The American Employer A MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF THE BUSINESS Since the publication of our last number, death has taken from us one of the ablest of the contributors to this magazine— Mr. Henry Tarleton Wills, of New York, a gentleman of the old school, accomplished, cultured, broadly experienced and a man of charming personality. He was the author of the articles entitled "The Underwood Tariff Bill vs. Labor", that appeared in our July, 1913, number, and "The Movement for Reform in Tariff Making", in our issue of last February. From 1877 to 1890, Mr. Wills was actively engaged in trade, both import and export, with all parts of the world, in association with his father. They were not only shipowners, but had branch houses in London, Calcutta and Australia, agencies in Africa, South America, China and the East, and a fleet of ships on the Mediterranean. During these years it was found expedient for him to visit periodically the remote business centers as well as the European markets for the purpose of buying and selling, familiarizing himself with the customs, conditions and requirements and of learning where his competitors were particularly active. Several years' residence in London initiated him into those methods employed by British manufacturers that had resulted in placing that nation far ahead of any other in export trade. On his return he was considered an authority on foreign trade matters and made his first appearance as a tariff expert in No. 11 1890 at the hearings that preceded the making of the McKinley bill. Then followed many years abroad, in Mexico and the West Indies, South America and European centers, and in those years much time was given to the study of industrial and trade conditions. In 1905 he began an exceptional tour of the world in which no country was to be left unvisited and time was in no way to be considered. Five years were spent in serious investigations, the reports of which were published in consular reports, commercial and other journals, magazines and trade papers, both at home and abroad. Everything leading to the development of the export trade of the United States was carefully studied and as far as possible given to the public. In 1909, he returned from Belgium to take the Secretaryship of the National Tariff Commission Association and occuру himself primarily in the field work necessary to organize that body and make its objects clear to the leading business interests of the country, particularly as represented by chambers of commerce, boards of trade and specialized trade organizations. In this work he was conspicuously successful. The Association, which was formed for the purpose of procuring a congressional enactment creating a permanent, non-partisan tariff commission to take the subject out of politics and deal with it on scientific principles, soon became one of the most prominent of the instrumentalities organized for governmental reform. Of this Association he remained Secretary to the time of his death. He was also the author of an important work on "Scientific Tariff Making," published by the Blanchard Press, New York, in August, 1913. In 1911, he was requested to undertake the organization of what afterwards became known as the American Manufacturers' Export Association and was its Secretary for several years. This is the association of which the Hon. William C. Redfield, the present Secretary of Commerce, was President at the time of his appointment to the Cabinet. Mr. Wills was also a member of the Royal Society of London, England, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America and the Merchants' Association of New York, and, it having become evident to him that expert opinion and advice were essential to manufacturers desiring to enter the export field, had only a few months before his death opened a bureau in New York for the purpose of placing his knowledge and experience at their disposal. He left surviving him his wife, formerly Miss Flora Macdonald, who, he was fond of saying, possesses many of the traits of her famous namesake. His is a loss that will be felt by great interests; his death will be mourned by a host of friends. Charles W. Post Elsewhere in this number we reprint from The Square Deal, of Battle Creek, Michigan, an appreciation, by its editor, Mr. Joseph W. Bryce, of the late Charles W. Post, "the real man", whose untimely death an eminent publicist has called a national calamity. Perhaps no one with whom Mr. Post was associated in his manifold affairs is better qualified to describe him as a real man than Mr. Bryce. Mr. Bryce was his friend. He knew him well and understood him. He tells of his character and personality, the greatness and purity of his ideals, his kindliness, faith and charity. But there is a lesson also to be learned from his courage under an awful handicap of ill health, and from what was accomplished by him in the course of his remarkable career, that is well worth considering. He was born in 1854 and came of New England stock. His mother was a Lathrop, of Connecticut, his father a native of Vermont. Mr. Charles W. Post himself was born in Springfield, Illinois, where his grandfather had located when his father was but eight years of age, and which at the time of Mr. Post's birth was a little country town with muddy roads for streets. Lincoln lived there then, "Uncle Abe", as he was known to the boys, and Lincoln and his father were friends. In 1869 he entered the University of Illinois, and took the mili*tary course. He remained, however, only two years. During the Chicago fire, in 1871, while still a boy, he served under General Phil Sheridan when the city was under martial law. His father had joined the rush to the California gold fields in '49, and, on his return to Springfield, had become a successful merchant of the town. Still more enterprising, the son went to the frontier soon after the great fire, when Indians and buffalo herds still roamed the prairies. At 18 he made a start in the hardware business, but before long sold out and traveled for an agricultural implement concern, covering a number of western states. Afterwards he became manager of an implement factory in Kansas City, and later returned to Springfield, and, with some capitalists there, started the Springfield Plow Works. During this period came the first breakdown in his health from overwork. First he went to California with a corporation of railroad managers interested in exploiting and selling land. Then the doctors sent him to Texas for an outdoor life on the ranges. There he bought a broncho and herded cattle. But now there was time for dreams. He dreamed of a splendid model city on the Texas uplands-a dream that he was partly to realize, years afterward, when he bought a 204,000-acre ranch in Garza County, about 250 miles from Fort Worth. On a section of this land, when the county was organized, he located what the inhabitants named Post City, the county seat. In this town he built model homes, a big hotel, stores, factories and cotton mills, installed a modern water system and secured connection with a railroad that will eventually be built through to the coast. Twenty-six miles of streets were laid out and bordered with trees. His ill health having continued during his first stay in Texas, he soon left and spent some time traveling abroad. Eventually, finding it necessary to go to a sanitarium, he chose one at Battle Creek. In the early 90's he bought the old Beardsley home, then well out in the country, on Marshall street. When at the sanitarium, says Francis Bellamy, in his "Little Advertising Stories", "they took him out on a stretcher to die. He insisted otherwise and went into the cure business himself. He ran his head into medicine and pathology. He developed theories of dietetics. Then, as his health returned, he started a little sanitarium of his own-right in Battle Creekwhere he treated broken-down men by what he had learned of 'suggestive therapy', and let them drink his postum. This he made in the little barn. When his restored patients left him, he sent them packages of it. Presently the barn business of making postum eclipsed his sanitarium business. He had made a commercial discovery. His precise imagination told him it was big, biggest money-for had he not discovered a product of genuine value adapted to a broad human need? Postum's brother, Grape- . Nuts, came along soon after, and its origin was similar. He went at it with patient energy, mastered chemistry, read medical works in batches, quizzed physicians endlessly, pottered at experiments until he found a formula that would stand exact and final analysis. Genuine, unimpeachable merit was the bottom asset of the group of new Postum Cereal factories that were assembling at the east end of Battle Creek." Besides the Postum Cereal Company, which was founded and owned by Mr. Post, he had developed much other property in Battle Creek. Among these were the Post Tavern, the Post Building, the Post Additions, the Battle Creek Paper Company, a modern model dairy farm, the Post Tavern Gardens, the Marjorie Block, Springfield Place, and extensive downtown real estate holdings in addition to those covered by the buildings named. Mr. Post was also active in the organization of the Central National Bank, and the Post Theater. The Post Additions were originally farm land. He laid it out in streets, built homes on it and sold them to workmen on an installment system at close to cost. The plan and property have been studied by a number of large manufacturers and civic workers in other places. The Post Building and the Post Tavern were erected in 1899. The Post Tavern especially became famous all over the country. Within the last two years, additions have been built to both of these buildings that have cost more than half a million dollars. The Tavern addition, the furniture for which was selected by Mr. Post personally, is considered as beautiful and elaborate as any American hotel. The Post theater was named in his honor, as he was active in organizing the company that built it. Springfield Place, located just west of the city, was another local project in which he invested heavily. Like the addition, this was merely farm land when he purchased it. Here not alone modern homes but factories were located, and a water and sewer system established, streets laid out, and gas mains and street car lines extended to reach it. To supply the Post Tavern with food products, he established the Post dairy farm out Goguac street, and the Post Tavern Gardens on West Main. He also bought a large fruit farm across the road from the Tavern Gardens. As the business of the Postum Company grew, buildings were steadily added. Among the more recent additions were those to provide for the manufacture of Instant Postum. It was generally known that Mr. Post was a strong partisan in labor matters, but his exact views were not always understood. For some years it was his practice to issue arguments on labor questions, which he published throughout the country at his own expense. None granted more readily than Mr. Post the right of labor to be considered in industrial matters. His opposition was strongly against violence, and and those who foster violence, through which means, he held, the equitable adjustments between labor and capital were made difficult, if not impossible. His ideals in the relations between labor and capital were best exemplified in his own works, where all grievances were fairly heard and adjusted, and men were paid bonuses for faithful service and encouraged to save and to become home-owners. "I don't believe in putting men under obligation to the boss," he often said, in reference to various "welfare" projects. "I believe in paying them good wages and in helping them to feel that they are men whose independence is equal to that of the boss." Mr. Post organized an association the membership of which included both employers and employes, pledged to a fair hearing and adjustment of all grievances. The strike, the lock-out, and all the violence that go in their train drew his especial hostility. The National Trades and Workers' Association developed a considerable membership throughout the country. It is said that on the retirement of Col. Roosevelt from the White House, he offered him the presidency of the association |