Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work

McCORMICK

a wrestler. His body was well proportioned, with small hands and feet. His hair, even in old age, was very dark and waving. His b

les by sheer bulk of will-power, that smaller men could never quite subdue a feeling of alarm while they were in his presence. He was impatient of small talk and small criticisms and small objections. He had no tact at retail, and he saw no differences in

tion. If a subject did not interest him, he had nothing to say. What gave him, perhaps, the highest degree of social pleasure, was the entertaining, at his house,

istent. What he knew, he knew. There were no hazy imaginings in his mind. The main secret of his power lay in his ability to focus all his energies upon a few subjects. Once, in 1848, he mentioned the French Revolution in one of his letters. "It is

springs at which his life was fed must read the story of Luther, Calvin, and Knox. They must call to mind the attitude of Luther at the Diet of Worms, when he faced the men who had the power to take his life and said, "Here I stand. I can do no other." They must recollect how these three men, w

ates has ever produced. He believed in presbyters in religion, private capitalists in business, and elected representatives in government. He was opposed to feudalism and bureaucracy in all their myriad forms. He held the middle ground, the via media, be

rer than courage. It compelled him to oppose his own political party at the Baltimore Convention of 1861. It made him stand single-handed against his fellow-manufacturers, in defence of his right

arm. Three ministers were in charge. As was the custom, there was constant preaching from morning until sundown, with an hour's respite for dinner. At the close of the fourth day, all who wished to become avowed Christians were requested to stand up. Cyrus McCormick was there, and he was not a member of the church; yet he did not stand up. That night his father went to his bedside and gently reproached him. "My son," he said, "don't you know that your silence is a public rejection of your Saviour?" Cyrus was conscie

imes felt that I came so far short of the right feeling, so worldly-minded, that I could wish myself out of the world." On another occasion, when he was struggling with manufacturers who had broken their contracts, he wrote, "If it were not for the fact that Providence has seemed to assist me in our business, it has at times

His favorite Bible passage was the eighth chapter of Romans, that

long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us; for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor pr

ten and with the deepest fervor, wa

presence my sou

n afflict

day, and my so

y salvatio

ly, soon after he had acquired his first million dollars, he determined to establish the best possible college for the education of ministers. He almost stunned with joy the Western friends of higher education for ministers, by offering them $100,000 with which to establish a school of theology in Chicago. This offer was made i

alk to his editors and his professors. So, though McCormick had received much from his religious inheritance, it is also true that he gave back much. His last public speech, which was read for him by his son Cyrus because he was too weak to deliver it himself, was given at the laying of the corner-stone of a new building whic

himself, but he delighted in the orations of Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. He believed in politics. He thought it a public danger that the strong and competent men of the republic should willingly permit men of little ability and low character to manage public affairs. In fa

he was out of his element. He was too sincere, too simple, too intent upon a larger view of public questions. He could never talk the flexible language of diplomacy nor suit his theme to the prejudice of his listeners. Usually, to the political managers and delegates with whom he felt it his duty to co-operate, he was like a man from another world. They could never understand him, and tolerated his leadership mainly because of his generous contributions. Again and again he astonished them by

as so free from local prejudices and so intensely national in his beliefs and sympathies. He refused to stamp himself with the label of the North or of the South. He had been reared in the

ER IN HE

e editorials. He made speeches. He poured into the newspapers, day after day for two years, a large share of the profits that he derived from his Reaper. He was no more popular as an editor than as a political candidate. He was a

red like a Titan to bring them to a reconciliation. He actually believed that he could establish peace. He proposed a plan. Horace Greeley indorse

er the Democrats of the South. These conventions would elect delegates to a board of arbitration, which would consider the vari

favor of church unity. Among the many speeches and letters of his which have been preserved, the most beautifully phrased paragraph is

igh places of the church indulge in such wrath and bitterness? Now that the great conflict of the Civil War is past, and its issues s

rning Geneva was to John Calvin; but he could not help himself. His political convictions were bone of his bone and flesh o

rk, seeing how Mr. McCormick was worrie

? What glory can you hope to get from politics that will

cannot help it. There are certain principles that I have got to

of 1776. He did not want the Constitution to be ignored by Federal reformers, nor the Union to be broken by secession. He was by temperament and tradition a conservative, and opposed especially to all extreme measures and sectional innovations. As he had adapted his Reaper so that it would cut grain in all States, he could never see wh

anchise. "I have been throughout my life," he said, "opposed to all measures which tend to raise one class of the American people upon the ruin of others,

s true that he could be tender or humorous. There were tears and laughter in him. There was no cruelty in his strength and no revenge in his aggressiveness. He was a big, red-blooded, great-hearted man, who m

; and while he accepted this homage with a certain degree of satisfaction, he was not deceived by it. On one occasion, when he was attending the Democratic Convention at Cincinnati-the convention that nominat

ail lest you should presume too much or go too far, men whose position is never defined, and double-minded men with whom you never feel yourself safe. But Mr. McCormick was not like one of these. There is that in the possession of power which always tends to make men imperious. I do not mean to imply that he was altogether free from this tendency, for he was not. But he was approachable, companionable, and ready to

face relaxed. Then came a smile and soon a burst of laughter, shaking his powerful body and putting the whole company for the time into an uproar of

to the sitting-room, where he happened to be in consultation with his lawyer. "Now," said he to the youngsters, "we are going to put both of you on trial. I will be the judge and this gentleman will be the prosecutor." Each boy in turn was placed on the witness-stand, and plied with questio

NEAR SPOKAN

nd the practice was to so co-ordinate the eating of these that both were finished at the same time. The officer planned his spoonfuls badly, and was soon out of milk. "Have some more milk to finish your mush, Colonel," said McCormick. Several minutes later the Colo

e man who stole the pound of butter and hid it in his hat, and how the grocer saw him and kept talking in the store, beside a hot stove, until the butter melted and exposed the man's thievery. Another favorite story

him as a gift from the hunter, was left over from supper, he ordered that his dainty be kept and served for the next day's luncheon. At luncheon the next day it did not appear. On asking for the game bird, a roast chicken was set before him, and he at once noticed that it was not the same bird which he had ordered to be kept. He questioned the butler, who p

His two youngest sons, Harold and Stanley, would hide in the hallway when they saw him approaching,

e idea of hunger was intolerable to him. He might well have been posing for a statue of the deity of Plenty, as he squared himself around to the long, family dinner-table, with his napkin worn high and c

little I am known by my neighbors, but I seem to be always too busy to meet them." He was not at all, as many have thought because of his strenuous life, a man of harsh and rough exterior. There was nothing rough about him except his

dy to forgive as he was to fight. He never cherished resentments or personal grudges. He knew that life was a conflict of interests and policies; and when he forgave, his forgiveness was free and ful

thing that she had invented, he turned from his work and explained to her, with the utmost patience and courtesy, the things that she wished to know. With his trusted employees, too, he was usually kindly and sometimes jovial. "I had only one brush with him in thirty-five y

sion, when a body of agents made a united demand for higher salaries, there was one agent in Minnesota who refused to take part in the movement. "I don't want to force Mr. McCormick," he said. "I have worked for him for nearly thirty years, a

be a tall, straight, intelligent negro, and his master was very fond of him. He is mentioned frequently in McCormick's letters, usually in a considerate way. Years before the Civil War McCormick gave Joe his freedom, and some land and a good cabin. Now and t

around this place and found no father," he wrote to his brother William. And as soon as he was solidly established in Chicago, his first act was to send for his mother, and to give

cially able in matters of detail-a point in which Cyrus McCormick was not proficient. The two men were well suited as partners. Cyrus planned the work in large outlines, and broke down the obstacles that st

LL McCOR

ast P

ffairs that was of the greatest possible value to her husband. She was at all times in the closest touch with his purposes. By her advice he introduced many economies at the factory, and rebuilt the works after the Great Fire of 1871. The precision of her memory, and the grasp of her mind upon the multifarious details of human nature and manufacturing, ma

vester Company; Robert, who died in infancy; Harold, Treasurer of the International Harvester Co

h of his business obliged him to visit foreign countries. In the last few years of his life it gave him the most profound satisfaction to know that his oldest son would pick up the McCormick

Ole Bull and the singing of Jenny Lind, who were his favorites. He was as fond of flowers as a child. "I love best the old-fashioned pinks," he said, "because they grew in my mother's garden in Virginia." Often the tears would come to his eyes at t

ncidentally, just as a man makes muscle by doing hard work. Several of his fellow Chicagoans had swept past him in the million-making race. No matter how much money came to him,

mple principles and fitted together like a picture puzzle. There was religion in his business and business in his religion. He was made such as he was by the Religious Reformation of Europe and the Industrial Revolution of the United States. He was all of one piece-s

to extend his trade at home and in Europe, to protect his patents, to prevent the war between the North and South, and to maintain the simplicity of the Presbyterian faith. To contend for these interests and principles was his life. He could not have done anything else. It was as natural for him to do so as for a fish to swim or

achines," was ended. His last words, spoken in a moment's awakening from the death-stupor, were-"Work, work!" Not even the dissolution of his body could relax the fixity of his will. And when he lay in state, in his Chicago home, there was