USA > Pennsylvania > Northampton County > History of Northampton County [Pennsylvania] and the grand valley of the Lehigh, Volume II > Part 16
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In 1892, at the age of seventy, he retired from the responsible and arduous work at Bethlehem. For nearly twenty years longer he lived to enjoy the fame and friendship which he had amply earned. Indeed, he had received world-wide recognition before his retirement, and that event elicited numere ous public expressions of the pre-existing fact. The American Institute of Mining Engineers elected him president in 1894, and he made the following contributions to the "Transactions": "Remarks on the Fracture of Steel Rails," 1875; "Remarks on the Bessemer Process," 1890; "Early Days of the Iron Manufacture" (Presidential Address), 1894; "Remarks on Rail-Sections," 1899. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers made him an honorary member in 1892, and president in 1895; the American Society of Civil Engi- neers conferred honorary membership upon him in 1899; the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain made him an honorary member in 1893, and a perpetual honorary vice-president in 1909; and the recently organized Ameri- can Iron and Steel Institute elected him an honorary member in 1910. Mean- while, he had received the bronze medal of the United States Centennial Exposition in 1876; in 1893 the Bessemer gold medal of the Iron and Steel Institute; in 1902 the John Fritz medal, the fund for which was established by subscription, to honor his eightieth birthday, by awarding a gold medal annually "for notable scientific or industrial achievement," the first medal being bestowed with enthusiastic unanimity upon John Fritz himself; in 1904 the bronze medal of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, in connection with which he served as honorary expert on iron and steel ; and in 1910 the Elliott Cresson gold medal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, "for distinguished leading and directive work in the advancement of the iron and steel industries." And he received honoris causa the following academic de- grees : M.A., Columbia University, 1895; D.S., University of Pennsylvania, 1906; D.E., Stevens Institute of Technology, 1907; and D.S., Temple Uni- versity, 1910.
But these official distinctions could not tell fully the story of love and praise which pressed for the utterance which it found on two memorable occasions-celebrations of his seventieth and eightieth birthday anniversaries. in which hundreds of his friends and professional colleagues participated. The first took place at Bethlehem in 1892, and the second at New York in
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1902. On the latter occasion, as has been said above, he received the first "John Fritz Medal." The conferment of honorary degrees by institutions of learning upon this self-educated workingman was a recognition not merely of his professional achievements, but also of his wise and generous aid to the cause of technical education, some account of which may fitly close this story of his life.
Lehigh University was founded in 1866 by a Pennsylvanian, Asa Packer. who knew and appreciated the great qualities of John Fritz, and who named him as one of the original board of trustees. For a wholly self-educated, self-cultured man, he was remarkably broad in his conceptions of education. While not wealthy in the modern sense of the term, Mr. Fritz, who, though generous, was thrifty, enjoyed a comfortable competence in his old age; and one day in the spring of 1909 he astonished President Drinker by saying : "In my will I have left Lehigh University a certain sum of money to be expended in your discretion. I now intend to revoke that bequest, and instead of leaving money for you to spend after I am gone, I'm going to have the fun of spending it with you and Charley Taylor (Mr. Taylor being a co-trustee of Lehigh with Mr. Fritz, and an old and valued friend-a former partner of Andrew Carnegie). I have long watched the career of a number of Lehigh graduates, and I have been impressed by the value of the training they have received at Lehigh. But you need an up-to-date laboratory, and I intend to build one for you."
Mr. Fritz acted as his own architect, designed the building (substantially on the lines of the large shop he had built at the Bethlehem Steel Works), and selected, purchased and installed the superb testing equipment. At his death it was found that, after making generous provision for his near rela- tives and for bequests to the Free Libraries of the Bethlehems, to St. Luke's Hospital at South Bethlehem, to Temple College at Philadelphia, to the Methodist Hospital at Philadelphia, to the American University at Washing- ton, and to other charitable purposes, he had bequeathed his residuary estate, about $150,000, to Lehigh University, as an endowment fund for the mainte- nance and operation of his laboratory.
Mr. Fritz retained much of his mental vigor and activity up to the autumn of 1911. He took frequent trips alone to Philadelphia and New York, and attended many gatherings of his old engineering friends and associates. In the spring of 1911 he decided, at the urgent solicitation of friends, to put into shape the notes of incidents in his life, which he had been making for years. This was done largely on the insistence of friends during the summer of 1911 in Bethlehem. The penciled notes, in his own handwriting on yellow slips, were arranged chronologically by his nephew, George A. Chandler, who as an engineer had had a close lifelong association with Mr. Fritz; then Dr. Drinker, who was admitted to participation in the task, pro- cured a competent stenographer, and they, with Mr. N. M. Emery, another friend, spent day after day during the summer vacation season on the task. This literary work finished, the laboratory built, his affairs in good order, Mr. Fritz began to fail. He suffered from recurring attacks of bronchitis, and finally an abscess formed on his chest. The abscess was opened by his physician, Dr. John H. Wilson, in February, 1912. In March, 1912, his medi- cal attendants expressed the opinion that unless he would submit to a drastic operation for the removal of pus on his chest, blood-poisoning would set in and death must soon follow ; and Dr. Drinker was appealed to by the family to exert his personal influence as a friend to persuade Mr. Fritz to submit to the operation. In this he was successful, and the operation was performed April 15, 1912, by Dr. William L. Estes, Mr. Fritz's old and intimate friend, with Dr. Edward Martin, of Philadelphia, as consulting surgeon, and Dr. John H. Wilson, as physician. The operation was highly successful in averting the immediate threatened danger. Mr. Fritz wished to live, and
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his life was prolonged until February 13, 1913, when he quietly passed away without apparent pain. His funeral at Bethlehem, February 17, was attended by a large concourse of his friends, and he lies at rest in the beauti- ful Nisky Hill Cemetery of his home town, beside his only daughter, who died in childhood, and his beloved wife. So lived and died a great man- strong, wise, brave, invincible; a good man-simple, generous, tender and true ; a loving husband, a loyal friend, a public-spirited citizen, a real philan- thropist, giving "himself with his gift." To us who miss and mourn him now the man shines even more illustrious than the famous engineer.
Mr. Fritz married Ellen W. Maxwell, born in White Marsh, June 8, 1833, died at Bethlehem, January 29, 1908. Their only child, Gertrude, born in 1853, died in 1860.
(Condensed from narrative by Rossiter W. Raymond, New York City, New York, and Henry Sturgis Drinker, South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.)
CHARLES M. SCHWAB-During the critical years of the European War there was no name more often on the public tongue and in the daily and periodical press in connection with events of world-wide import than that of Charles M. Schwab. Prior to that period, he had come into interna- tional fame as the greatest steelmaster of his time, an industrial leader and magnate without a peer. But there was in store for him richer opportunity, larger service, than industry and commerce could supply. As the head of a vast enterprise he had consummated business deals that had brought him into touch with the leaders of many European governments. With the entry of the United States into the war and the establishment of close co-operative arrangements between the government and the Bethlehem plants, Mr. Schwab became the advisor of the Administration in regard to engines of war and munitions. In the mammoth plants under his control he achieved results in the manufacture of war materials that made even experts stand amazed, and placed in the hands of the soldiers and sailors of the United States a large share of the instruments of victory. He entered into the shipbuilding industry upon the same gigantic scale, and attained so commanding a position in that field that he was called in April, 1918, to the post of director-general of the Emergency Fleet Corporation.
But the mere recital of his war-time activities would require a volume in themselves. Aside from the potent influence of his steel works and ship yards was his splendid marshaling of the forces of labor in support of the govern- ment, the strong impetus he gave to all five Liberty Loans, the inspiration of his wholehearted, generous support and leadership of Red Cross campaigns and the work of all relief organizations and those formed for personal work among the soldiers and sailors of the country. All this and more he did with the infectious enthusiasm, the abounding good-will, the sincere earnest- ness, the indomitable forcefulness that characterize all his actions. Men, women and children in all classes of society came to look upon Charles M. Schwab as a personal friend, to speak of him intimately, and to constitute a rampart of support on all occasions. The following record can but faintly suggest the high place he has come to fill, not only, as one of his biographers writes, as a "Field Marshal of Industry," as the greatest industrialist of the world, but as a man and an American.
Charles M. Schwab was born in Williamsburg, Blair county. Pennsyl- vania, February 18, 1862, his parents, John and Pauline (Farabaugh) Schwab, moving to Loretto, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, when he was a small boy. Ile attended the local schools, completing his studies in St. Francis's College. His father had engaged in business in Loretto, and also held a government contract for carrying the mail between Loretto and the nearby town of Cresson Station, and for a time the son, Charles M., drove the stage between these places. In 1881 he entered the employ of the Carnegie Steel Company
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in the Edgar Thomson Works at Braddock, where his industry and his application to duty quickly attracted the attention of Capt. William R. Jones, then superintendent of the Edgar Thomson Works, and whose important share in the development of the modern steel industry and remarkable genius as an organizer and leader of men makes him one of the best remembered figures in the history of steel-making. Captain Jones was unsurpassed as a judge of a man's ability, and soon discovered the indications of the mechani- cal genius and the capacity for the management of men and affairs which were great factors in Mr. Schwab's later success. So the young man was given new and greater responsibilities month by month, gladly assuming every task assigned him-tireless, studious, cheerful. At each new station he learned other details of steel-making and mill management, and in less than a year he was Captain Jones's chief assistant, and, upon the death of Captain Jones, Mr. Schwab was appointed superintendent of the Edgar Thomson Works.
In 1883 he married Emma Eurana Dinkey, of Braddock, Pennsylvania, and Mrs. Schwab, to use Mr. Schwab's own words, has been "aid, counsellor and friend," at once his inspiration and his guiding star, and whose quiet benefactions and unheralded charities supplement and round out those of Mr. Schwab himself.
In 1892 he was made superintendent of the Homestead Works also, and at that particular period the Homestead Steel Works presented a problem in management such as has seldom pressed upon any man for solution. Mr. Schwab proved to be a genius of organization and of administrative tact, and his work then and afterwards was so thorough in the management of affairs and men that in 1896 he was made a member of the board of managers of the Carnegie Company, being elected its president the following year. He had thus, at the age of thirty-five, become the chief executive of what was then the greatest manufacturing corporation in America, and had attained that place in sixteen years from a very modest beginning. He had earned the place, for in all the thousands that had entered the Carnegie employ, he had shown the best results in the open tournament of brains. The years of his employ had been the years when the minds and energies of all the leaders in the industry had been chiefly directed toward the problem of making more steel and better steel, and to quicker production. In the attainment of this end, Mr. Schwab contributed most successfully, and the presidency of the Carnegie Company was the prize he had gained in that competition. As president he made the position of the company increasingly strong, and its dominance of the steel situation more and more complete.
At this time he broached the plan, long formed and perfected in his mind, to unite into one harmonious unit the various steel producing plants throughout the country, with their correlated ore mines, coking plants, lime- stone quarries and their service railroads, and he made the first step by inviting J. P. Morgan, head of the banking firm of J. P. Morgan & Company, to prepare the financial details.
Mr. Morgan was used to doing things on a magnificent scale, but this proposition staggered him. However, Mr. Schwab had the facts and the figures, and, what was almost equally important, the prestige of success, with the phenomenal growth and dominating influence of the Carnegie plants under his management furnishing a concrete example of what he had done and a tangible demonstration of what he could do. Mr. Morgan then agreed that the plan was not only practicable, but of the most vital interest not only to the steel trade, but in its stimulating and progressive effect to the business interests of the whole country.
Among the steel producers, Mr. Schwab changed the sceptical into the most earnest supporters ; he won over to his plan the fearful and the timid, removed doubts and allayed jealousies. These strides towards the goal, pro-
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digious as they were, were as nothing to the task yet to be undertaken. The various outside steelmakers were won over to the plan, the Morgan group were in hearty accord, the arch needed but the keystone to make it firm and enduring.
The question was: What would Mr. Carnegie do? He needed no aid, and sought no alliances. His interests easily dominated the steel trade; no outside alliance could affect him, and without him no alliance could stand. Mr. Schwab had taken all this into account, and his calm presentation of the situation to Mr. Carnegie, his forceful array of the benefits to accrue, not to the steel trade alone but to the business interests of the whole country and its general welfare, induced Mr. Carnegie to take under consideration from Charles M. Schwab a proposition that from anybody else he would have laughed to scorn. So Mr. Carnegie consented, not for gain, not to conserve a position long unassailable and, so far as human foresight could tell, absolutely impregnable, but as a sound business proposition joined to an affectionate tribute to the genius and ability of the man who had made the Carnegie interests what they were. With Mr. Carnegie's consenting to join in the movement, it remained only necessary to arrange the details, and it was Mr. Schwab's array of facts and figures, and his cogent arguments that convinced the negotiants of the enormous value of the Carnegie plants, and persuaded them to pay the price, which at first they had regarded as absolutely prohibitive, at which the Carnegie interests were offered.
Thus from the fertile brain of Charles M. Schwab was born the mighty United States Steel Corporation, the like of which the world has never seen. When the consolidation was effected, Mr. Schwab, at the age of thirty-nine, became its first president, and for this organization he gathered together the most gigantic working force and created the most complete industrial system ever serving a private corporation. When, after three years, he resigned the presidency, he had made the system a marvel of co-ordinating forces and an industrial organization without an equal.
After leaving the presidency of that corporation, Mr. Schwab obtained a controlling interest in the Bethlehem Steel Company, which marked a new era in a career unequalled in achievement and usefulness in the history of industry. Established by John Fritz, the plant of the company had been built from a small rail mill to one of the leading steel mills of the world, holding government contracts for the manufacture of big army and naval guns, and armor plate for the ships of the new navy. Under Mr. Schwab's direction its leadership in this line was maintained, departments already established greatly expanded, and extensive new departments were added, so that the plant's output became enormously large in pig iron, rails, structural steel, forgings, castings of steel, iron, brass and bronze, gas engines, power machinery, tool steel, bar steel and iron, special alloy, and crucible steel.
With a plant unexcelled in the industry and capable of supplying any demands made upon it, Mr. Schwab soon gained a reputation as a business "getter" equal to his prestige as an industrial organizer. He went to all parts of the world in the acquisition of contracts for steel materials of all kinds, and conducted deals with the leading business and public inen of many countries. The outbreak of the European War and the awarding of heavy contracts to the Bethlehem plant caused the establishment of many addi- tional departments for the manufacture of ammunition and ordnance for the Allies, and all kinds of war materials were produced in vast quantity. Mr. Schwab was in close touch with the heads of the war departments and min- isters of munitions of the European countries comprising the Allies, and his plants constituted their chief source of American supplies of guns and munitions.
A great policy of expansion had been followed by the Bethlehem interests prior to this time, Mr. Schwab organizing the Bethlehem Steel Corporation
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and assuming the direction of both companies as chairman of the board of the Bethlehem Steel Company and of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. The holdings of these companies had largely increased, new plants had been erected, and when the United States entered the war, Mr. Schwab was able to place at the service of the government a wonderfully efficient organization, trained and experienced in the production of war supplies, capable of expan- sion to a degree that would make it the foremost gun forging and ammuni- tion manufacturing plant in the world. And this expansion is exactly what history has recorded. In consultation with the president and the heads of the war-working departments of the government, Mr. Schwab outlined the possibilities of the Bethlehem plants, and from the declaration of war until the signing of the armistice these plants were operated at maximum speed every hour of the twenty-four, seven days a week, the performances of separate departments and of the plant in general a revelation even to indus- trial veterans. Mr. Schwab's spirit permeated all of the plants of the com- pany, and "Service for Victory" was the slogan that brought labor squarely behind the government with a loyal and enthusiastic purpose that the most liberal system of bonuses, in ordinary times, could not have made possible. As for Mr. Schwab, supported by lieutenants of tried ability and proved fidelity, he was tirelessly and constantly at work on the many movements that directly and indirectly were to make victory certain. Himself a sub- scriber in millions to all of the Liberty Loans, he was a leader in every drive, and was instrumental in securing additional millions in subscriptions. To the American Red Cross he gave not only of his time and his means, but turned over the lower floors of his Riverside Drive home in New York City for use as a chapter work room. All of the organizations working personally among the soldiers and sailors knew his generous support, and there was never a call to which he did not respond, whether to make a speech, appear in a parade, make a contribution, or serve on a committee. His war work was on the same wide scale as his business and industrial activities, and liè was a potent factor in the creation of loyal sentiment and government sup- port throughout the nation.
Entering into shipbuilding just when the need of organized effort in that field became apparent, the Bethlehem interests acquired control of yards that placed them in a leading position in this industry, and under Mr. Schwab's dynamic influence the yards controlled by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Cor- poration established standards of speed and efficiency in ship construction that far surpassed any previous records. The numerous contests and prizes for records were in many instances of his inspiration, and in the shipyards, as in all the Bethlehem plants, his sincere friendliness, genuine cordiality and devoted patriotism brought him close to the hearts of his men, who came to consider him as an intimate associate and a partner in their work.
On April 16, 1918, Mr. Schwab was called into conference by President Wilson, and his appointment as director-general of the Emergency Fleet Corporation followed, a tribute both to his organizing genius and industrial leadership, and to his whole-hearted patriotism. With the need for ships looming up as the most formidable obstacle in the road to victory, he took over the direction of all the shipbuilding plants of the United States, and his accomplishments in this capacity were a repetition of his fruitful labors in many fields. He grasped the entire situation, and in an incredibly short time co-ordinated the whole shipbuilding industry, speeding up production, one launching following another, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups, with a rapidity that brought relief to anxious, waiting forces in the field, and to the national leaders renewed confidence and elation. Mr. Schwab's name became a household word throughout the country, and his shipbuilding accomplish- ments a subject of wonder and jubilation. The news of the launching carni- val at all yards on the Fourth of July, 1918, came with the cheering effect
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of a decisive victory to the troops in France. An incident at the time of Mr. Schwab's acceptance of his high post is indicative of the spirit that permeated and was maintained throughout his entire administration. Turn- ing to his associates of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, he asked, "Boys. will you stick by me and help?" and the response of those usually calm and dignified generals of business and finance was vociferous cheering and loud- shouted assurances of support. "You bet we will, Charlie," came the answer, and in this steadfast support Mr. Schwab found one of the main instruments of his strength.
One of the shipbuilding feats he accomplished, and not the least among them, was his turning out fleets of submarines, fully equipped, before the Allies thought the hulls were even well under way, and these terrors of the deep, under their own power, crossed the ocean and calmly shoved their noses into the waters of an Allied sea base to do their share in the great conflict for justice and humanity, long before the time the Allied Powers had believed it possible even to launch them. For the mighty aid he gave them throughout the war, the Allied governments vied in honoring him, and one of the most signal of these recognitions of his services was when, at his country home at Loretto, where thousands of his friends had gathered to do him honor, the ambassador and minister plenipotentiary from France, in the name of the French government and people, created him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
Such was the advance of Charles M. Schwab from obscurity to the posi- tion of the world's greatest industrialist and one of the foremost Americans of his time. The above record is of work that has made him of national and international reputation, while he is the center of activity of particular interest to Bethlehem and Pennsylvania. He has a residence in Bethlehem, also, and is a most generous friend of many worthy Bethlehem institutions. He is the chief guarantor of the Bach Choir, a trustee of St. Luke's Hospital, and has made numerous large gifts to Lehigh University, of which also he is a trustee. Among his many benefactions are the gift of a Roman Catholic church to Loretto, Pennsylvania, the scene of his boyhood years and the location of his present summer home-which is one of the most beautiful church edifices of the State; the Convent House at Cresson; a church at Braddock, Pennsylvania; an industrial school at Homestead, Pennsylvania ; a school at Weatherly, Pennsylvania; an auditorium to the Pennsylvania State College; a recreation park and sanatorium for children on Staten Island; and numerous others, the wisdom of their choice and enduring influ- ence for good, the evidence of his earnest thought. Between Loretto and Cresson he caused a modern road to be constructed,and in civic affairs of the city of Bethlehem he is an interested participant, is a member of the City Planning Commission, and made the largest individual contribution to the $2,500,000 "hill-to-hill" bridge connecting Bethlehem, West Bethlehem and South Bethlehem, and was chiefly instrumental in causing the consolidation of the three Bethlehems named under a city form of government, which came into existence January 1, 1918. He has been honored by Lehigh University with the degree of Doctor of Engineering, conferred in 1916, and Cornell University, of which he is also a trustee, conferred the same degree upon him ; while from Lincoln Memorial University he received the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1917, and from New York University the degree of Doctor of Commercial Science in 1918.
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