Widener, as the owner of great art galleries and the patron of philanthropic and industrial institutions, has been a national figure of the utmost dignity.Had you dropped into the Spring Garden Market in Philadelphia forty years ago, you would have found a portly gentleman, clad in a white apron, and armed with a cleaver, presiding over a shop decorated with the design--"Peter A.B.Widener, Butcher." He was constantly joking with his customers and visitors, and in the evening he was accustomed to foregather with a group of well-chosen spirits who had been long famous in Philadelphia as the "all-night poker players." Asuccessful butcher shop in Philadelphia in those days played about the same part in local politics as did the saloon in New York City.Such a station became the headquarters of political gossip and the meeting ground of a political clique; and so Widener, the son of a poor German bricklayer, rapidly became a political leader in the Twentieth Ward, and soon found his power extending even to Harrisburg.A few years ago Widener presided over a turbulent meeting of Metropolitan shareholders in Newark, New Jersey.The proposal under consideration was the transference of all the Metropolitan's visible assets to a company of which the stockholders knew nothing.When several of these stockholders arose and demanded that they be given an opportunity to discuss the projected lease, Widener turned to them and said, in his politest and blandest manner: "You can vote first and discuss afterward." Widener displayed precisely these same qualities of ingratiating arrogance and good-natured contempt as a Philadelphia politician.He was a man of big frame, alert and decisive in his movements, and a ready talker; in business he was given much to living in the clouds--a born speculator--emphatically a "boomer." His sympathies were generous, at times emotional; it is said that he has even been known to weep when discussing his fine collection of Madonnas.He showed this personal side in his lifelong friendship and business association with William L.Elkins, a man much inferior to him in ability.Indeed, Elkins's great fortune was little more than a free gift from Widener, who carried him as a partner in all his deals.Elkins became Widener's bondsman when the latter entered the City Treasurer's office; the two men lived near each other on the same street, and this association was cemented when Widener's oldest son married Elkins's daughter.Elkins had started life as an entry clerk in a grocery store, had made money in the butter and egg business, had "struck oil" at Titusville in 1862, and had succeeded in exchanging his holdings for a block of Standard Oil stock.He too became a Philadelphia politician, but he had certain hard qualities--he was close-fisted, slow, plodding--that prevented him from achieving much success.
For the other members of this group we must now change the scene to New York City.In the early eighties certain powerful interests had formed plans for controlling the New York transit fields.Prominent among them was William Collins Whitney, a very different type of man from the Philadelphians.Born in Conway, Massachusetts, in 1841, he came from a long line of distinguished and intellectual New Englanders.At Yale his wonderful mental gifts raised him far above his fellows; he divided all scholastic honors there with his classmate, William Graham Sumner, afterwards Yale's great political economist.Soon after graduation Whitney came to New York and rapidly forged ahead as a lawyer.Brilliant, polished, suave, he early displayed those qualities which afterward made him the master mind of presidential Cabinets and the maker of American Presidents.
Physically handsome, loved by most men and all women, he soon acquired a social standing that amounted almost to a dictatorship.His early political activities had greatly benefited New York.He became a member of that group which, under the leadership of Joseph H.Choate and Samuel J.Tilden, accomplished the downfall of William M.Tweed.Whitney remained Tilden's political protege for several years.Though highbred and luxury-loving, as a young man he was not averse to hard political work, and many old-timers still remember the days when "Bill"Whitney delivered cart-tail harangues on the lower east side.By 1884 he had become the most prominent Democrat in New York--always a foe to Tammany--and as such he contributed largely to Cleveland's first election, became Secretary of the Navy in Cleveland's cabinet and that great President's close friend and adviser.As Secretary of the Navy, Whitney, who found the fleet composed of a few useless hulks left over from the days of Farragut, created the fighting force that did such efficient service in the Spanish War.The fact that the United States is now the third naval power is largely owing to these early activities of Whitney.
