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Show Yankee Surprised Bessemer s How Abram S. Hewitt Demonstrated to Steel Process Inventor That He Had Divided His Wealth With the Nations. Sometimes the statement is made when a man of great wealth dies, that, while he amassed millions for himself, him-self, he enriched the world to a much greater extent than he did himself. And whenever I see this statement made I always call to mind the anecdote anec-dote that the late Abram S. Hewitt told me of Sir Henry Bessemer. Abram S. Hewitt is numbered among New York's best and most famous mayors. He was chairman of the Democratic national committee that managed the Tilden presidential campaign. "About twenty-five years after Sir e . Henry Bessemer had Invented his process of converting iron into steel; I was a guest at his home some distance dis-tance from the city of Birmingham," said Mr. Hewitt not long before his death, which occurred in 1903, when, he was eighty-one years of age. "Some time previous to calling on Sir Henry I had made the statement that in twenty-five or thirty years the United States would be supreme among all, the nations of the world in the production pro-duction of iron and steel a prophecy that has come true, as you know. Sir Henry had heard of my forecast, and was inclined to doubt its accuracy. "There, while Sir Henry listened attentively, at-tentively, I told him why I believed my country would eventually lead, and be independent of, the entire, world In the production of iron and. Bteel. I quoted the statistics I had at hand in support of my contention, and, finally, I added: 'And, Sir Henry, you will be responsible for the prestige pres-tige which we shall obtain, for had it not been for your discovery of the process by which perfect steel can be made cheaply, we should not now be able to compete with you in the manufacture man-ufacture of steel and would probably, have to Import all our steel.' "Sir Henry smiled indulgently; It; was plain that I had not succeeded In convincing him. " 'Well,' I said, 'perhaps I can convince con-vince you on another matter that has been interesting me greatly of late. But first tell me, off-hand, if you can, about how many millions of pounds your invention has brought to you personally. per-sonally. I do not ask the question out of Idle curiosity.' "For perhaps five minutes Sir Henry Hen-ry was absorbed in mental calculation. calcula-tion. Then he said: 'Mr. Hewitt, I should say, off-hand, that my process of steel manufacturing has brought me about four million pounds.' "'That is twenty million dollars In American money,' I replied. Then I took a pencil and paper and began to do some figuring, based on my knowledge knowl-edge of the statistics of steel production produc-tion and of commerce and manufacture. manufac-ture. I made a rapid computation and handed the paper to Sir Henry. " 'You will see by my figures,' I explained, ex-plained, 'that your invention, within a quarter of a century, ha3 Increased the material wealth of the world by an amount practically equivalent to the cash capital of the commercial nations na-tions of the world as that was a hundred hun-dred years ago, or at the time of the close of our Revolutionary war.' "For -a long time Sir Henry looked blankly at the figures. 'You amaze me,' he said, at last. T know that you are familiar with the statistics you have employed to arrive at this result. Yet It doesn't seem credible.' " 'Nevertheless, the story those figures fig-ures tell Is the truth,' I answered. 'And of the increased wealth of the world hundreds of millions in all-resulting all-resulting from your great invention, you have received only twenty million mil-lion dollars. Surely, you have divied your great wealth with all the nations.' na-tions.' " (Copyright, 1910, by E. J. Edwards. All Rights Reserved.) |