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THIS story is not a warning. It outlines the life of a man belonging to a class against whom there has been much clamor in this country during the last few years. He is a capitalist. According to the teaching of the reformers he is a non-producer, a man who lives by the labor of others, and therefore an oppressor of those whose toil has given him his wealth. It is indeed true that he has never worked with his own hands since the time when, in his early boyhood, he engaged in catching fish for the markets of his native town. Pursuing this industry for a few weeks, he found himself possessed of an accumulation of small silver coins amounting to about twentyfive dollars. The money was for some reason put aside, and is still preserved by his children. "This," he once said to me, "is the first and last money that I ever earned by my own manual labor." His home is on one of the great peninsulas of our Atlantic coast, at the head of navigation on a small river which permits the passage of vessels of a thousand tons burden. He is fifty-six years old, and still lives on the spot where he was born. His early education was inconsiderable in extent, and so unsystematic that it did not even give him an idea of the methods by which knowledge might be acquired. When he was married he could read but very imperfectly; but his

young wife insisted upon his taking a daily newspaper, and then with affectionate firmness required him to read it through each evening. At first there was much that he did not understand, but he learned the art of wise and stimulating inquiry, and so drew from those about him whatever knowledge they possessed. This habit still gives his conversation a remarkable interest and vitality. He appears to have been able to carry unanswered questions in his mind for any length of time, until some new source of information was revealed.

He was left an orphan when about seventeen years of age, and the next year entered upon the life of a man of business. His father had been the proprietor of a country store with a trade of about forty thousand dollars a year. After his death two of his brothers, who settled the affairs of his estate, decided to continue the business, admitting their nephew, our young friend, to a partnership with them. He received from the estate of his father about fifteen hundred dollars. The affairs of a country store at that time embraced the sale of everything the people of the region needed for use, and the purchase of everything they wished to sell. There was not yet any separation of the different lines or departments of trade, such as dry goods, groceries, hardware, clothing,

millinery, etc., but articles belonging to all these classes, and many others, were sold at the same place, which also afforded a market for whatever was produced or manufactured in the surrounding country. The store was the great vital centre for the life of the region, for the reception and distribution of everything. There the farmers bought their plows, harness, shovels, hoes and scythes, hats and shoes (most of their clothing was manufactured at home in those days), and there they sold their wheat and corn, bacon, hay, and other productions of their farms. Thither their wives and daughters carried young fowls, eggs and butter, and home-made cloth, and took away in return calicoes, muslin de laines, bonnets, ribbons, combs, and needles. Here the wood-cutters bought their axes; the handles were generally made by somebody possessing uncommon dexterity in this particular manufacture, and brought to the store for sale. (There are very few men who can make a good axe-handle; not so many, probably, as write poetry for the magazines.) The plans for new undertakings and enterprises were generally discussed and arranged at the store, and it had important relations to the social life of the people. There were opportunities for a genuine and useful education in such a place, and our young friend entered with hearty interest upon his new course of life.

He soon came to have a large share in the organization, direction, and management of the business, and in a few years became its real head. He was always a close observer of men, and of the effect upon them of their circumstances and occupation. He early became convinced that the interests of a community or country are advanced by increasing the number of employers, of men who direct and pay for the labor of others. He observed that many men lack capacity for the wise direction and organization of their own labor, while they are highly useful and successful when working for a competent employer. Others possess qualities of mind and character which fit them to be leaders or

masters of the industry of others. When our friend saw these qualities in the men around him, he felt a strong desire that they should have means and opportunities for their development and practical application in some suitable sphere of action. As his business increased and brought him facilities for extending it in new directions, he began to confer with some of the young men of the neighborhood in regard to their employment and wages. Most of them worked by the day, at cutting and hauling wood, burning charcoal, and similar occupations, but there was not yet in the region any systematic industry which afforded regular or profitable occupation to the people. Men were often idle for weeks together. The country needed men to employ and lead the labor of their neighbors.

So our friend said one day to a young married man who lived near him, "You are making shoes, I believe?"

66 'Yes, when anybody wants them, and I can get money to buy stock."

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Why, do you think I could get work enough?

"Well, there are a good many people about here that wear shoes. How much are you making now?"

"Oh, perhaps a dollar and a half a day, when I have work."

"Well, there is that little house of mine on the corner. You can have that free of rent, and I will let you have money to buy stock. I will insure you your dollar and a half a day; you shall pay me interest at the legal rate for the money you have from me, and we will divide the profits equally."

The shoe shop was opened, and was successful. It was enlarged in a year or two, and for many years gave steady and profitable employment to a considerable number of men.

By arrangements essentially similar

our friend formed partnerships, during the first twenty-five years of his business life, with harness- makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, tinsmiths, lumbermen, lime-burners, oystermen, farmers, and manufacturers. He has had scores of such partnerships with wood-cutters and charcoal-burners. In the same way he has supplied means for building and operating numerous flouring and saw mills, using both steam and water power. He has owned farms and timber lands in South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio, with stores in each region to supply his farmers and the laborers at his mills. Thousands of men have been employed in connection with these enterprises, and hundreds of them enabled to become in their turn employers and organizers of labor. In many instances men have worked for our friend, and with him, during a term longer than that of an average life-time. Almost always the relations of employer and laborer, and of business partnership, have passed into those of personal friendship; and when, as has often occurred, men have wished to leave him to go into business for themselves, he has felt a genuine interest in their undertakings, and done what he could to promote their success. Those who have worked for him longest say that he never employs a man merely for what he can get out of him.

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Many years ago he took a young carpenter into partnership, and engaged in ship-building. The oyster fisheries along the coast near him are of great excellence, and furnish employment for thousands of men with their vessels. many of these boats, constructed in his ship-yard, our friend retains a share in the ownership, and this relation with the fishermen has promoted steadiness, industry, and sobriety among them in a marked degree. The larger vessels, of from eight hundred to a thousand tons burden, built under his supervision, are known in every sea for the superiority of all the materials used in their construction, and the careful honesty of the work. Many of these he owns in part.

The first carts that were ever taken

across the mountains from Acapulco to Oaxaca were made in our friend's shops, and sent out to an acquaintance who had a building contract in the latter city. They were objects of great interest to the native workmen, who were eager to be permitted to use them in transporting the stone and other building materials which they had been carrying. A dozen mules were harnessed, and with some difficulty fastened to the " new carriages." When the first cart, drawn by a rather diminutive mule, was brought to the place where it was to be loaded, the laborers swarmed around it, and piled so much stone into the rear of the vehicle that it tipped over backward and lifted the astonished mule into the air, where it hung and struggled until the removal of the stone restored it to its normal position on the ground.

Some fifteen years ago our friend became desirous of finding some means for preserving and utilizing the enormous quantities of fruit produced in the region in which he lives. He erected a large building and put in the necessary machinery for canning fruit, and this has ever since, during the season for the business, afforded employment to about one hundred women and more than half as many men. The principal products canned are peaches and tomatoes, and of these many millions of pounds have been used, and the goods are known in all the markets of the world. This is an industry which produces and stimulates many others.

The little straggling hamlet in which the young man began his business life has become a handsome and important town, with seven or eight thousand inhabitants, most of them operatives employed in manufacturing industries, — in the production of glass, iron, cotton and woolen goods, shoes, buttons, chemicals, etc. There is probably not one of these industries which was not in some way aided by our friend in the earlier stages of its growth. For many years there were but few men engaged in business of any kind in the town who had not been employed by him, or associated with him in such relations as I have described.