Of its president, Cyrus H. McCormick the Second, the first word to be said
is that he is not built on the same lines as his belligerent father. He
would fare badly, very likely, if he were in charge of a
catch-as-catch-can business, such as the reaper trade was thirty years
ago. The making of harvesters is, to him, half a duty--to his father, his
workmen, and the machine itself--and half a profession--not a battle nor a
game, as it was with the first Reaper Kings. He has no desire to play a
lone hand in the business world. And his painstaking purpose, as a man of
affairs, is to secure less speculation and more stability, less waste and
more organisation, less friction and more community of interest.
In all things he is a simple and serious man. I have seen him work from
noon until midnight; but in my opinion, if he really had his choice, he
would prefer a quiet homestead, in the little town of Princeton, where he
could pursue a life devoted to the interests of Princeton University and
the Civic Federation. Even now, whenever he can get free from the
treadmill of his office, his greatest delight is to escape to a camp in
the wild lands of northern Michigan, where he can dress like a fisherman
and forget that he is the servitor of a hundred and twenty millions.
Harold McCormick, his brother, and a vice-president of the big company, is
a boy-hearted man of thirty-five. He has a quick-action brain; but his
strong point is his personal magnetism and likableness. He knows the
harvester business throughout, having been a shirt-sleeve workman in the
factory, an agent at Council Bluffs, and a field expert in several states.
Most of the stories told about him illustrate his naïve boyishness. For
instance, when he had become an expert in handling the harvester, an
agent-in-chief near Chicago telegraphed for a dozen men. Only eleven
experts were available, so Harold volunteered to be the twelfth. He had
his working-card made out in the usual form, entitling him to $18 a week.
On Saturday night, when the twelve men went to the agent-in-chief for
their wages, he said, "I want all of you to come in and have a conference
with me to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."
"Sorry to say, Mr. Blank," said young McCormick, "that I can't be here
until Monday."
The agent stormed. How could anything be more important to a
three-dollar-a-day man than his job?
"Well, if you really must know the reason," said the berated mechanic, "I
have an appointment to go to church to-morrow morning with the Rockefeller
family."
The third brother--Stanley McCormick, worked his way up from labourer to
superintendent of the whole plant. For years he rose at five o'clock every
work-day morning, and walked into the factory at six.
All three of the McCormicks show a remarkable sense of obligation, almost
of gratitude, to their employees. At the time the International was
organised, Stanley said to the others:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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