Up & Easy

FROM FARM BOY TO FINANCIER--Frank A. Vanderlip and Boyden Sparks--Appleton-Century ($3.50).

The memoirs of millionaires are usually characterized by a sunny inconsistency that gives the general effect of smugness. If the hero is presented as rising in the world he must also be shown overcoming difficulties, but unless his most serious problems are fully described, the difficulties must always seem minor, the defeats astonishingly unimportant. Thus, most volumes of this kind create the impression that the acquisition of millions is about as hard and heroic as falling off a log.

The most remarkable feature of the career of Frank Arthur Vanderlip, as recounted in From Farm Boy to Financier, is that his progress was so ludicrously easy, since he apparently met with fewer obstacles in his path to the presidency of "the biggest bank in the U. S." than most people encounter when catching a train.

Born in Aurora. Ill., in 1864, Vanderlip worked on his father's farm, earned his first $12 by caring for 36 calves one summer, was given one to sell. "I marvel today the way I spent that money . . . a six years' subscription to the New York Weekly Tribune with a premium of Webster's unabridged dictionary." Upon his father's death, he went to work in a machine shop, spent long hours reading, studied German, taught his shopmates algebra. In addition, he took a correspondence course in shorthand. At 21 he became city editor of the Aurora (Ill.) Evening Post. A few years later found him in Chicago, working for a firm of investment counselors, editing the financial section of the Chicago Tribune. With the failure of Moore Brothers in 1896, in a situation ripe for panic, he was able to prevent the news from being handled in a sensational manner, won the favorable attention of financiers. As an assistant secretary of the U. S. Treasury in McKinley's administration, his work in connection with Spanish-American War bond issues gained the notice of James Stillman, who made him a vice president of National City Bank of New York, selected him for its president in 1909 at a salary of $50,000 a year. He married happily, raised a family of six. became wealthy and serene.

Readers who had pictured Wall Street as the centre of deep antagonisms and dark conspiracies may be astonished to find it described by Vanderlip as almost pastoral, the abode of gay spirits whose deepest animosities could be dissipated by a hearty slap on the back and a few frank words. A cloud gathered at the panic of 1907, soon disappeared. "Oh, but we had a stern captain in 1907; it was during those days of strain that I discovered for myself what an admirable intelligence gleamed through the fierce eyes of J. Pierpont Morgan.'' More trouble threatened during the War. when National City plans for financing a French loan collided with the plans of the House of Morgan. A frank talk, a slap on the back and this misunderstanding was clarified. Only William Rockefeller, whose "velvety politeness . . . marked a character accustomed to work in darkness." revealed real staying-power as a Vanderlip enemy.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.