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Philip D. Armour’s Business Career

IMET Mr. Armour in the quiet of the Armour Institute, his great philanthropic school for young men and women. He was very courteous, and there was no delay. He took my hand with a firm grasp—reading with his steady gaze such of my characteristics as interested him,—and saying, at the same time, “Well, sir.”

In stating my desire to learn such lessons from his business career as might be helpful to young men, I inquired whether the average American boy of to-day has equally as good a chance to succeed in the world as he had, when he began life.

“Every bit and better. The affairs of life are larger. There are greater things to do. There was never before such a demand for able men.”

“Were the conditions surrounding your youth especially difficult?”

“No. They were those common to every small New York town in 1832. I was born at Stockbridge, in Madison county. Our family had its roots in Scotland. My father’s ancestors were the Robertsons, Watsons, and McGregors of Scotland; my mother came of the Puritans, who settled in Connecticut.”

“Dr. Gunsaulus says,” I ventured, “that all these streams of heredity set toward business affairs.”

“Perhaps so. I like trading well. My father was reasonably prosperous and independent for those times. My mother had been a schoolteacher. There were six boys, and of course such a household had to be managed with the strictest economy in those days. My mother thought it her duty to bring to our home some of the rigid discipline of the school-room. We were all trained to work together, and everything was done as systematically as possible.”

“Had you access to any books?”

“Yes, the Bible, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and a History of the United States.”

It is said of the latter, by those closest to Mr. Armour, that it was as full of shouting Americanism as anything ever written, and that Mr. Armour’s whole nature is yet colored by its stout American prejudices; also that it was read and re-read by the Armour children, though of this the great merchant did not speak.

“Were you always of a robust constitution?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. All our boys were. We were stout enough to be bathed in an ice-cold spring, out of doors, when at home. There were no bath tubs and warm water arrangements in those days. We had to be strong. My father was a stern Scotchman, and when he laid his plans they were carried out. When he set us boys to work, we worked. It was our mother who insisted on keeping us all at school, and who looked after our educational needs; while our father saw to it that we had plenty of good, hard work on the farm.”

“How did you enjoy that sort of life?” I asked.

“Well enough, but not much more than any boy does. Boys are always more or less afraid of hard work.”

The truth is, I have heard, but not from Mr. Armour, that when he attended the district school, he was as full of pranks and capers as the best; and that he traded jack-knives in summer and bob-sleds in winter. Young Armour was often to be found, in the winter, coasting down the long hill near the schoolhouse. Later, he had a brief term of schooling at the Cazenovia Seminary.