Page images
PDF
EPUB

teristics, as a painter, are grace, delicacy, fancy, ideality, purity. He is still painting-often without glasses. Many of the great men of his day have sat to him. Lafayette, Jefferson, Jackson, Adams, Monroe, Rush, Binney, Cooke, Cooper, Kemble-indeed, among his sitters will be found the distinguished of the bar, the pulpit, the stage, medicine, etc. No collection is complete without one or two of his works. The parlors of Colonel Fitzgerald, of Philadelphia, are filled with the choice works of this master.

But none of the men of seventy-eight are so interesting in character as Henry C. Carey, the memory of whose father, Matthew Carey, is recalled with affectionate reverence, and whose son may well be styled the worthy son of a worthy sire. Living in elegant ease on Walnut Street, near Eleventh, Philadelphia, surrounded by his books and his pictures, honored and loved by troops of friends, kind, generous, and social, busy with his pen, and always ready to converse with the intelligent of all parties, Henry C. Carey may be said to have outlived enmity and envy. His life is in fact the very best vindication of his favorite theories, especially in regard to the protection of American industry. Upon this doctrine, so elaborately and for so long a period enforced in this country, he may confidently rest his fame. It has triumphed not only here but elsewhere. Riding the other day with our young railroad monarch, Colonel Thomas A. Scott, between New York and Philadelphia, I listened with pleasure to his tribute to Mr. Carey, and especially to his statement that a distinguished gentleman recently returned from Germany had told him that the works of Mr. Carey on political economy, translated into German, were scattered through the whole nation, and were standard books among statesmen and text-books among the people. They have also been converted into the languages of other countries, so that the days of successful ridicule of his doctrines may be said to have passed away forever.

[blocks in formation]

Mr. Carey's pleasant Sunday "vespers" at his own home. have been described by others. Here he loves to meet his friends in the confidence of innocent social intercourse. Here, regularly, for years past, winter and summer, have assembled some of the ablest intellects of the nation-men of different and differing tastes meeting on the same level-the level of toleration and freedom of discussion, and unity in love of country. Long may these aged men survive-ornaments of society and examples of integrity and patriotism.

[June 11, 1871.]

XXIII.

I HAVE already told you something about the old men of Philadelphia. Now let me write familiarly and frankly of a younger citizen-one who is, perhaps, as generally discussed as any living person. There is a mystery about him which is rather increased by the fact that he is a quiet, though incessant worker —not often seen, yet as ubiquitous as if he possessed the power of repeating himself indefinitely. I mean Thomas Alexander Scott, vice-president of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad, or, as he is every where called, by high and low, from the President to the proletaire-"Tom Scott." Filling a large space in large enterprises, wielding immense resources, combining extraordinary elements, and dealing literally with empires, Colonel Scott is still comparatively young, and qualified, with ordinary care over his reserved forces, physical and mental, for a long and most distinguished life. His experience is another illustration of the elasticity of our institutions; another proof that when the offspring of the wealthy, spoiled and enervated by over-indulgence, fail to grapple with grave duties and responsibilities, we can always find fitter material in the humbler

walks, and recruit the energies of the nation from the sons of those who have been hardened in the stern school of necessity and toil.

Thomas Alexander Scott was born in the village of Loudon, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of December, 1824, and on his next birthday will be forty-seven years old. He began as a boy in a country-store at a very low salary, after having completed his education in the one village school, with the one teacher, Robert Kirby, of Loudon; and upon the death of his father, in 1834, went to live with his eldest sister, whose husband kept a country-store near Waynesborough, in Franklin County, where he remained eighteen months; then he lived a short time with his brother, James D. Scott, also a merchant, at Bridgeport, in the same county; then with Metcalf & Ritchie, merchants in Mercersburg. In all these situations he exhibited the same energy, and had the confidence and respect of employers and associates for the ability and correctness now so universally awarded to the man. In all his past history his frank, honest, candid, clear, and prompt manner in business transactions has deservedly secured him the confidence and respect of the business world-above all, his goodness of heart, the measure of his favors and charities being the necessities of the friends. My first recollection of him was in Lancaster County, where he was a clerk of Major James Patton, his brother-in-law, who was collector of tolls at Columbia, on the State road, under the administration of Governor Porter, I think, in the year 1838. From this he was transferred to the extensive warehouse and commission establishment of the Leeches, at Columbia, where he remained until 1847, when he came to Philadelphia as chief clerk at Seventh and Willow Streets, on the Schuylkill front, under A. Boyd Cummings, collector of tolls at the eastern end of the Public Works. In 1850 he entered the service of the great Pennsylvania Central at Duncanville, as their general agent of the Mountain or Eastern division. On

A RAILWAY POTENTATE.

ΙΟΙ

the opening of the Western division he was put in charge of that, and there he remained till he was called to take control of the entire line, in consequence of the ill-health of General H. J. Lombaert, the superintendent. In 1859, on the death of Hon. William B. Foster, vice-president of the road, he was elected to that position, which he continues to fill.

There is no romance in this career, and yet how few now living excite so much curiosity and attract so much attention as Thomas Alexander Scott! His rapidity and courage alike as an administrative and executive officer have given him a prestige known wherever a railroad is operated. It was these qualities that induced the Administration to call him into the government service as Assistant Secretary of War after the outbreak of the rebellion; and those of us who studied him then can well understand how thoroughly he deserves his present high reputation. He was summoned to Washington early in 1861, at a period when the whole North was panic-strickenwhen the capital was cut off by the rebels lying between it and the Susquehanna. A man of railroad genius, tact, and expe rience was imperatively needed. Governor Curtin wanted him to remain in Pennsylvania, but Mr. Lincoln, the Secretary of War, and General Scott insisted that the young vice-president of the Pennsylvania Central should be forthcoming, and he came, and effectually aided General Butler, then at Annapolis with his Massachusetts men, to build the road which opened the way and restored the line of communication, and so saved Washington from capture. He remained at his desk in the War Department, unless when called off to superintend the vast military transportation of the army at other points, until the crisis was over, and then returned to his post at Philadelphia, surrounded with the confidence and gratitude of every branch of the government, executive and legislative. His cheerful and buoyant temper, his bright face, genial, gentle manners, and, above all, the readiness with which he answered every request,

and the grace with which he would say No, as he had frequently to do, proved that official labors came easy and natural to him, and that the cares so sure to break down an ordinary man bore lightly upon him. It was pleasant to note how quietly he met the leaders of armies and the leaders of the Senate, and how in every circle, no matter what the theme, he was unconstrained and self-poised. Perhaps one of the secrets of his popularity was his avoidance of all political discussions. Intensely attached to his country, Colonel Scott is claimed by no party, and has as many friends in one as in the other. His early training was among Democrats, though many of his nearest connections were Old-line Whigs, and are Republicans. As the real head of an enterprise which is gradually assuming more than international proportions, and must depend for its success upon the support of the whole people, he has little time to play at the petty party politics of the hour. He possesses two inborn gifts, uncommon to one who has not seen the inside of a school-house since his eleventh year-intuitive mathematical perception and singular ability in preparing legislation. He dispatches business with electric facility. He dictates to his short-hand reporter as rapidly as an expert, and when he rises to speak in any of the business conventions, his suggestions are so many flashes of intellect, and his sentences short, terse, and clear. He is happy in the capacity of getting rid of difficult questions in a moment. One subject dropped he seizes the other at the proper time, and is as punctual to a promise, an engagement, or a contract, as he is faithful to a friend.

Some time ago, in one of the managers' cars of the Pennsylvania Central, I sat by, a surprised and amused observer. At every station dispatches would be brought to him, which he tore open and promptly answered, and then resumed the thread of the conversation. Sometimes a railroad president or official, belonging to another State, would come in at the door while the train waited, state his case, and receive his reply. Some

« PreviousContinue »