JOHN W. MACKAY.

 

            WHEN I heard the news of the death of Mr. Mackay I thought instinctively of the old Persian legend, and said to myself : "Had he died in a deep wilderness, as did the old king, all the lions in the forest would have assembled, the strongest and stateliest of them would have taken up their stations around him and held ward and watch until men came to bear the body away for sepulchre, for the instinct that a masterful soul had fled would have come to the forest and its sovereigns would have gathered to guard the dust which had been that soul's tabernacle."

            When the soul of Abraham Lincoln took its flight, the light shining back from it caused the children of men all around the world to stop in awe, and the men of his own race through their tears to see how dimmed had been their eyes, how feeble their comprehension of the man of sorrows who had been their President.

            But Mr. Mackay had been but an humble citizen. No official honors had any lure for him ; he had never sought any notoriety and to the world at large he went to his grave merely as one of the world's rich men, though the highest in the land, east and west, had besought him to accept a United States senatorship.

            Only a few of us who had found out his real nature know his sterling worth, the motives that guided his life, the real nature of his high soul, and the splendor of his character.

            He was five feet ten inches in height, weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds, his eyes were blue-gray, his hair brown, his complexion ruddy that ruddiness that comes where the warm air blowing across the Gulf stream keeps Erin perpetually green. I never saw him show anything like exultation over being rich, but once, and that was but a flash of his eyes. In the winter of 1876-7 the famine was sore in Ireland. I mentioned it in his presence one day. He said, 'Yes," but added : "There are a good many poor people right here, but

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you may thank God that none of them are either cold or hungry."

            We did not know the truth until later, and found it out then by accident. In the previous October all the southeast half of Virginia City was destroyed by fire, including the Con Cal Virginia and other hoisting works, offices, etc. In the crisis of the fire, when the miners were dynamiting the houses on the west side of D street, and filling the shafts to a depth of thirty feet to where the cages had been lowered, with bags of sand, and covering the floors of the hoisting works around the cages with sand two or three feet deep and Mr. Mackay was everywhere directing the work, a devout old Irish lady approached him and said : "Oh, Mr. Mackay, the church is on fire !" All the answer that he vouchsafed was, " D--n the church, we can build another if we can keep the fire from going down these shafts !"

            The old lady went away shocked, but next morning Mr. Mackay called upon Father later Bishop Monogue and said: 'There is a good deal of suffering here, Father. If I try to help personally I shall be caught by two or three grafters and then will be liable to insult some worthy men and women. I turn the business over to you and your lieutenants. Do it thoroughly, and when you need help draw upon me and keep drawing." In the next three months Father Monogue drew upon him for $150,000, and every draft was honored on sight, and the old Irish lady saw, besides, a church grow out of the embers of the old one, and it was larger and more beautiful than the one that had been destroyed.

            After Mr. Mackay made his first little fortune, he lost $300,000 in an Idaho mine. No one knew it but himself, but he told me long after that he lost that money just when he could not afford to do so, and, while he was counted rich, as riches were rated then, he was struggling under a heavy load. His firm was trying to get control of a mine that Mr. Sharon wanted the control of, and one day they clashed in the branch California bank of which Mr. Sharon was manager. Sharon was a small man, and all the last years of his life in delicate health. But he was hot tempered, and when angry did not

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care what he said. On this occasion he was standing behind the rail which shut off the public, and Mr. Mackay stood outside. The contrast between the men was most marked ; Sharon was small, pale and frail, Mackay in the flush of perfect manhood, erect, compact, alert and with the easy bearing of a wary tiger in captivity. The dispute grew sharper and sharper until at last Sharon told Mackay that if he did not go slow he would make him pack his blankets out of Virginia City. Mackay flushed red, his hands opening and shutting for an instant and then he controlled himself and in a husky voice and with the stammer which always came to him when angry, said : 'You will ? Very well, I will still have a mighty sight the best of you: I can do it."

            But some months later, as Mackay came down town one morning he met Billie Wood, one of the bank attorneys, who asked him how things were going with him. 'I must have $60,000 today or lose stocks which in three months would make me twenty times $60,000." "Come up to my office," said Wood, "and tell us about it." They went to the office, which was over the bank, where Sunderland, the partner of Wood, was. Wood explained to Sunderland the situation and Sunderland made a memorandum of the stock, and saying "Wait here a few minutes, Mackay," went out. He returned within ten minutes with a note and a check on the bank for a like amount, and, laying the two papers down, said, "Sign the note, Mr. Mackay, and at your convenience leave the stocks in the bank."

            Mackay glanced at the check and saw that it was the personal check of Sharon.

            "Did Sharon do this?" asked Mackay. "Yes, he was glad to do you the favor," replied Sunderland ; "and let me give you a little advice. You and Sharon are both too hot-tempered to quarrel with each other. When you both feel like fighting at the same time, separate and fight outsiders."

            But there was no more disposition on Mackay's part to fight Sharon, and when Sharon later was in real trouble, Mackay was as a brother to him.

            In his younger days, Mackay had much repute as an athlete and boxer. One day when the Bonanza was at its best.

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he asked R. M. Daggett and myself to go down in the mine with him. He sent the message by Colonel Obiston, who was then superintendent of the Gould and Curry one of the Bonanza firm's mines. He said to Obiston: "Those fellows up in the print shop think I get my money easy. I want to show them."

            We went down into the mine and began to explore it. But Daggett was fat and not much accustomed to exercise, and fifteen minutes of going up and down ladders and into hot drifts was enough for him. He found where an air pipe was supplying the mine with air, sat down in front of it and declared that he had no interest in examining mines that he did not own personally, and making $7,000 reports of them for nothing, especially for people who kept their mines as hot as that was. It must not be forgotten that in a hot summer day, after an hour's visit to a lower level of the Comstock, on ascending, as the cage emerges from the shaft the summer air strikes one like a plunge into a cold bath. On that day, after going the rounds, we were hoisted out of the mine and went to the dressing room to throw off the mining suits, bathe and resume our own clothing. When Mackay had thrown off the gray shirt he "put up his props" before Daggett, in challenge for a boxing match. Daggett cried out. 'Wait until I am ready, and

" I will lay on for Tusculum ;

Do thou lay on for Rome."

            But a moment later he said : "On second thought I decline. When I become excited I strike too terrible a blow, and you are poor and have a family to support."

            While in the mine that clay, Daggett asked Mr. Mackay how much money he had, and he replied : : 'I have twelve millions of dollars now and believe I have yet twenty-five years of good work in me." He died almost exactly twenty-five years later.

            But, speaking of his fondness for athletic sports, I suspect he was more responsible for the career of Jim Corbett than anyone else. After the Bonanza days, Corbett was a clerk in the

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Nevada bank in San Francisco. For exercise the clerks had fixed a little gymnasium in the basement of the bank. Mackay often went down to watch the young men in their exercise. He noticed the wonderful quickness and precision of Corbett.

            Many young Englishmen who went to San Francisco carried letters to Mr. Mackay. They were often fresh from Oxford or Cambridge, and their talk naturally drifted to athletics. Then Mackay would tell them that there was a boy in the bank who was right handy, and if they expressed any desire to meet him, he would be called from his work and go to the basement, and it was with grim humor that Mackay would watch Corbett "do them up."

            He had another kind of humor. One day the boys were down in the Con Virginia office fixing up a slate for candidates for city offices. While thus engaged, Mr. Mackay swung around in his chair and asked, "What are you going to do for Jasen Baldwin?' (Baldwin was bright and shrewd and winsome, but there was a loose pulley somewhere in his brain; he lacked application and thrift.)

            Colonel Osbiston replied that Baldwin wanted to run for constable, but he had no money. Then Mackay said : "Send him down here. I will give him $500. If we do not get him an office we will have to fix a place for him and he is not a first-class worker."

            Osbiston soon found him and said : ''Baldwin, why do you not run for constable?"

            ''Because I have not a cent to treat the boys," was the reply.

            "How much do you need?" asked Osbiston.

            "I need two hundred and fifty dollars," said Baldwin.

            "Well," said Osbiston, "go down and Mr. Mackay will give it to you."

            "Yes, he will : he will fire me out of the office," said Baldwin.

            "No, it will be all right. I know," said Osbiston.

            Baldwin thought it over and then went down, walked up to the rail and said to the secretarv : "Will you inform Mr.

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Mackay that Mr. Baldwin is here and would like a brief inter- view ?"

            He was shown in and said : "Mr. Mackay, I want to borrow two hundred and fifty dollars."

            'You want to borrow it? What is your security?" asked Mr. Mackay.

            "The security is a little thin, but there is no end of it," said Baldwin.

            "You would give your note, would you not?' asked the Bonanza king.

            "Oh, yes," said Baldwin.

            Mr. Mackay turned to his desk, made out a note, filled in a check and pushing both papers across to Baldwin, said : "Sign the note, Baldwin, and there is your money."

            Baldwin picked up a pen and signed the note, when Mackay said, 'Had you not better read that note before you sign it?"

            Baldwin held it up and read aloud : "On demand, for value received, I promise to pay to the order of John W. Mackay two hundred and fifty dollars with interest at the rate of five per cent per day until paid." Dropping the paper, he turned to Mackay and said : "Mr. Mackay, make it five hundred dollars, and put the interest at 10 per cent per minute!"

            In Bonanza days the men were paid in coin. A window was opened in. the secretary's office. Before it was a table on which there were several tills, such as are used in banks, and filled with twenty-dollar pieces, twenty in each column, making $400 as in all western banks, and a great heap of silver coins in the center of the table. As each miner came to the window and gave his name, a clerk would name the amount clue him. and another clerk would pay in gold and silver.

            One pay day, when this was going on, Mr. Mackay was sitting inside the rail in conversation with a San Francisco gentleman who had expressed a desire to see how the men were paid off.

            Looking up. Mr. Mackay saw an old Irish lady bending over the rail. He arose, went to her and heard her begin to say, "O Mr. Mackay, we are very poor- " then he broke away.

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went to the table, picked up three of the $400 rolls, returned and said low to her, "Hold up your apron." When she did, he dropped the money into it and said, "Go right away now, please. I am very busy."

            When the great actor, Adams, returned, dying, from Australia to San Francisco, he started out and went from theatre to theatre, trying to secure an engagement. But every manager saw how feeble he was, that he could not bear up under the strain of a single play, and put him off with one or another excuse. He returned to his room exhausted and almost broken-hearted. This was long before bonanza days and before any of the Bonanza firm was rich. Adams had been obliged to take to his bed immediately on reaching his room. As he lay there ill almost unto death and in despair, suddenly, without a knock, the door opened and Mr. Mackay entered softly. He greeted Adams cordially, talked hopefully to him, telling him that he knew that in a few days he would be his old self again, keeping up the talk for several minutes, when, rising, said he must go, but added : "Adams, you do not seem to be lying comfortably," and bending over him put one arm under his shoulders, raised him up, and, with the other hand, rearranged his pillows, then, laying him down, said he would see him again very soon and left the room. A little later, the colored man who was waiting on Adams asked to help him to a near-by lounge, that he might make his bed for the night. This was done, but when he turned the pillows back he said : 'Why, Mr. Adams, here's a letter." Adams opened it and read the following :

            "My Dear Adams : I have long owed you a great debt for the pleasure you have given me by your fine performances. I am sure you will not be offended if I begin to pay you in installments, of which I enclose the first one.

"Sincerely your friend,

"J. W. MACKAY."

            With the letter was a check for $2,000, and it was never known until McCullough, the actor, told it at a banquet in New York. And he added, the tears streaming down his cheeks

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as he spoke : "We found the letter under Adams' pillow when, a few weeks later, he died."

            The hardest trial that Mr. Mackay ever passed through in the business world, the one that most clearly revealed the tenacity of the man and made clearest his integrity of purpose, came to him after he thought his fortune was secure.

            When the founding of the Nevada Bank was being considered, Mr. Mackay had said, "Go ahead if you think best, but do not bother me with the business ; that is altogether out of my line, unless you get to advancing money on mining stocks, then I shall want to know what you are doing. The bank was started, also the branch bank in Virginia City. It will be remembered that in the winter and spring of 1884 or 1885, a series of great rains and floods swept the whole southern country from San Francisco and Los Angeles clear across the country to Galveston. The Southern Pacific railroad was the greatest sufferer from the storms. One morning in San Francisco Mr. Flood, president of the Nevada Bank, met Mr. Charles Crocker. They stopped on the sidewalk, but after a moment Flood said to Crocker : 'You seem to be cast down this morning. Anything special the matter?"

            Crocker replied: ''I am about ready to give up." Then he explained that the road was washed out in a hundred places ; that cars with costly merchandise were strung all the way from San Francisco to El Paso, and the amount of money needed to put the road in repair was appalling. "How much money is needed ?" asked Flood. I am afraid to say," was Crocker's reply.

            "The best way to meet trouble is to look it squarely in the face," said Flood. 'Tell me how much money you require."

            Crocker answered: "I think $5,000,000." '"Well," said Flood, "make out a note and have Governor Stanford sign it with you, and the bank will cash it."

            But the cashier of the bank, a young man, was furious about it. He declared that no bank had any right to loan $5,000,000 on any two men's signatures, no matter whom they might be.

            Some months later, Mr. Flood was confined by illness to

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his home in San Mateo, and the bank was left in charge of this same cashier.

            About the same time, unconscious of any trouble, Mackay sailed for Paris by London, to visit his family. Arriving in London he called at the bank which was the London correspondent of the Nevada Bank. He was shown into the president's room and after a few minutes' conversation, the president said : 'You are doing a heavy business in your San Francisco bank, are you not?'

            "Nothing unusual that I know of." was the reply. ''What leads you to such a conclusion?"

            "Why," said the president, "your bank's account is overdrawn with us more than $100,000."

            Mackay turned over private securities which he was holding in London, settled the overdraft, wired his wife that he was obliged to return to America, took the next steamer and hurried to San Francisco. A man had tried to corner the wheat market and had hypnotized this same cashier, and when Mr. Mackay reached San Francisco, he found that he had advanced this wheat cornerer more than $30,000,000. The ships carrying the grain were strung all the way from Port Costa to Liverpool, and wheat was falling in price. He said he did not know in that hour whether one cent of his fortune would be left or not, or whether he would not also be in debt.

            Sometime before Mr. Fair had withdrawn from the bank, but that morning he entered the bank, walked up to Mr. Mackay, and laying his hand upon his shoulder, said: I hear you are in some trouble, John. I sold a little railroad yesterday, and have $3,000,000 over in another bank. If it will do you any good, you are welcome to it."

            They worked out, but Flood and Mackay lost $12,000.000.

            Then Mr. Mackay said to Flood : "Don't be cast clown. We have lost a little money, but have a little left and we will get along." But Mr. Flood never rallied from it, and died a few months later.

            In face and hand and foot, Mackay showed that he came of gentle stock ; in natural bearing, he was imperious as a Caesar, with the walk of a trained soldier, but it was only in his

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bearing. As he mingled with men,, there was not one look or word or gesture that was not winsome, unless some base nature crossed him.

            Most men can bear misfortune. To toil and to be disappointed is so often the fate of men that it may be called the rule.

            But when the wealth of a kingdom comes suddenly to a man, then the manhood of the man is tried; then if aught of vanity or false pride or love of power or display attaches to him it comes at once to the surface, and its manifestation is a trial to witness.

            Mr. Mackay in youth started out with a fixed belief in the omnipotence of labor. He believed it was capital enough for any healthy man in this country. By nature he was impetuous, quick of temper; resolute, never asking odds, always aggressive, always borne up with a belief that he could fight his way through, trusting only in his own brain and the physical equipment which nature had given him.

            After years of incessant labor, and all the hardships which are inseparable from a miner's life, John W. Mackay awakened one morning to find himself twenty times a millionaire.

            He knew that mankind burned incense to success. He knew that if desired all honors in the political world were open to him ; that all social triumphs might be his ; but the thought that controlled him was that wealth in this world is a trust ; that the greater the wealth, the more exacting is the obligation to use it righteously.

            His former work had made him an "industrial king." He had laid his hands upon the desert mountains of Nevada and wrested from them vast treasures. His fortune was a creation ; so much added to the wealth of the world. Labor had been his trust always ; he continued to work. He next laid his hand upon the sea and stretched a cable beneath its storms and its surges, a living wire, a right arm for commerce, a link in the chain of peace. He supplemented this with a telegraph service that controlled a continent; could his life have been spared two years more, he would have completed a "girdle round about the earth" which would have realized

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Puck's dream. He wore the harness of toil until the moment that his final call came.

            Though brave enough to have led McDonald's charge at Wagram with unblanched face, he was sensitive as a woman ; he loved passionately music and works- of real art ; though through all his youth his days were absorbed in a rough and tumble fight with and against an iron fortune, he was perfectly at home in the society of great men and accomplished women- the unpretentious manhood of the man shone out everywhere.

            Gifted pens have told of his achievements, but none have or can give any clear idea of the man as he was ; the alert brain, the warm heart, the superb character that he bore ; the courage that no misfortune could daunt ; the soul so high that there was never room for one trace of false pride.

            His whole life was lined with unostentatious charities ; if every generous act of his life could be converted into a flower they would garland the mausoleum where he sleeps with a glory never seen around a death couch before ; if his impulses in life could have taken material form they would have fallen in benedictions upon every poor man's home, they would have steadied the hands of every high officer of our government, for love of his adopted country and solicitude for its welfare and glory were with him grand passions.

            Intense and strong as he was, after all his highest attribute was his affection for those he loved. He was never quite himself after the death by accident of his eldest son. As one after another of his old friends fell asleep, he grieved for them as for brothers dead.

            But he kept right on with his duties. He was always ready if summoned to his final account to say to the judgment angel, "I began with nothing. I gained many millions, but I kept my hands clean ; look at them in this clearer light and see if they carry one stain."

            The world has never seen a manlier man than John W. Mackay. If good deeds count for so much as a feather, if they took form beyond this life and became his pillow, his final couch is softer than down, and his last sleep is curtained in everlasting peace.