OCR Text |
Show ItOSITKI.I. P. Ff.oWKK. RowFi.r. P. Fi.owi.'c. di'moera'.ic candidate for governor of New York, hasbeHii duscribuil a lf-made man. He is known to be very wealthy, tint he hasiii)er ligurod as financier, aud the piibiit: has wondered how he came by bis fortune. The story has been given by a New York correspondent, aud it lsaves Mr. Ki.owm in the position of a ready-made rather than a self-mado man. As the distinguishod Tamtnajy-it Tamtnajy-it is now an object of much intiii'iist to the general public, we quota the story of his rise to fortune 11s follows: j ' The luck of the blossoming I'l.oWF.it iwas in the possession of a brother-iti- law. Tht-re have beer 3tn-irt irnrn j raised iu Watorton a too smart fortliti narrow coiilineg of thnt charming li'.t.o j illage near the St. Lawrence, nd per-I per-I hnps the ablest of all of thorn was 1Ii:nry Kr.Kp, one of ttie earlier intel-lets intel-lets which tlm development, of railways rail-ways in this state produced. Kff:p vvps a tiatiii-al linanoier. He was able to cope with great problems; he had 1 capacity to conceive and to executo t vast schemes; lie ranked with Vr.ks j l!i( liM'iNP, wi'h Commodore Vandku-) Vandku-) hilt. w:th Damti. Dtir.w, although he was not of such speculative teudoncy us that extraordinary rustic. In some respect Ki.k.p rcsumblod Jay (lot i.t), and had he lived he might have attract-d attract-d as wide attention as that wonderful geni'is which also received its early development de-velopment amid the hills of central New York. "To Mr. Flower. Keep was a prodigy. prod-igy. Thee two men had married sisters, sis-ters, and were, therefore, thrown into intimato relations. K-?ep understood perfectly well th; t trustee faculty which is Mr. Flower's chief merit as a business man. and it Mattered yo.ing Flower immsnsoiy when in n inor nnit-1 nnit-1 iers his brother-in-law made him something some-thing of a confidant ; but Keep had no ! great esteem for Mr. Flower's business shinties; hneer regarded him as a man rapablo of geat things, but knew that he had the taithfulness of a trusted servant, and could execute those things which Iib was asked to do, provided the limiiui r of fi.icnung tliem was mado clear to him. "Of all the great in"!! w no ever lived there was noue, in Flow f it's estimation, estima-tion, who equaled Kf.nry Kkf.p, and to this day tli-! name of his brother iu law suggests all that is wonderful or inspirational, inspi-rational, or powerful, or worthy of veneration ven-eration in the nature of mon. Attached to such a brother-in-law as this, serving him with dog like ftithfulness, of course Mr. I lower got some of the crumbs that fell from the table. He shared some of the profits of th great Northwest North-west deal, and when Mr. Ki'F.i1 was president of the New York Central Fi.owek'o pickings were quite handsome. hand-some. "Keep succumbed to high pressure. He went in the same way that "Jim" Rntter and William H. Yanderbilt and Horace Clark and "Charley" Osborne and so many others of the kings of Wall street and of railroad liuance parsed away. He paid tho penalty of great mental strain, and died while still com paratively young, leaving what was at that time one of the colossal fortunes of the state nearly five million dollars and leaving it to Mr. Flower to administer ad-minister and take care of. "The small shrewdness which Mr. Flower possesses wnsof just thesort to enable bun to act with fair success as a trustee of this great property, and it was as the administrator of a dead man's millions that he came to Wall strnot, and to that he practically owed whatever prominence he has gained there. Therefore, it is not true, as ltot-RKR Cockiiav suggested in his Bpeech, that Mr, Fl.oWKK is a type of I hose men who, beginning poor, have the capacity and the energy, and the perseveration, aud tho concentration of purpose which, combined, produce great fortunes. It was another man who produced Mr. Flowkis'.s fortune, and that man possessed all these gifts." This explains much that has been inexplicable. in-explicable. ForyoarsMr. Fi.ow'Kithas been a sort of clown in New York politics. The leaders have mado use of his barrel again and again but have brushed him out of their n ay whenever he has aspired for high position. A man of master spirit could not have been cuffed about in the manner that has fallen to Mr. Fi.owf.k's lot. He has relied on his barrel and that barrel has been at tho service of his party on all occasions, but its owner has not been treated with that consideration which would attach to s leader. Mr. F1.owF.1t now has his reward for his patience, but the honor may prove to lie an empty one. he caunot com- uianu very nearly support among au I street men who look upon him ad an accident of business, while the claim that he is a self-made man is so palpably palpa-bly absurd that it will alienate many progressive, pushing rueu from him. I He has to rely solely upon his money ! and the discipline of Tammany, and j thosD supports i may fail him iu the ' shock arising from contact with the j boom of enthusiasm for his opponent. It has not been supposed that a caudi-j caudi-j date for governor having the support j of the great whisky-boodle organi.a-' organi.a-' tion of New York City could be defeated, de-feated, but the rule may not work in the case of tha present democratic standard bearer. |