Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen | Page 7

could never exist.
Great as was Jefferson, he regarded the achievement of Lewis and Clarke as a feat and not an example. He looked upon the Rocky Mountains as a natural separation of peoples ``bound by ties of blood and mutual interest'' but otherwise unconnected. To pierce these mighty mountains with tunnels, and whisper across them with the human voice, were miracles unguessed. But Astor closed his eyes and saw pack-trains, mules laden with skins, winding across these mountains, and down to tide-water at Astoria. There his ships would be lying at the docks, ready to sail for the Far East. James J. Hill was yet to come.
A company was formed, and two expeditions set out for the mouth of the Columbia River, one by land and the other by sea.
The land expedition barely got through alive--it was a perilous undertaking, with accidents by flood and field and in the imminent deadly breech.
But the route by the water was feasible.
The town was founded and soon became a centre of commercial activity. Had Astor been on the ground to take personal charge, a city like Seattle would have bloomed and blossomed on the Pacific, fifty years ago. But power at Astoria was subdivided among several little men, who wore themselves out in a struggle for honors, and to see who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. John Jacob Astor was too far away to send a current of electricity through the vacuum of their minds, light up the recesses with reason, and shock them into sanity. Like those first settlers at Jamestown, the pioneers at Astoria saw only failure ahead, and that which we fear, we bring to pass. To settle a continent with men is almost as difficult as Nature's attempt to form a soil on a rocky surface.
There came a grand grab at Astoria and it was each for himself and the devil take the hindermost--it was a stampede.
System and order went by the board. The strongest stole the most, as usual, but all got a little. And England's gain in citizens was our loss.
Astor lost a million dollars by the venture. He smiled calmly and said, ``The plan was right, but my men were weak, that is all. The gateway to China will be from the northwest. My plans were correct. Time will vindicate my reasoning.''
When the block on Broadway, bounded by Vesey and Barclay Streets, was cleared of its plain two story houses, preparatory to building the Astor House, wise men shook their heads and said, ``It's too far uptown.''
But the free bus that met all boats solved the difficulty, and gave the cue to hotel men all over the world. The hotel that runs full is a gold mine. Hungry men feed, and the beautiful part about the hotel business is that the customers are hungry the next day--also thirsty. Astor was worth ten million, but he took a personal delight in sitting in the lobby of the Astor House and watching the dollars roll into this palace that his brain had planned. To have an idea--to watch it grow--to then work it out, and see it made manifest in concrete substance, this was his joy. The Astor House was a bigger hostelry in its day than the Waldorf-Astoria is now.
Astor was tall, thin, and commanding in appearance. He had only one hallucination, and that was that he spoke the English language. The accent he possessed at thirty was with him in all its pristine effulgence at eighty-five. ``Nopody vould know I vas a Cherman--aind't it?'' he used to say. He spoke French, a dash of Spanish and could parley in Choctaw, Ottawa, Mohawk and Huron. But they who speak several languages must not be expected to speak any one language well.
Yet when John Jacob wrote it was English without a flaw. In all of his dealings he was uniquely honorable and upright. He paid and he made others pay. His word was his bond. He was not charitable in the sense of indiscriminate giving. ``To give something for nothing is to weaken the giver,'' was one of his favorite sayings. That this attitude protected a miserly spirit, it is easy to say, but it is not wholly true. In his later years he carried with him a book containing a record of his possessions. This was his breviary. In it he took a very pardonable delight. He would visit a certain piece of property, and then turn to his book and see what it had cost him ten or twenty years before. To realize that his prophetic vision had been correct was to him a great source of satisfaction.
His habits were of the best. He went to bed at nine o'clock, and was up before six. At seven he was at his office. He