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Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son: Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy." — John Shaqi

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Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son: Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy."

Name: Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son: Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy."
Author: Lorimer, George Horace

Lorimer, George Horace

Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Epistolary fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Men -- Conduct of life -- Fiction; Merchants -- Fiction; Social ethics -- Fiction

+----------------------------+
                  |           No. 2            |
                  +----------------------------+
                  |  From John Graham, at      |
                  |  the Union Stock Yards     |
                  |  in Chicago, to his son,   |
                  |  Pierrepont, at Harvard    |
                  |  University.               |
                  |                            |
                  |  Mr. Pierrepont's expense  |
                  |  account has just passed   |
                  |  under his father's eye,   |
                  |  and has furnished him     |
                  |  with a text for some      |
                  |  plain particularities.    |
                  +----------------------------+




                              II


                                             CHICAGO, May 4, 189-

_Dear Pierrepont:_ The cashier has just handed me your expense account
for the month, and it fairly makes a fellow hump-shouldered to look it
over. When I told you that I wished you to get a liberal education, I
didn't mean that I wanted to buy Cambridge. Of course the bills won't
break me, but they will break you unless you are very, very careful.

I have noticed for the last two years that your accounts have been
growing heavier every month, but I haven't seen any signs of your taking
honors to justify the increased operating expenses; and that is bad
business--a good deal like feeding his weight in corn to a scalawag
steer that won't fat up.

I haven't said anything about this before, as I trusted a good deal to
your native common-sense to keep you from making a fool of yourself in
the way that some of these young fellows who haven't had to work for it
do. But because I have sat tight, I don't want you to get it into your
head that the old man's rich, and that he can stand it, because he won't
stand it after you leave college. The sooner you adjust your spending to
what your earning capacity will be, the easier they will find it to live
together.

The only sure way that a man can get rich quick is to have it given to
him or to inherit it. You are not going to get rich that way--at least,
not until after you have proved your ability to hold a pretty important
position with the firm; and, of course, there is just one place from
which a man can start for that position with Graham & Co. It doesn't
make any difference whether he is the son of the old man or of the
cellar boss--that place is the bottom. And the bottom in the office end
of this business is a seat at the mailing-desk, with eight dollars every
Saturday night.

Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son: Being the Letters written by John Graham, Head of the House of Graham & Company, Pork-Packers in Chicago, familiarly known on 'Change as "Old Gorgon Graham," to his Son, Pierrepont, facetiously known to his intimates as "Piggy."

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