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changing needs of humanity if you would succeed in life?
Apply yourselves, all you Christian people, as manufacturers
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or merchants or workmen to supply that human need. It is a
great principle as broad as humanity and as deep as the
Scripture itself.
The best illustration I ever heard was of John Jacob
Astor. You know that he made the money of the Astor family
when he lived in New York. He came across the sea in debt for
his fare. But that poor boy with nothing in his pocket made
the fortune of the Astor family on one principle. Some young
man here tonight will say, ``Well they could make those
fortunes over in New York but they could not do it in
Philadelphia!'' My friends, did you ever read that wonderful
book of Riis (his memory is sweet to us because of his recent
death), wherein is given his statistical account of the records
taken in 1889 of 107 millionaires of New York. If you read the
account you will see that out of the 107 millionaires only
seven made their money in New York. Out of the 107
millionaires worth ten million dollars in real estate then, 67 of
them made their money in towns of less than 3,500
inhabitants. The richest man in this country today, if you read
the real estate values, has never moved away from a town of
3,500 inhabitants. It makes not so much difference where you
are as who you are. But if you cannot get rich in Philadelphia
you certainly cannot do it in New York.
Now John Jacob Astor illustrated what can be done
anywhere. He had a mortgage once on a millinery store, and
they could not sell bonnets enough to pay the interest on his
money. So he foreclosed that mortgage, took possession of the
store, and went into partnership with the very same people, in
the same store, with the same capital. He did not give them a
dollar of capital. They had to sell goods to get any money.
Then he left them alone in the store just as they had been
before, and he went out and sat down on a bench in the park
in the shade. What was John Jacob Astor doing out there, and
in partnership with people who had failed on his own hands?
He had the most important and, to my mind, the most
pleasant part of that partnership on his hands. For as John
Jacob Astor sat on that bench he was watching the ladies as
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they went by; and where is the man who would not get rich at
that business? As he sat on the bench if a lady passed him
with her shoulders back and head up, and looked straight to
the front, as if she did not care if all the world did gaze on her,
then he studied her bonnet, and by the time it was out of sight
he knew the shape of the frame, the color of the trimmings,
and the crinklings in the feather. I sometimes try to describe a
bonnet, but not always. I would not try to describe a modern
bonnet. Where is the man that could describe one? This
aggregation of all sorts of driftwood stuck on the back of the
head, or the side of the neck, like a rooster with only one tail
feather left. But in John Jacob Astor's day there was some art
about the millinery business, and he went to the millinery
store and said to them: ``Now put into the show window just
such a bonnet as I describe to you, because I have already
seen a lady who likes such a bonnet. Don't make up any more
until I come back.'' Then he went out and sat down again, and
another lady passed him of a different form, of different
complexion, with a different shape and color of bonnet. ``Now,''
said he, ``put such a bonnet as that in the show window.'' He
did not fill his show window up town with a lot of hats and
bonnets to drive people away, and then sit on the back stairs
and bawl because people went to Wanamaker's to trade. He
did not have a hat or a bonnet in that show window but what
some lady liked before it was made up. The tide of custom
began immediately to turn in, and that has been the
foundation of the greatest store in New York in that line, and
still exists as one of three stores. Its fortune was made by
John Jacob Astor after they had failed in business, not by
giving them any more money, but by finding out what the
ladies liked for bonnets before they wasted any material in
making them up. I tell you if a man could foresee the millinery
business he could foresee anything under heaven!
Suppose I were to go through this audience tonight and
ask you in this great manufacturing city if there are not
opportunities to get rich in manufacturing. ``Oh yes,'' some
young man says, ``there are opportunities here still if you
build with some trust and if you have two or three millions of
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dollars to begin with as capital.'' Young man, the history of the
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