| OCR Text |
Show 11 Tf t f i ci i z r i inw i r i sIISbH i cnnrlnpo lilm liot V.- i t Ipj 38 Years In Transit Harness Has Netted Henry Toborg a Quarter Of a Million Dollars Says He's Just As Happy If Whether He's Punching Transfers Or Clipping Coupons I Careful Saving and Wise Investment From His Meager 1 1 Income Have Been the Main Factors In Building Up 1 1 His Fortune For Enioyment In Later Yearg 1 1 SI t l"l I 81 ! ' Kfl The dapper youth smiled patroniz- i IjjL ! Ingly at the ragged uniform of the j i street car conductor. If ! ' "No wonder they struck," he said. In HI ; "What chanco Is there for ono of II j them to get ahead? Why, I said to ' jj Lizzie, our stenographer" l l But here are two facts that the f ; dapper youth had no means of know- I mc: 1 The street car conductor In ques- 1 I j tion Is worth slightly more than a jj I quarter of a million. I j The Income of the patronizing !n j young man is less than 1 per cent of m ! that of the man he pitied so generic gener-ic sjp ously. ' W j The conductor had discovered iw 3 what the youth prohably will never HIjI know how to make dollars grow i. wf 1 where nickels ordinarily sprout j W I It happened that tho conductor I m W6B enr7 Toborg, whose real llil'l estate in Chicago Is worth about IJIl j $250,000. He Is reputed the richest jjfj ' street car conductor in tho world, j m If all street car employes would ( solve the wage problem as Henry Jill ' Toborg has done a city need never MB- worry again about impending street ! Sri I car Btres or tne BelectIon arbl- II wf tratlon boards. JljEl i Toborg has done away with worry I I Sill' i about the high cost of living by tho 1IH simple device of converting his sal- ill Ery ol rom 38 t0 72 a montn lnto Hjjil I a quarter of a million dollars' worth ililBI real eBtate j pi Henry Toborg punches transfers I, J for the Chicago public from 4 a. m. I IvaBv. to 3 p. m. daily on a shuttle car at 'I Ojjlj the end of the Blue Island line. (Jjjfi He has been ringing up fares for i J plll the Chicago Street Railways Com- iilNH pany or tnlrtvelSht years. Year- 1 lilkHi y income from rents net him ever I 18' $5,000. And his monthly salary wa3 J ML never more than $100 In his life. - j M Toborg took his flrBt "lay-off" 'JllrH since the strike of 1887 during tho III 5.8 recent popularity of the jitney van. si IB1 Instead of resting he discarded hiB HlfBi uniform, pulled the straps of his I j rR overalls over his shoulders and re- !' y( i paired the alley back of his hotel at jj Blue Island avenue and Leavitt II ; i m m f M ill K I JH i-9 mSmmlSm lift' - BmWmfk I ' Urn!' mBS(PB IP HH l all: 111 i - Hli IB w&ftm n mm mm" mwBSR IIk JHNr 11 1Mb' BWSSKSSt' WM r i v jmrnSmB: I ; M ill It iIL. . street, opposlto tho old Bluo Island car barns. This is his advice to the trolley commuter on how to become a quar-tcr-of-a-mlllionaire: "Smile. Mako It a broad one. It's good as a transfer on any road to success. "Good spenders may bo popular, but a bank account needs no friends. "Never pay for having work dono that, you can do yourself. "Mako your vacations pile up your dividends. "The man who stops work Is liko the old mill out of use. Ho falls to pieces." Conductor Toborg was found ono day last week as the shuttle car bumped and splashed over tho muddy mud-dy tracks at the Blue Island terminal. term-inal. He lit a cigar as ho started on tho homeward trip toward his hotel. "This Is my one bad habit," ho said. "I never drink. Some of tho conductors think that becauso I have saved somo money and own property that I ought to throw it away. But that gets you nothing." Conductor Toborg told how ho made his fortune. "I left my homo in Indiana when I was 14," ho explains. "When I was 19 I had saved ?500, which I gavo to my mother. Ten years I spent on tho Gulf of Mexico, four of them working on tho sugar plantations planta-tions and tho steamship docks. "Then I camo to Chicago. I bought tho property at -1977 Bluo Island avenue. I took a vacation for a short time. I carried the hod and laid the bricks myself, and as I was a good carpenter in addition to being a conductor I laid the Joices in the second floor mj'self. Then a chanco came and I sold tho property. prop-erty. My profit from tho salo was something in tho neighborhood of fifteen hundred dollars. That -was what gavo mo my start on tho road to a comfortablo income. "Then I decided to buy moro land and build moro houses. A man named Kennedy had started to build a house at Taylor and Center streets and had got a loan of 500 to complete com-plete tho work. That didn't finish ' It, ho couldn't get any moro money and tho work was stopped.1' Conductor Toborg took a reminiscent remin-iscent puff at his Havana. "Tho carpenters camo around and took out all of tho windows and doors that they had put in. Tho plumbers carried off all their plumbing. plumb-ing. And then tho masons got mad and becauso they couldn't carry away their bricks they knocked out tho front and back walls." Here the gray eyes of tho richest Si i. am t Jo Jiill Xit , ' ri' W - '-ill $mBm IIBMilllMl graft lMliMgy , . ; Toborg iu His Workimj UloUica uud HorkluK race 'iIwS Sill ,$&&&ffi&W$$'fr' uurij street car employo narrowed into n shrewd smile. He was telling the story of how a ghost had played a part in his fortuno getting. "The building soon fell to' pieces. Young couples used to slip in on 'warm summer evenings and spark among tho ruins. There was a convent con-vent near by and tho neighbors used to compalin becauso the old place kept the young folks out late at night. Passersby used to hear whisperings insido and said tho placo was haunted by a ghost "I wasn't afraid of ghosts, so I bought the land and tho partly finished fin-ished building. I finished it myself. Then I sold it and made a profit of ?500. "My next investments were 3057 Coulter street and tho property from 1162 to 116G Leavitt street Two of tho members of the firm that I always bought my lumber from owned stock in tho street railway company, so that I bought all of my lumber from them and whenever I 'wanted to get a month or two months off to build a houso they always al-ways let mo have it "Among my other investments wero a three-story building at 4255 Morgan street, a two-story building at 7 Belknap street and tho property at 497 Bluo Island avenue. "Always I found that doing my work myself saved mo hundreds of dollars. My brother built a houso out on Irving Park boulevard and paid tho contractor ?3,500. I built a house for myself that tho contractor contrac-tor would havo charged tho same amount for and it only cost mo $1,800." Toborg's wifo has been dead for years. Ho has two sons, Mllo and ag uu nonrs lie Wears This 250,000 Sni Arthur, who llvo with their sister, Mrs. Tlllio Sanderson. Milo Toborg has Inherited his father's fa-ther's genius for money-making. Ho is 22 years old, has worked for the street car company three years and has a bank account oven now of $1,000. Last weok his father initiated in-itiated him in tho Masonic order, to which ho belongs. Tho home of Henry Toborg is a tiny room on tho second floor of tho Hotel Toborg at Blue Island avenue nnd Leavitt street. On tho walls hang pictures of his family, his certificate cer-tificate of membership In the Masonic Mason-ic order and a picture of the Iroquois Iro-quois fire disaster grand jury. Conductor Toborg, dressed in his best, paused for a moment after his interview to give this advice to tho rising generation as to how to sidestep side-step poverty: "Work. Work hard. It is tho only way to mako money. I am 63 years old and I shall never retire. When a man stops work ho dies. I am not going to stop. The man who does not work falls to pieces. Ho 1b or no nso in. the woilu." Iceland Ib Dry. Since the beginning of the war Russia has been dry, and Iceland has followed her example. Nay, not content with prohibiting the liquor traffic, Iceland has ordered all tho liquor now within her boundaries to be promptly exported. It may bo merely a coincidence 'that Iceland enjoys tho benefits of woman suffrage; suf-frage; tho cablo details are meager as yet It is a pity that the first Lord Duf-ferln Duf-ferln could not have lived to read this bit of news. It would havo done more than anything else to m ..,. luja ia a wor(jo, ,, 2hange. It was in 1856 that he vu! L ted Iceland and bore admiring tej. imony to tho social customs vhi mado essential a vast capacity -t i strong head. A social visit, he j. formed an appreciative world in 'Letters From High Lattltudcj; I necessitated tho "cracking of a tnj. Lie" with tho host, and to rcfuso fr svas as unpardonable an offenBo y 1 Lo refuse to shake hands. A break. I er was "considered tho fittest tokej I a lady could present to her trni i lovo." It was the duty of tho ladlei of the house to keep the guest buj. I plied. Breakfast involved a llbatloa, J repeated immedltely afterward. ; Ono of his companions "put up ; for tho night at a farmhouse. Hli hostess escorted him to his roots and put a brandy bottle under tie pillow; and by that time he was well' ' enough acquainted with the custom' Y ilIitifll ti v . LA V ml , ' ". C Hv n tile. of tho country to understand that it was expected to bo empty by mort-ing, mort-ing, or he would have affronted his kindly entertainers. Lord Dufferin relates how t' dined at the Governor's hoLK. "tho dinner is too modern a term t" apply to tho entertainment." Hi i had como heroically prepared, t says, to do "his part and gratify his hosts, even if it necessitated his S j lug under the table Instead of silting sil-ting at it; but "at the rate we v& going, it seemed probable that tta consummation would take place t . fore tho second course." i He tried to protend that he had c observed the refilling of his glaa so as to give his friends a cbantf 1 to get a little ahead; but they me i ly sat thiisty and disconsolate untA i he gave up the deception. It w not have been etiquette for tbetn l distance him. , Times have 'changed since T : Dufferin's day. Manners have so ened. Recent visitors havo seen such ground and lofty drlnkln made up the chief joy of tho IbW itaais then. Anu now Iceland reformed altogether; so great Is A distaste for tho beverages oP that she cannot imitate West ginia's example and give the ers a chanco to dispose of tjj j stock Sho pitches the Ru , off the island, neck and crop. ' ; rate ho is going ho will soon ' nowhere in this broad world a , for the solo of his foot. ! In the Future. ; "Yes," said tbc young man ,j the pink spats, "my faf,hcr worth a hundred m""011 fclt? J "Ah," asked the interested : u er. "and how did your father , . bis monev2w ; j |
