His career has been related in these pages as an example to those who are seeking to rise in legitimate commerce. It is the Best instance on record of the facility with which success may be won by patient and intelligent industry. In his capacity for grasping and carrying out an enterprise, in his prudent and economical management of his business, in his tact, courage, sagacity, Mr. Astor's example is one which will lead many to success, and none to injury.
He was a thoroughly upright man, his transactions were rigidly honest; but as a man, candor compels the acknowledgment that he was not a safe or admirable model. He was utterly devoid of generosity. Liberal to an extreme with his own family, he was close and hard with others. He paid small wages to his employés and never gave more than the man bargained for, no matter what extra service might be rendered. He carried his economy to a degree of meanness painful to contemplate. At his death, out of his vast estate, he left to his friend and faithful manager an annuity of only two hundred dollars, which his son increased to fifteen hundred.
One of his captains once succeeded in saving for him property in China to the amount of seven hundred thousand dollars, which had become jeopardized by the sudden death of the agent in charge of it. This service was purely voluntary, and was one which required the greatest skill, determination, and courage on the part of the captain, and Astor acknowledged it, frequently saying: "If you had not done just as you did, I should never have seen one dollar of my money; no, not one dollar of it." This was the only acknowledgment he made, however. He was worth ten millions of dollars, and the captain had only his pay—twelve hundred dollars a year—and a family. At his father's death Mr. William B. Astor sent a considerable sum to the old seaman in return for this service.
"We have all heard much of the closeness, or rather the meanness, of this remarkable man. Truth compels us to admit that he was not generous,