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NO 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

NO 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 lfet 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