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229NO AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY The Failure of the Astor Family Proves This Beyond Doubt. Romantic Story of the Rise of This Great American Family and Its Fortune. Old Fur-Trading John Jacob Would Blush for His Dude Descendants Today. The wharves are rotting at Astoria. ONe steps cautiously on them. Moreover, one seems never to be able to escape from these wharves For the town is built above the tide land. In and out among the wooden piers and water surges, riffing and purling, and leaving a beautiful stain of green on the dank piles. Up above the tide lands rises an abrupt hill, with homes on it, and a church -- and a grave yard. There are pines there, of course. Where along the Oregon coast can one escape from these melancholy sentinels? The Columbia, strong and splendid, at this point really an arm of the sea, with green islands and reflective waters, "flows by, and sings an ancient song. No American can visit this place without feeling a peculiar interest in it. It is a part of the history of the development of the first colossal American fortune. America has been more celebrated because of its material success than for any other reason And among all successes, public or private, of the material sort, there has been nothing more remarkable than the accumulation of the Astor fortune. So it is but natural then when the average American visits Astoria, that he should sigh as he looks about the quaint little place, and moralizes on several things, including his own poverty. But the person with an imaginative mind is apt to view it with interest for a reason somewhat different. What he enjoys contemplating is the astonishing qualities for what may be called world-conquering, which distinguished John Jacob Astor, brother of a butcher, himself a German provincial, driven by penury to America, and beginning life as a peddler, with a pack on his back. THE HOUSE OF ASTOR. Its an old story, perhaps, but just as a means to an end let us consider the rise of John Jacob Astor. A boy named John Jacob Ashdoer left Baden more than a century ago with the equivalent of $3 in his pocket, and worked his way up the Rhine on a boat and on to the coast, spending his money to cross the German ocean. He left behind him a drunken and idle father and a stepmother of the proverbial type. In London John Jacob worked for his brother, who owned a piano factory, and by dint of almost cruel economy saved $75 in two years He also learned the English language in that time, and set out for America with the idea of making a fortune Now the making of a fortune appears to have been no small ambition with Ashdoer. It had large qualities about it, similar to the love of discovery which had actuated the explorers who one, two and three centuries before had made the new world theirs. John Jacob was a man of imagination. He was a provincial by birth, but a cosmopolite in commercial instincts For him the atlas was a familiar book. he realized the existence of other countries besides those with which he had a personal acquaintance Something of the same spirit that dominated the merchant princes of Genoa and Naples in the thirteenth century impelled him to picture such a vast thing as an international commerce It takes imagination to think of things like that A great poet, a great fighter or a great merchant is the result of a brain that can make such vastness his own intimate, casual thought When Ashdoer reached Baltimore he walked and rode by stage coach to New York He was in possession of seven flutes, which he desired to sell at a profit, and $25 in money He was hired by a Quaker to beat furs at $2 a week John Jacob, who was picturing an argosy plying between China and New York, beat his furs and dreamed his dreams. Then he was sent to Canada and over the northern part of New York state with a pack on his back exchanging knick knacks for furs He was also accumulating experience and practical ideas But not even the utmost economy could make his income match his necessities, and he was forced several times to apply to his brother Henry, who was a butcher in New York, for a loan Finally the brother made a proposition. "I will give you $500 outright," he said, "if you will promise not to ask me for any money as long as you live" John Jacob put the imaginary cargoes in those dream argosies and accepted the $500 JOHN'S BUSINESS HEAD With this $500 he opened a shop on New Duck, now Water street, and exhibited for sale pianos sent from his brother's factory in London. He also carried a general fur and skin business In the meantime he married His wife, Sarah Todd Astor, helped him prepare the furs for market, though her hands reaked with the nauseating smell In fact, she looked after the affairs of the shop to a large extent, while he passed his time in the interior of the country, where he bartered goods with Indians and whites for pelts This was where he applied the ideas accuulated in the employ of the frugal Quaker Astor, who could see the argosies growing, never lost his concentration on details A few beads of an attractive color would be given in exchange for a valuable pelt His tongue was persuasive He selected very bright beads He took everything into consideration in making a sale -- the distance he had brought the goods, the time it had taken him, the convenience to the, purchaser and the quality of the material He somtimes sold tea for $3 a pound, and whisky for $10 a quart He belived that a fair price was just the amount that the people would pay It is said that sometimes he got a braver skin for a few trinkets and would send the skin to London wehre it would sell for $4, that he would then reinvest in cutlery which he would retail on this side $40 Meanwhile the vast interior of the new world was as a book to him. The paths of the forests, the rivers and the lakes he had made his own. He had that disregard for distance which has been one of the peculiar qualities of the Americans, and which has enabled them to handle their enormous dominations with almost the same ease that is displayed by a denizen of France or Denmark His chief trading post was at Mackinae Mich and the mission fathers gathered there and all the wild, fascinating turbulent half civilization of the frontier Up here Astor used actually to charge people a percentage for the privilege of trading with him At last the time came when one of the ships he had dreamed of was actually his It ran between London and New York It was cheaper to own and run a vessel than it was to pay freight The vessels grew in number, and they ran to China Hut the best laid plans went aglee this time Another man had built faster ships, and they rounded the Horn from China bringing back the fresh tea of the new crop, and flooding the market before Astor's ships put into port A FUR MONOPOLY So he let that scheme go, and systematically started out to found a fur monopoly in the United States similar to that of the Hudson Bay company. He designed the formation of fur stations extending from St. Louis to the Pacific, and in 1811 founded the little town which bears his name, and which today broods upon its piers, growing old to the sound of the whispering water. The capital of the American Fur company was $1,000,000, all of which was furnished by Mr. Astor. Thomas Jefferson, seeing in it a development of the country's resources, indorsed the scheme. But the settlement was captured in 1812 by the British, and Astor lost much money and was forced to give up his plan Now, however, the law of compensation obtained The war, which had ruined his fur enterprise, made his tea valuable That which he had been obliged to store, and that which was still being brought from China in his easy-going vessels, became exceedingly valuable. For two years he sold ten at war prices He also bought government securities, making himself valuable to the distressed administration, and later on reaping 30 per cent profit. Then he bought real estate. He also sold it. The idea of not selling real property which now obtains in the Astor family is really a new thing, and shows them to be opportunists It would be folly to sell real estate in New York now But there was a time when it was not folly It was the owning of land, the assistance given to the government, and the rapid accumulation of millions that made his acceptance into society a foregone conclusion. It was very hard for people to forget that his brother was a butcher -- quite as hard as it would be for the present-day Astors to overlook a similar offense in any of their acquaintances But there had been a magnificence in his exploits, a sort of heroic quality in the way he had scoured the face of the continent for wealth -- a kind of Baranoff daring in the manner in which he had planted civilization down in the heart of the wilderness Mid continent and on the farthest rim of the new world were the marks of his energy Washington Irving gave this indomitable man his friendship This splendid restliness appealed to Fitz Green Halleck Under the influence of such friends Astor founded his great library. The civic enthusiasm which he felt, quite as much as a desire to make money, caused him to build the Astor house. Society could resist no longer this man who could lend money to an imperiled government, who could supply the needs of a metropolis, and who was as rich as a monarch. ASTOR GENEALOGY. The genealogy of the Astors is as follows: "Henry Astor, the butcher, died without issue, but John Jacob Astor, the furrier, left two sons. William Backhouse Astor and John Jacob Astor (II) The letter was of weak mind and was kept for many years, as some old New Yorkers will remember, in charge of an attendant in a house surrounded by high walls on Fourteenth street William Backhouse Astor inherited the bulk of the original fortune. He had three sons -- John Jacob (III), William and Henry -- named for his butcher uncle Henery married against the wishes of his family, and, though still living somewhere up the Hudson in comparative wealth was cut off with a relatively small slice of the family millions and is never taken into account when the Astor family is considered Upon his death William Astor devised his property in equal shares to his two favorable sons, John Jacob (III) and William. John Jacob, being the elder of the two, was the recognized leader of the family, and when he died, a few years ago, he was much the richer Astor, as William, though his fortune increased greatly during his life, gave much less attention to business than his elder brother. During the civil war John Jacob III, served for a time on the staff of General McClellan, and the title of colonel was his by right. He died in 1890, leaving one son. William Waldor, now in London. William Astor died in 1892, leaving one son, the present John Jacob, and two daughters, one of who is Mrs Coleman Drayton, whose husband is suing for divorce." All this makes up the most conspicuous chapter of American aristocracy extant But what has it all availed? It has not, it cannot, establish a family as families are established in the monarchial countries Lacking the law of Promogeniture, and of heriditary titles, the building of family that will endure for centuries is an impossibility In short, the American aristocracy is in the very nature of things ephemeral. One contemplates in the Astors the most preserving and practical efforts to create a family, sustained by wealth that might pay the ransom of a king. They have led the social world of the United States. Yet already there are signs of decay. Scandals of the most distressing sort have broken up the family harmony Quarrels that would have furnished an appropriate plot for a comic opera have made the family ridiculous And the family lives and thrives off that basic thing in wealth, "rent" -- that vast factor in the accumulation of private wealth which a small group of men in every county are regarding with eyes of fateful curiosity W. W YAWNED They have not been a particularly clever race of people, with the exception of William Waldorf Astor, who, perhaps, more than any one of his countrymen, has been emphatic in his lack of patriotism Mr Astor had no treasonable intentions in leaving America But he practically denied that it was a fit place to live in He was bored here He had the best that this country could offer in the way of luxury, society and prominence. And he yawned He even made other people yawn, by writing a book. Perhaps he hoped that the pleasant pit-a-pit of applause might arouse him to a new interest in life But it did not. He confessed himself sated with Americans by leaving the country and going where there were more worlds to conquer. That he was not conquered is not his fault It may be that he has failed because his intentions were too obvious He was almost brutal in his attacks upon British aristocracy, and it is not surprising that his assault was resented. There is a certain consolation in the fact that the Astor dynasty is, philosophically speaking a failure It shows that the great principles of our constitution will succeed in keeping this country democratic, even in spite of itself Whatever the inequalities of wealth and opportunity, this still remains the land where hereditary nobility is unattainable It still remains the country of individual achievement. For it is impossible to transmit a patent to fame, popularity or esteem. Money alone can be transmitted And that, eve, will not make or sustain an aristocracy It can only create a tawdry and evanescent plutocracy. IDEAL AND REAL. He was a reader of Shakespear, --Pharmaceutical Hrs. | 229NO AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY The Failure of the Astor Family Proves This Beyond Doubt. Romantic Story of the Rise of This Great American Family and Its Fortune. Old Fur-Trading John Jacob Would Blush for His Dude Descendants Today. The wharves are rotting at Astoria. ONe steps cautiously on them. Moreover, one seems never to be able to escape from these wharves For the town is built above the tide land. In and out among the wooden piers and water surges, riffing and purling, and leaving a beautiful stain of green on the dank piles. Up above the tide lands rises an abrupt hill, with homes on it, and a church -- and a grave yard. There are pines there, of course. Where along the Oregon coast can one escape from these melancholy sentinels? The Columbia, strong and splendid, at this point really an arm of the sea, with green islands and reflective waters, "flows by, and sings an ancient song. No American can visit this place without feeling a peculiar interest in it. It is a part of the history of the development of the first colossal American fortune. America has been more celebrated because of its material success than for any other reason And among all successes, public or private, of the material sort, there has been nothing more remarkable than the accumulation of the Astor fortune. So it is but natural then when the average American visits Astoria, that he should sigh as he looks about the quaint little place, and moralizes on several things, including his own poverty. But the person with an imaginative mind is apt to view it with interest for a reason somewhat different. What he enjoys contemplating is the astonishing qualities for what may be called world-conquering, which distinguished John Jacob Astor, brother of a butcher, himself a German provincial, driven by penury to America, and beginning life as a peddler, with a pack on his back. THE HOUSE OF ASTOR. Its an old story, perhaps, but just as a means to an end let us consider the rise of John Jacob Astor. A boy named John Jacob Ashdoer left Baden more than a century ago with the equivalent of $3 in his pocket, and worked his way up the Rhine on a boat and on to the coast, spending his money to cross the German ocean. He left behind him a drunken and idle father and a stepmother of the proverbial type. In London John Jacob worked for his brother, who owned a piano factory, and by dint of almost cruel economy saved $75 in two years He also learned the English language in that time, and set out for America with the idea of making a fortune Now the making of a fortune appears to have been no small ambition with Ashdoer. It had large qualities about it, similar to the love of discovery which had actuated the explorers who one, two and three centuries before had made the new world theirs. John Jacob was a man of imagination. He was a provincial by birth, but a cosmopolite in commercial instincts For him the atlas was a familiar book. he realized the existence of other countries besides those with which he had a personal acquaintance Something of the same spirit that dominated the merchant princes of Genoa and Naples in the thirteenth century impelled him to picture such a vast thing as an international commerce It takes imagination to think of things like that A great poet, a great fighter or a great merchant is the result of a brain that can make such vastness his own intimate, casual thought When Ashdoer reached Baltimore he walked and rode by stage coach to New York He was in possession of seven flutes, which he desired to sell at a profit, and $25 in money He was hired by a Quaker to beat furs at $2 a week John Jacob, who was picturing an argosy plying between China and New York, beat his furs and dreamed his dreams. Then he was sent to Canada and over the northern part of New York state with a pack on his back exchanging knick knacks for furs He was also accumulating experience and practical ideas But not even the utmost economy could make his income match his necessities, and he was forced several times to apply to his brother Henry, who was a butcher in New York, for a loan Finally the brother made a proposition. "I will give you $500 outright," he said, "if you will promise not to ask me for any money as long as you live" John Jacob put the imaginary cargoes in those dream argosies and accepted the $500 JOHN'S BUSINESS HEAD With this $500 he opened a shop on New Duck, now Water street, and exhibited for sale pianos sent from his brother's factory in London. He also carried a general fur and skin business In the meantime he married His wife, Sarah Todd Astor, helped him prepare the furs for market, though her hands reaked with the nauseating smell In fact, she looked after the affairs of the shop to a large extent, while he passed his time in the interior of the country, where he bartered goods with Indians and whites for pelts This was where he applied the ideas accuulated in the employ of the frugal Quaker Astor, who could see the argosies growing, never lost his concentration on details A few beads of an attractive color would be given in exchange for a valuable pelt His tongue was persuasive He selected very bright beads He took everything into consideration in making a sale -- the distance he had brought the goods, the time it had taken him, the convenience to the, purchaser and the quality of the material He somtimes sold tea for $3 a pound, and whisky for $10 a quart He belived that a fair price was just the amount that the people would pay It is said that sometimes he got a braver skin for a few trinkets and would send the skin to London wehre it would sell for $4, that he would then reinvest in cutlery which he would retail on this side $40 Meanwhile the vast interior of the new world was as a book to him. The paths of the forests, the rivers and the lakes he had made his own. He had that disregard for distance which has been one of the peculiar qualities of the Americans, and which has enabled them to handle their enormous dominations with almost the same ease that is displayed by a denizen of France or Denmark His chief trading post was at Mackinae Mich and the mission fathers gathered there and all the wild, fascinating turbulent half civilization of the frontier Up here Astor used actually to charge people a percentage for the privilege of trading with him At last the time came when one of the ships he had dreamed of was actually his It ran between London and New York It was cheaper to own and run a vessel than it was to pay freight The vessels grew in number, and they ran to China Hut the best laid plans went aglee this time Another man had built faster ships, and they rounded the Horn from China bringing back the fresh tea of the new crop, and flooding the market before Astor's ships put into port A FUR MONOPOLY So he let that scheme go, and systematically started out to found a fur monopoly in the United States similar to that of the Hudson Bay company. He designed the formation of fur stations extending from St. Louis to the Pacific, and in 1811 founded the little town which bears his name, and which today broods upon its piers, growing old to the sound of the whispering water. The capital of the American Fur company was $1,000,000, all of which was furnished by Mr. Astor. Thomas Jefferson, seeing in it a development of the country's resources, indorsed the scheme. But the settlement was captured in 1812 by the British, and Astor lost much money and was forced to give up his plan Now, however, the law of compensation obtained The war, which had ruined his fur enterprise, made his tea valuable That which he had been obliged to store, and that which was still being brought from China in his easy-going vessels, became exceedingly valuable. For two years he sold ten at war prices He also bought government securities, making himself valuable to the distressed administration, and later on reaping 30 per cent profit. Then he bought real estate. He also sold it. The idea of not selling real property which now obtains in the Astor family is really a new thing, and shows them to be opportunists It would be folly to sell real estate in New York now But there was a time when it was not folly It was the owning of land, the assistance given to the government, and the rapid accumulation of millions that made his acceptance into society a foregone conclusion. It was very hard for people to forget that his brother was a butcher -- quite as hard as it would be for the present-day Astors to overlook a similar offense in any of their acquaintances But there had been a magnificence in his exploits, a sort of heroic quality in the way he had scoured the face of the continent for wealth -- a kind of Baranoff daring in the manner in which he had planted civilization down in the heart of the wilderness Mid continent and on the farthest rim of the new world were the marks of his energy Washington Irving gave this indomitable man his friendship This splendid restliness appealed to Fitz Green Halleck Under the influence of such friends Astor founded his great library. The civic enthusiasm which he felt, quite as much as a desire to make money, caused him to build the Astor house. Society could resist no longer this man who could lend money to an imperiled government, who could supply the needs of a metropolis, and who was as rich as a monarch. ASTOR GENEALOGY. The genealogy of the Astors is as follows: "Henry Astor, the butcher, died without issue, but John Jacob Astor, the furrier, left two sons. William Backhouse Astor and John Jacob Astor (II) The letter was of weak mind and was kept for many years, as some old New Yorkers will remember, in charge of an attendant in a house surrounded by high walls on Fourteenth street William Backhouse Astor inherited the bulk of the original fortune. He had three sons -- John Jacob (III), William and Henry -- named for his butcher uncle Henery married against the wishes of his family, and, though still living somewhere up the Hudson in comparative wealth was cut off with a relatively small slice of the family millions and is never taken into account when the Astor family is considered Upon his death William Astor devised his property in equal shares to his two favorable sons, John Jacob (III) and William. John Jacob, being the elder of the two, was the recognized leader of the family, and when he died, a few years ago, he was much the richer Astor, as William, though his fortune increased greatly during his life, gave much less attention to business than his elder brother. During the civil war John Jacob III, served for a time on the staff of General McClellan, and the title of colonel was his by right. He died in 1890, leaving one son. William Waldor, now in London. William Astor died in 1892, leaving one son, the present John Jacob, and two daughters, one of who is Mrs Coleman Drayton, whose husband is suing for divorce." All this makes up the most conspicuous chapter of American aristocracy extant But what has it all availed? It has not, it cannot, establish a family as families are established in the monarchial countries Lacking the law of Promogeniture, and of heriditary titles, the building of family that will endure for centuries is an impossibility In short, the American aristocracy is in the very nature of things ephemeral. One contemplates in the Astors the most preserving and practical efforts to create a family, sustained by wealth that might pay the ransom of a king. They have led the social world of the United States. Yet already there are signs of decay. Scandals of the most distressing sort have broken up the family harmony Quarrels that would have furnished an appropriate plot for a comic opera have made the family ridiculous And the family lives and thrives off that basic thing in wealth, "rent" -- that vast factor in the accumulation of private wealth which a small group of men in every county are regarding with eyes of fateful curiosity W. W YAWNED They have not been a particularly clever race of people, with the exception of William Waldorf Astor, who, perhaps, more than any one of his countrymen, has been emphatic in his lack of patriotism Mr Astor had no treasonable intentions in leaving America But he practically denied that it was a fit place to live in He was bored here He had the best that this country could offer in the way of luxury, society and prominence. And he yawned He even made other people yawn, by writing a book. Perhaps he hoped that the pleasant pit-a-pit of applause might arouse him to a new interest in life But it did not. He confessed himself sated with Americans by leaving the country and going where there were more worlds to conquer. That he was not conquered is not his fault It may be that he has failed because his intentions were too obvious He was almost brutal in his attacks upon British aristocracy, and it is not surprising that his assault was resented. There is a certain consolation in the fact that the Astor dynasty is, philosophically speaking a failure It shows that the great principles of our constitution will succeed in keeping this country democratic, even in spite of itself Whatever the inequalities of wealth and opportunity, this still remains the land where hereditary nobility is unattainable It still remains the country of individual achievement. For it is impossible to transmit a patent to fame, popularity or esteem. Money alone can be transmitted And that, eve, will not make or sustain an aristocracy It can only create a tawdry and evanescent plutocracy. IDEAL AND REAL. He was a reader of Shakespear, --Pharmaceutical Hrs. |