam was opened in the side of a bank, and approached by a footrill, a sloping shaft down which the men walked. When the strike was over, two or three miners still remained working the soft, drossy coal, which they sold for eight-and-sixpence a ton—or sixpence a hundredweight. But a mining population scorned such dirt, as they called it.
James Houghton, however, was seized with a desire to work the Connection Meadow seam, as he called it. He gathered two miner partners—he trotted endlessly up to the field, he talked, as he had never talked before, with inumerable colliers. ”

“ The trust would be free to continue selling at a loss; but Higginson & Company would be enabled to leave their timber growing in the forest until prices should reach normal again.
As Mr. Higginson's whole fortune was in the business, his income was now next to nothing; but Halloran believed he could hold out six months or so longer. On the other hand, he did not think Bigelow could last so long at the head of a losing venture. Indeed, if for one moment of those tense days he had lost his belief that Bigelow could be beaten, Halloran would have dropped out of this story on this page. ”

“ Whenever he'd hear of a man that had been offered a big price for his land and was going to sell out and move into town, he'd go and labor with him and try to talk him out of it, and tell him how long his fifteen or twenty thousand would last him to live on, and shake the Standard Oil Company before him, and try to make him believe it wouldn't be five years before the Standard owned the whole region. ”

“ She sat down again, that she might talk more at her ease, and seemed thoroughly happy to have Don Ippolito before her again.
“It finally appeared best, madama,” he said quietly, after a quick, keen glance at Florida, who did not lift her veil.
“Well, perhaps you’re partly right. But I can’t help thinking that you with your talent would have succeeded in America. Inventors do get on there, in the most surprising way. There’s the Screw Company of Providence. It’s such a simple thing; and now the shares are worth eight hundred. Are you well to-day, Don Ippolito?” ”

“ There are other strange things recorded of the fresh-water polypes, as that different individuals can be grafted together without the slightest inconvenience to any of the parties, the joint-stock company of course being limited. ”

“ There the possible profit is the very object of the contract, and is necessarily in the contemplation of the parties. But when a machinist furnishes machinery to a mill-owner it is no part of his engagement that a profitable business shall be carried on with the machinery furnished. Of course, if it is defective, he is responsible for the damage resulting directly from such defect; but that is a very different thing from the uncertain, remote, and speculative profits, which may or may not be made in the business to be done.' In Manufacturing Co. ”

“ Nat. C. Goodwin & Company decided to "try it on" direct with mining-stock speculators by appealing to them through the advertising columns of the newspapers, asking them to purchase the stock on the New York Curb through their own brokers. Also, Hayden, Stone & Company, the Boston and New York banking firm, were induced to agree to raise $1,000,000 for the company for railroad and mill purposes, if their engineer would report favorably. ”

“ Another variation is made in the course of the business, in favor of the Memphis jobbers, to the following effect: Any jobber in Memphis who is a recognized customer of the complainant can, without any previous written contract, or other special agreement, make out a specification of the goods he desires, and hand this, in duplicate form, to the Patterson Transfer Company. ”

“ New Freighters had perhaps been overrated; and booming suburban real estate was discovering unexpected inertia where abnormal growth had been gambled on. But the most disturbing element was the lumber fight. That Higginson & Company could not only hold out until the meeting, but could actually get the better of the Trust, had not been foreseen. Questions would be asked at this meeting: there might even be some tension. And so it was that Mr. Bigelow was not joking much nowadays. And so it was that Mr. Babcock took his grip from behind the door and went to Wauchung. ”

“ Development work and production had never ceased for a day. Besides, when the Rawhide camp was still in its swaddling-clothes, I had originally purchased the controlling interest for Nat. C. Goodwin & Company at a valuation of $700,000 for the mine.
The control of Ely Central had been taken over by B. H. Scheftels & Company and paid for at a valuation well in excess of a million dollars for the property, and upward of $200,000 had been spent in mine development during the fourteen months of the Scheftels quasi-control. Jumbo Extension was a famous producer of Goldfield. ”

“ There has never been a strike by men working under this system, although it has been applied at the Midvale Steel Works for the past ten years; and the steel business has proved during this period the most fruitful field for labor organizations and strikes. And this notwithstanding the fact that the Midvale Company has never prevented its men from joining any labor organization. All of the best men in the company saw clearly that the success of a labor organization meant the lowering of their wages in order that the inferior men might earn more, and, of course, could not be persuaded to join. ”

“ The office into which he was conducted was a portion of a large and very handsome showroom in the West End of London, screened from general observation by a wood-and-glass erection, which formed a separate room, in which was seated the manager of the firm of H. & E. Quinion, so well known for their famous Metal Works in the Midlands, but whose chief transactions were carried on by means of their London and Sydney houses.
Mr. Houghton, who rose on the entry of his visitor, was a tall portly specimen of the English gentleman. ”

“ But what I didn't realize till we got these memos was that the areas covered by Mori's companies exactly dovetail with MITI's goals. I probably wouldn't have noticed it without her sorting. Mixed in with all the other companies Noda's buying, he's targeted those that fill the gaps in MlTI's semiconductor push."
Jack looked at us quizzically. "Are you telling me MITI's behind Noda's program?"
That's where Tam and I parted company. She argued it was obviously a MITI play: why start from scratch when you can just buy what you need? Sound business investment. ”

“ While some of the produce and fruit is processed, much of it is sold in the condition in which it is received. The corporation owns all of its merchandise and makes its own deliveries. It makes no sales on commission nor on order with shipments direct from the dealer or producer to the retail purchaser.' (25 A.2d 214, 215.) Higgins' employment involved work as night shipper putting up orders and loading trucks for delivery to retail dealers in Maine or driving a truck distributing merchandise to the local trade. ”

“ The poor invalid heard every clack and every vibration. She could never get over her nervous apprehension of an invasion. Every morning alike, she felt an invasion of some enemy was breaking in on her. And all day long the low, steady rumble of sewing-machines overhead seemed like the low drumming of a bombardment upon her weak heart. To make matters worse, James Houghton decided that he must have his sewing-machines driven by some extra-human force. He installed another plant of machinery—acetylene or some such contrivance—which was intended to drive all the little machines from one big belt. ”

“ It's so magnificent that now it's inevitable for every factory of every kind all over this country.
GIBSON: All over the country?
MIFFLIN: Not only all over this country! The world must do it. Ah, they've done it in a country larger than this already! And these comrades right here are showing our country what it means. I don't begrudge you some credit for having begun it, Mr. Gibson. But you only anticipated what all owners everywhere are going to have to do before the workmen simply take the factories. They're going to take them because they have the inherent right ”

“ Notes on Newspapers (vol. iii., p. 164.) .—John Houghton, the editor of the periodical noticed by your correspondent, A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, was one of those meritorious men who well deserve commemoration, though his name is not to be found in any biography that I am acquainted with. He was an apothecary, and became a dealer in tea, coffee, and chocolate. He was in politics a loyalist, or Tory, and was admitted a member of the Royal Society in 1679-80. He began to publish his Letters on Husbandry and Trade in 1681. No. 1. ”

“ Mr. Gaffney asserted that politics had nothing to do with the obtaining of the contract and that his company “had [314] bid with other contractors and won out,” but politicians did not take this statement seriously. In February, 1907, the New York Contracting and Trucking Company surrendered its contract for a consideration of $500,000 to another company, the Holbrook, Cabot & Daly Company, which had previously done much of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad’s construction work. ”

“ Further, Houghton unconsciously proceeds to bring out several incidents which show the exorbitant profits Girard made from his various business activities. In the spring of 1813, one of his ships was captured by a British cruiser at the mouth of the Delaware. Fearing that his prize would be recaptured by an American [Pg 88] war ship if he sent her into port, the English Admiral notified Girard that he would ransom the ship for $180,000 in coin. Girard paid the money; and, even after paying that sum, the cargo of silks, nankeens and teas yielded him a profit of half a million dollars. ”

“ They also formed a syndicate to carry out their plan, with the agreement that the money subscribed by the members should be used for the purchase and the sale to a new corporation, at a large advance, and that the members, in the proportion of their subscriptions, should receive in cash or in stock of the new corporation the profit made by the sale. On May 28, 1895, Bigelow paid Simpson's executors for their stock on behalf of the syndicate, in cash and notes of himself and Lewisohn, and in June Keyser was paid in the same way. ”

“ What d'you mean by the infinite? Some business deal?"
"You guessed it first time, old man. Business deal it is, and damned big business at that. Why, there's an initial payment of a hundred thousand dollars cash involved," he added casually.
"Handling it yourself?" Marshall Houghton's voice was eager.
"Good Lord, no," Macdonald replied quite truthfully. "A syndicate is backing me up."
And he rose and left the room.
That evening, in his home on Seventh Avenue, Marshall Houghton communicated the news to his father. That conscientious financier smiled a heavily auriferous smile. ”

“ They further represented to him that, for the better management of the property, they proposed to organize a stock company, and to that end they had secured the other half interest in the Johnston claim; and that the defendants were then associated together, and had agreed to organize a stock company for that purpose, and that the Fulton Mining Company was shortly thereafter incorporated by them. ”

“ It was averred that the Patterson Transfer Company, in fulfilling its obligations under the contract, was in no sense a merchant, but only a carrier, and that the steel company, in storing and delivering its goods at Memphis, was not a merchant in Memphis, but was simply a manufacturer, delivering in the original packages goods made in other states to the persons who had bought them. ”

“ The defendant in error, Joe Higdon, doing business under the name of the Crescent Coal Company, brought suit in the Henderson circuit court, of Kentucky, to recover damages for alleged loss because of the failure of the railroad company to furnish him with cars at the Keystone Mining & Manufacturing Company's mine at Henderson, Kentucky, with which to perform certain contracts which he had made, and which he was prevented from fulfilling by the refusal of the railroad company. ”

“ The truest thing that was ever said of him was said by William Edward Forster at the Cosmopolitan Club one night, when Houghton was leaving it. Someone said, referring to Houghton, "He's a good man to trust when you're in trouble, for he'll stand by you." "He'll do more than that," responded Forster; "he'll stand by a man not only in trouble but in disgrace, and I know nobody else who will." This was where the finer trait in Houghton's independence of character came in. ”

“ Of the stock in the petitioner, received by Bigelow and Lewisohn or their Baltimore corporation, 40,000 shares went to the syndicate as profit, and the members had their choice of receiving a like additional number of shares or the repayment of their original subscription. As pretty nearly all took the stock, the syndicate received about 80,000 shares. The remaining 20,000 of the stock paid to the Baltimore company, Bigelow and Lewisohn divided, the plaintiff believes, without the knowledge of the syndicate. ”