yx'.::.i 
 
^ THE \ 
 O LIBRARIES % 
 
tribute of the 
 
 Cljamha' of (Commerce 
 
 of the 
 
 •^'tate of ^\nu Hurk 
 
 %^ the memory of 
 JJrocccMnas of the lieaular iHeetiui^ 
 
 lielb April :i iyi:i 
 
0, 
 
'S^iihutcs tn 3j^^lp^ Plcrpont jWinnum 
 
 AT THE MEETING OF THE CHAMBER OF 
 
 COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW 
 
 YORK. HELD APRIL 3. 1913. 
 
 John Pierpont Mor(4AX died on March 31st, only four days 
 before the regular April meeting of the Chamber. In view of Mk. 
 Morgan's great position in the business world, his magnificent ser- 
 vices ill the development of this country and his long association with 
 the Chamber, it was resolved to devote that meeting to a memorial 
 of Mr. Mor(4AN. The fitness of this was universally recognized. 
 
 The members were accordingl\- notified ; anil when the April !od 
 meeting was called to order, the Hall of the Chamber was crowded 
 by nearlv five hundred of the foremost business men of the city, the 
 state and the nation. 
 
 The following order was carried out with impressive solemnity: 
 
 ORDER OF EXERCISES. 
 
 James G. Cannon, Est;., C'hairman of the E.xecutive Committee 
 moved that, out of respect to Mr. Mor(;an's memory, all business be 
 suspended until an adjourned meeting to he held on April tenth. 
 
 Introductorv John Ci-aflin, Eso. 
 
 President of the Chamber. 
 
 Address Senator Elihu Root. 
 
 Address Honorable Joseph H. Choate. 
 
 Address Robert W. DeForkst, Esq. 
 
 Address Honorable Seth Low. 
 
 Presentation of Resolutions Frank A. Vanderijp, Esq. 
 
.VDDRKSS OF JOHN CLAFI.IN, K!SQ.. 
 l»UKSiniONT OF TIIIO C'lIA.MIJKlf. 
 
 We come together to-day in the shadow of a great sorrow. 
 J. PiERPONT Morgan, for fifty years a member of this Chamber and 
 for four terms one of its Vice-Presidents, lias passed away, c^^he 
 greatest financier of his time, the man who, above any other, combined 
 and embodied the American ideals of enterprise and integrity and 
 courage, has gone from our earthly activities.^ Like the founders of 
 thisNation, Mr. Morgan had prophetic vision ; like them he believed 
 in this country and in its future ; like them he was an organizer of 
 scattered possibilities and a builder of mighty structures such as no 
 man had built before. 
 
 Those who opposed him questioned his motives, belittled his achieve- 
 ments and at times even strove to make his deeds of beneficence 
 appear acts of rapacity and selfishness. The panic year of 1907 
 furnishes an example with which we are all familiar. It is well nigh 
 impossible for this community to exaggerate the debt it owes to Mr. 
 Morgan for his splendid services to public and private credit then ; 
 yet sensational criticism has often charged him with promoting the 
 panic for his own ends. Happily the story is plain and open, and 
 history will make it evident that he labored assiduously i'or months 
 to stem the rising tide of distrust, and, when finally it became a wild 
 flood of fear and threatened to demolish all enterprise, by an exhibi- 
 tion of master-will and leadership unparalleled in the annals of finance, 
 he rallied other strong men to his side to join in untiring and con- 
 stant work until their combined efforts had stayed the rush of 
 destruction. 
 
 We, his neighbors, know what manner of man Mr. Morgan was. 
 We knew the goodness of his heart, as well as the greatness of his 
 mind, and it is fitting that we should assemble here to-day to do re- 
 verent honor to his memory and to bear witness to the nobility of his 
 character and the beneficence of his life. 
 
.VDDUKSS OFTIIK HONOU.VIJI.K KI.IIII^ UOCKr, 
 
 t'NITKl) S'lWTKS SKXATOR FROM NKM' VOUK. 
 
 Mr. Peesidp:nt and Gentlemen of the Chamber : Mr. Mor- 
 gan's life is still so near to us, the sense of loss, the half realized idea 
 that he whom we have been nieeting- here and there in the daily life 
 of the present, is to be here no more is so vivid, that discriminating 
 estimate, is difficult. 
 
 Nevertheless, under the swift and sudden detachment of death we 
 can already, vaguely, dimly, perceive his great career as a whoh' ; the 
 vigorous personality is seen against the background of tremendous 
 forces whose play and conflict have been not merely the storm, but 
 the development of an amazing half century of progress for civilization. 
 
 When Mr. Morgan became a banker there was a dift'erent world 
 than that in which we live. Then France was an empire. Germany 
 was a geographical expression covering, by a reminiscence of history, 
 twenty or more separate and independent states. America was half 
 slave and half free. The continent was unspanned save by the emigrant 
 wagon; no electric cable t-arried communication under the ocean; 
 American banking was provincial and local ; steamship and railway 
 communication were in their infancy ; the Bessemer process for mak- 
 ing steel was not yet a success ; manufacture was conducted by small 
 units; capital was small; enterprise was individual. During his 
 active life as a banker the most amazing development of wealth, of 
 capacity for production, of commercial intercourse, of interchange 
 among the nations of men, of transition from individual activity to 
 the tremendous power of organization, the utilization of discovery and 
 of invention, the power of leadership, all transformed the world of in- 
 dustry and of commerce, and are transforming the social life of the 
 world. The transactions of to-day would have seemed impossible 
 dreams half a century ago. The dreams have been realized in this 
 single active life. This change has not been an invasion ; it has not 
 come from without, it has not been revolution ; it has been develop- 
 
6 
 
 inent ; it has been a growth from the latent forces that existed lialf a 
 century ago. 
 
 This, our friend whom we honor and mourn to-day, was the first, 
 the commanding and controlling figure above all other men, in this 
 amazing movement of the forces of civilization. First among all in 
 our own country emerging from its provincialism to its place in the 
 great world of finance and industry, then by gradual recognition of his 
 position here and its world influence first in the world, the greatest of 
 bankers, the greatest organizer of production, the greatest master of 
 commerce of the world in the mightiest epoch of power applied to 
 finance, to production and to commerce. 
 
 How came Mr. Morgan to be this commanding figure? No title 
 marked him for leadership to tiie common ai)prehension. No office 
 created for him a presumption of greatness to the common apprehen- 
 sion. He had none of the arts of popularity. He had but little 
 capacity for expression. (In a country of speakers, of orators, of 
 influence from the platform and of influence by the printed page, he 
 was almost silent.'~;;;>It was only under stress of deep emotion that his 
 power exhibited itself in words. The real man was hidden under a 
 manner often gruff, always reserved. He was not a man of sentiment 
 and expression, but a man of feeling and of action. 
 
 How came he to this leadership? He had, first of all, constructive 
 instinct. The instinct that moved him was not to accumulate, but to 
 do. He cared little for money for itself. It was what he could do 
 with it ; it was to use it for good ends and objects of interest and desire, 
 not to have it. Not the instinct of the miser, but the instinct 
 of the builder, moved him always. He had, with this constructive 
 instinct, extraordinary intuition. He did not reason by logical pro- 
 cesses. His mind went, straight as an arrow, to its conclusion by 
 processes that he himself could not have explained and of which he 
 himself was not conscious, but it went with unerring accuracy. There 
 is a field of the higher mathematics into which no man can enter, 
 except those rare men who come once in a century and whose minds 
 are capable of proceeding to a distant conclusion by processes uncon- 
 
scions to themselves. When sucli a man livts his name becomes oreat 
 in the history of science. Such a man in the practical affairs of life 
 was Mr. Mokgan. The same kind of intuitive processor unconscious 
 reasoning led him from his premises to his conclusions. 
 
 With that quality he had, of course, the quality of swift decision, 
 so that opportunity never knocked in vain at his door. At the time 
 when all thinas were possible, his decision came, and he had that high 
 courage and inflexible resolution that gave to his decision the qual- 
 ity of absolute finality. An incident — perhaps a necessary incident — 
 of this extraordinary quality of the man was that he carried a touch- 
 stone for all sham and deceit and pretence, like those rings of fable 
 or of history, which could detect the presence of poison in the cup. 
 With little evidence he needed no argument, he needed no delibera- 
 tion, but he detected the true from the false, the sound from the 
 unsound, and reached the bedrock of a business question instantly. 
 , Naturally, with these qualities Mr. Morgan was direct and simple 
 I and frank ; never cunning or devious, never wasting his time or retard- 
 ing his progress by puttering about among little things, among trifles, 
 he always went to the main question and decided that, and then let 
 everything else follow that. 
 
 He had far sight into the future, lie had l)readth of vision and 
 largeness of mind and compreliension, so that with these great quali- 
 ties he became a great figure. He had more than these. He had 
 that imagination which could visualize — that imagination without 
 which no one, poet or banker, reasoner or builder, can be great — he 
 had imagination and he had faith, which not only was, but gave, sub- 
 stance to things hoped for. Take him all and all he was a man, — a 
 great man. And with these qualities had he not genius? I think he 
 had. I I think no ordinary talent can answer the question why Mr. 
 Morgan attained the leadership he did. I think it was that subtle 
 and undetinable and rare quality of genius that made him what he 
 was. ~l 
 
 So he became a great leader in great affairs, and his name became 
 a guarantee of soundness and honor and good faith and of success, so far 
 
8 
 
 as the exercise of inflexible resolution could produce success. He car- 
 ried in his aft'airs the supreme capital of character. Under stress of 
 excitement in the Pujo investigation he presented the great truth of 
 character to the wonderment and confusion of smaller minds who had 
 been thinking upon a lower plane than he stood upon. So he found 
 the railroad system of this country the inheritor of the fruits of fraud 
 and rapacity. Railroads that had been bled by their builders and 
 managers all over the country he reconstructed upon the basis of 
 absolute integrity, so that faith took the place of distrust and con- 
 demnation. 
 
 Mr. Morgan has been misjudged by many unfamiliar with great 
 affairs who cannot see that big affairs proceed upon the same principles 
 of morality as small affairs ; and I would like to say — not to you in 
 his own city who knew him, but to the people in every small town 
 and village in our country : Select from among the people of your 
 town the man who is most honored, the man to whom you would go 
 for advice in distress, the man whose word every one believes, the man 
 whose example every one desires his son to follow, and in this great 
 citizen of New York you have the man that bears the same relation of 
 faith and honor and good report to all the great affairs of the great 
 metropolis, and of the world of finance and commerce. 
 T^Mr. Morgan played no game of chance ; he acquired no fortune by 
 deceit or overreaching or unfair advantage. J He took from no man, 
 but hti acquired a great fortune by making the prosperity of 
 many and by taking his fair and just share of the prosperity that he 
 created. The scope of his enterprise gave him a relation to public 
 affairs that was unexampled not onl\- in our own country, but I think 
 in any country. There were so many investors in so many enterprises 
 whom hischivalric sense of lionor led him to desire to protect that the 
 financial condition of the country was a matter of immediate interest 
 to him, and he took the place that Government should have taken 
 many and many a time. The faults of our financial system, made 
 possible by the incapacity of lawmakers to reconcile confidence and 
 knowledge, he remedied from time to time as occasion arose by bis own 
 tremendous power ; and that was Government. 
 
9 
 
 What Mr. Morgan did in the settlement of the coal strike, what 
 he did in the Panic of U)07, was Government as truly as the leadership 
 of a nation acquired by one commanding figure who turns it into an 
 army for conquest, or defence, is Government. He followed the 
 instincts of his nature which made him ready for public service 
 wherever there was a public need appealing to his knowledge and his 
 constructive instinct. 
 
 But there is another side of Mr. Morgan's nature which appeals 
 to us, and that was his kindliness and generous impulse ; the capa- 
 city for loyalty to every cause he espoused, which made him a staunch 
 Churchman, that made him a significant figure in all organizations in 
 which we have known him, that made him a philanthropist and that 
 made him a friend. 
 
 CHe was a great collector. He loved all forms of beauty. He had 
 a sensitiveness to impressions — all the noble impressions of life that 
 made him love association with what was great in literature, in 
 history and in art. More than that, he had a sensitiveness to all 
 the noblest feelings that dignify manhood which made his heart 
 open to distress and sufferingr^ Manj- men remain to be grateful to 
 him for the preservation of their fortunes, of their inveslmenls, of the 
 income upon which depend the comfort of their lives and the lives of 
 their families. Many men, multitudes, remain to thank him for 
 bringing to his own land, and helping to build up opportunity for the 
 people to see, the great works of art of other countries and of other 
 times, to thank him for that enlargement of human happiness that 
 after men have drunken and eaten all they can and have worn all 
 the clothes and found all the shelter they can, comes from the cultiva- 
 tion of taste. Many men remain to be grateful for his example of 
 integrity and honor, and many men and women, to bless him for the 
 good done in secret. Many a tear has been shed in homes of which I 
 know for the loss of the simple-minded modest benefactor who has done 
 good in secret. 
 
 The era of development in which lie lived and worked is drawing 
 to its conclusion. Such a career as his may, and probably will never 
 
10 
 
 come again, for we come to other days and other manners, but the 
 great-heartedness, the nobility of the man, thank God! are eternal, 
 and will live with us and in his example, time without end. 
 
11 
 
 A.IJ1)R1':SS OF Till-: IIONOH.Vltl.K .TOSKIMI H. CIKKVTi:. 
 
 FOUMIOR A.MIJASSADOK TO (ililCAT UltlTAIN. 
 
 Mr. Presidknt and Genti>kmkn. — When Mr. Morgan, in that 
 examination at Washington to which Mr. Koot has referred, to which 
 he looked forward with so much dread, and from which he emerged 
 with so much glorj, said that " character is the true secret of all 
 success in life," he wrote his own epitaph, and told in one short sen- 
 tence the whole story of his life. 
 
 This pure, high, unselfish character, seemed to be inherent and 
 transmissible in the noble stock from which he sprang. I am afraid 
 few of you remember his glorious immediate, ancestors whom I had 
 the honor of seeing and knowing as a young man knows the old. 
 There was his maternal grandfather, John Pierpont, for whom he was 
 named ; a grand old hero and patriot, if there ever was one ; a man who 
 though 7G years old when the Civil War broke out, yet took the field 
 as chaplain in one of the Massachusetts regiments ; a man who was 
 always a noble champion for his country and especially for freedom. 
 Are there any men here, I wonder, who were present on the 22d of 
 December, 1855, so long ago, when John Pieri'Ont delivered that 
 noble poem before the New England Society in Dr. Cheever's 
 church on Union Square, which stood on the spot afterwards occupied 
 for many years by the golden temple of Tiffany ? If there are, then 
 they must remember the splendid stanzas which he delivered on that 
 night, which were inspiring to the very last degree. I recall the grand 
 Invocation to the (irod of the Pilgrims with which he concluded. 
 
 "01 Thou Holy One and .lust. 
 Thou who wast the Pilgrims' trust. 
 Thou wlio watehest o'er their dust, 
 By tlie moaning sea ; 
 By their contiicts. toils and tears ; 
 By their perils and their prayers, 
 By their ashes, 
 Make tlieir heirs true 
 To Them and Tiiee." 
 
12 
 
 That prayer was not uttered in vain, and this one heir, this one 
 grandson of his whom we liave met to-day to commemorate — the secret 
 of his life was that he was true to the principles that he had inherited 
 from his sires and from the God in whose sight he always felt that he 
 was moving and working. It was indeed a great thing to be descend- 
 ed from such a man as good old John Pikrpont and to bear his 
 name. 
 
 And then his own father, Junius Spencer Morgan — a man whose 
 career and character were singularly like his own. Entering life as a 
 clerk in a store in Boston, moving on by the pure force of character 
 and conduct step by step, year by year, decade by decade, until he be- 
 came a partner with, and successor to, George Peabody, and, like 
 him, one of the noblest and grandest merchants and bankers of London. 
 I am one of those who believe that the stuft' that is born in a man 
 contributes quite as much to his success in life, as what he himself ac- 
 quires and achieves. 
 
 Thus Mr. Morgan had certainly a most noble inheritance to begin 
 with. I knew him first when he had just returned from school and 
 the university in Germany and was a clerk in the office, I believe, 
 of Duncan, Sherman A: Company ; and from that day on until the 
 day that he laid down his life in Rome, it was one continuous, steady, 
 unbroken march of progress from strength to strength and always 
 from glory to glory. Wiien I look around upon this great company 
 of the active merchants and bankers of to-day, and when J gaze upon 
 these walls from which look down upon us the portraits of the great 
 merchants and bankers of past generations, Mr. Morgan and his 
 father included among them, and ask how it was that he towered 
 above all the rest, so that every man in this generation, and the 
 spirits of these departed would agree that he was greater than them 
 all, 1 attribute it not merely to his inherited noble character, but 
 to the wonderful God given qualities of mind and body that few men 
 in any generation are blessed with. Mr. Morgan had truly not only 
 a sound mind in a sound body, but lie had a colossal mind, and as 
 penetrating and subtle as it was colossal, in a very wonderful body. 
 
13 
 
 He had a genius for finance and for great afi'airs, and seemed to me 
 to reach his conclusions by intuition ; not by study. I do not think 
 he could himself" have reasoned out to you the proeess,es by which 
 his great conclusions were reached. No problem could be submitted 
 to him which he was not equal to, and to which he did not give, by 
 the closest attention, the most successful solution of which it was 
 capable. 
 
 It is only once in a generation that such a mind is born in such a 
 a body, and Mr. MoRciAN made the very best use of it from his first 
 entrance into the banking house in 1857 until he died in 1913. And 
 then he had certain other qualities which all may hope to have, but 
 which he developed in a wonderful degree ; and I should say that the 
 first of these was loyalty — loyalty to his country, loyalty to all his 
 associates, loyalty to everj' enterprise in which he had engaged, and, 
 above all, loyalty to himself — to his own noble conscience and to the 
 great character of which he was the owner. 
 
 Truly he exemplified the words of Shaksperk : 
 
 "This above all, — to thine own self be true ; 
 And it must follow a.s the night tlie day, 
 Tiiou can'st not tlien be false to any man." 
 
 He was always true to himself, and, therefore, as you all know, he 
 was never once false to any man. And then besides all that greatness 
 of mind and body and character, under that same rugged exterior, 
 he had one of the warmest, tenderest, most sympathetic hearts that ever 
 beat within the breast of man. 
 
 I shall not dwell upon any of those points explanatory of his great 
 financial career to which Mr. Root has done such noble justice, but 
 I do want to say one word about that great heart within that great 
 body and under the dome of that great head. It was one of the 
 noblest of which I think biography or history gives us any example. 
 I think that of him more signally than of any great man that I ever 
 knew, we might say even in his sternest moods, 
 
 " He hides a smiling providence behind a frowning face." 
 
14 
 
 His relations to his fellow men were full of sacred and sympathetic 
 kindness. 
 
 I do not believe that he ever worked for money as the chief object of 
 life. Monev to him was a means rather than an end, to see how much 
 good he could do with it, how far he could make the blessing of what 
 he acquired e.xtend to other men and women. That is what he was 
 always in search of. If the great mass and number of his gifts through 
 his seventy-live years could be recorded and accounted for — and 1 do 
 not think he ever kept any ledger account showing what he gave away — 
 it would be, I believe a colossal fortune beyond the dreams of 
 avarice, approximating perhaps that which he has left behind him. 
 
 He was the num who led the way in all works of benevolence, of 
 charity and of good conduct, building up great institutions for public 
 welfare, hospitals, churches, universities, colleges, schools, and these 
 not limited to his own immediate vicinity. No appeal for a good 
 cause came to him in vain. 
 
 So I fear that that story will never he told in full, but we know 
 enouah about it to know that he took infinite pleasure in the good that 
 he could accomplish in the world by aiding the struggles, and mitigat- 
 ing the miseries, of his fellowmen and women. If that company of 
 his beneficiaries who were made mourners by his death could be 
 gathered toeether and march in procession before us, it would astound 
 the world. And the number of homes, that by his unseen benevolence 
 he has saved from suffering and made happy, could not be counted 
 within the score or within the hundred. 
 
 Yet this great man, who was as good as he was great — and that is 
 what makes him greater still — this man who was such a patriot, such 
 a lover of his country, such a constant benefactor of his race, was sub- 
 jected often to the most serious calumny. 
 
 " Be thou as chaste as ice, as cold as snow, thou shalt not escape 
 calumny." 
 
 Nobody ever found that more true than this great American, especi- 
 ally during the last twenty years of his life, when he was trying, with 
 all the ardor and vigor that was in him, to benefit his fellow-citizens 
 
15 
 
 and the world at large. It was instigated largely for political purposes, 
 and also by malicious rivalry, but so confident was he always of his 
 own rectitude, so sure was all the rest of the world of his absolute 
 purity and uprightness of character that it all slid away from him and 
 did him no harm whatever. 
 
 I must not occupy any more of your time. The men whose por- 
 traits are looking down upon us from these walls, and you in your 
 counting houses and stores, will unite with me, in saying that though 
 we can not attain to his dimensions, we must each according to his 
 mediocrity, strive to imitate his example. We must try to be as 
 good and pure, as true and patriotic, as benevolent and humane as he 
 was ; and we must leave his memory as I think it may be safely left, 
 to the judgment of an impartial posterity. 
 
16 
 
 .Vl>r>RKSS OF ROltKRT W, rtV: FORKST. 1<:SQ.. 
 
 VICK-I'RKSIDKXT t>l' Till-: MKTliOl'OI.ITAX MISKIM OK .VRT. 
 
 Mr. President. — To those who only looked at Mr. Morgan from 
 a single angle, whatever that angle was, he loomed so large that they 
 thought they saw his whole stature. But from whatever point he 
 was viewed there could only he seen a small fraction of his great 
 personality. 
 
 To the world of business he seemed the embodiment of some titanic 
 force, whether it operated to save the credit of a nation or to re-create 
 a great enterprise. 
 
 To such a world it must have seemed inconceivable that this same 
 person could halt his great business projects to admire some small 
 work of art, and could lay aside both business and arts to play with 
 his grandchildren, or to caress his favorite dog. 
 
 But such was the real Mr. Morgan. And to him it was not incon- 
 gruous to assemble the forces which stayed the panic of 1907 for that 
 famous all-night session at his Library in the company of a placid 
 Madonxa of Raphael and a delicate statuette by Donatello. 
 There were two of Donatello's statuettes in his favorite corner. He 
 loved them, he was wont to say, because they reminded him of his own 
 children. 
 
 He was easily the greatest art amateur, — the greatest art collector, 
 of his time. 
 
 Was it the mere pleasure of possession, the ambition to have and 
 be known to have the choicest objects of art, which attracted him ? 
 No, not primarily, though such pleasure and such ambition there must 
 have been. He loved art for art's sake. His taste was highly culti- 
 vated and he rarely erred. He trusted his own judgment in selection, 
 and his mental operation was as intuitive and instantaneous when 
 applied to the purchase of a picture as to a business transaction. I 
 recall several instances : 
 
 I was with liim in London at the establishment of a noted dealer. 
 
17 
 
 The dealer took from his pocket a miniature and said to Mr. Morgan : 
 "You want tliat for jour collection." Mr. ^[organ glanced at it 
 for a second. " How much did you pay for it?" said he. The dealer, 
 who evidently mistrusted me, whispered something in Mr. MoR(iAN's 
 ear. Mr. Morgan handed the miniature back to him at once. A 
 little later at the same interview the dealer took out another miniature. 
 Said he, " How about this one Mr. Morgan?" The same quick panto- 
 mine was enacted, and ^Ir. Morgan put the miniature in his pocket. 
 
 I was admiring an exquisite Gothic statuette in his library. 1 said, 
 "Mr. Morgan, how did you possibly get that?" "Why," said he, 
 " I was walking on a street of Paris ; I passed a man carrying some- 
 thing under his cloak and 1 saw that he had a statue. I asked him 
 what he was doing with it. He said he wanted to sell it. I took him 
 to my hotel and in five minutes I became its owner." Later his ex- 
 pert friends told him he had obtained a masterpiece at an insignifi- 
 cant price. 
 
 He frequently paid large prices. He used to say "No price is too 
 large for an object of unquestioned beauty and known authenticity." 
 And he acted on this belief No wonder he vexed the souls of ama- 
 teurs whose purses were more slender, and excited the envy of museum 
 directors whose government grants were insufficient to compete with 
 him. But now that he has brought all these acquired treasures to his 
 and our own country, which one of us will say that his was not the 
 broader perspective? 
 
 Mr. MoR(iAN was interested in our Metropolitan Museum from the 
 very beginning. He was one of that courageous band of public- 
 spirited citizens who worked for a year to raise the pitiful $106,000 
 with which it was started. He became a trustee in 1889 and was 
 elected President in 1904. From then it became with him an absorb- 
 ing interest. He would drop any piece of business at any time to give 
 thought to its affairs. I have frequently in these later years called 
 him up by telephone to inquire when he could see me conveniently 
 about something, and his almost invariable response was — "right now. 
 
 I recall the Monday of that famous all-night session which stayed 
 
 ' » 
 
18 
 
 the Panic of 1907. He quietly presided over a long meeting at the 
 Museum that afternoon, and only after its routine was all over did he 
 quietly remark that he had to hurry home to attend to a serious 
 financial situation. 
 
 Nor was his interest in the Museum solelv that of a collector. He 
 found in the re-organization which took place when he became its Presi- 
 dent ample scope for his broad, perspective, constructive power. He 
 was in deep sympathy with its recent development on the side of in- 
 dustrial art and education. Nor did he ever look upon it as a private 
 possession. It was as a great public institution that it appealed to 
 him. Nothing pleased him more than the true democracy of those 
 recent receptions where he stood at the head of the receiving line and 
 shook hands with everyone who filed by. 
 
 An incident of one of those receptions comes to my mind, which was 
 eminently characteristic. Among the approaching guests, conspicuous 
 from absence of evening costume, was a woman with a baby in her 
 arms. To the rest of us it seemed an impudent intrusion. Most men 
 would have directed the attendants to remove her. Not so with Me. 
 Morgan. He shook hands with her as graciously as he did with 
 other guests, and as she passed by said to me, "quick, get that baby's 
 name, so that I can make it a life fellow of the Museum." Said I, 
 " That will cost you one thousand dollars." " So much the better " 
 said he. He did not stop before he acted to inquire who that baby 
 was. He took in the situation at a glance, though he had never seen 
 the woman before. She was the wife of one of our new Museum 
 attendants, who knew no better, who was eager to attend the recep- 
 tion and who could not come without bringing her baby with her. 
 
 Me. Morgan' never saw all his collections assembled together. 
 Fortunately for America they are all here, but only his pictures, and 
 not all of these, have been unpacked. But I am sure his satisfaction 
 in havins: them exhibited togetiier would not have been the selfish 
 pleasure of seeing them himself, but the pleasure the sight of them 
 was giving to his fellow countrymen. The son spoke for the father 
 when he said yesterday — "Do not keep my father's pictures at the 
 
19 
 
 Museum closed any longer out of respect to his memory. Open the 
 gallery to the public. It is what he would have wished." 
 
 One of the greatest desires that Mr. Morgan had this last year of 
 his life was that the city would provide for a new wing to the 
 Museum. Not so much that it would make space in which to show 
 his collections, (his were not the only collections that needed showing 
 space) but as an earnest of the city's co-operation with an interest in 
 the great public institution whose welfare he had so much at heart. 
 It was one of the last things he spoke of before he sailed. I wished 
 he could have lived until yesterday when he would have known that 
 this wish of his had been fulfilled. 
 
 Nor was our Metropolitan Museum the only art institution in 
 which he was interested. He had a broad vision of a great American 
 Academy at Rome, formed by the union of the original Academy 
 with the American School for C-lassical Study, established high on 
 the Janiculum overlooking the " Eternal City." That dream he 
 was turning into reality when he was taken away. 
 
 His loss to our Museum and to the cause of art would be irrepara- 
 ble except for what, while living, he has done, and what, though 
 dying, his example will inspire others to do. 
 
20 
 
 ADDRKSS OF Till': I lONOU Altl.K Sl-mi I.O>V, 
 
 I'OR.MlOli MAVOU Ol- Till': <ITV t)l' Nli^V VOUIv. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Chamber of Com- 
 merce. — The members of the Chamber meet here to-day under the 
 shadow of a great loss, but equally under the inspiration of a great 
 career. Those who have preceded me have presented Mr. Mor(4AN 
 as the massive figure he w^as in American life. Let me try to point 
 out some of the more intimate characteristics of the man. This Cham- 
 ber is full of men who recognize Mr. Morgan's easy primacy in the 
 business affairs of this community and of the country ; but how few 
 of us have ever heard him say even a single word in this Chamber ! 
 Verily, he was conspicuously a man of deeds, and not of words ; but 
 when an effort was to be made to put up a building which should 
 belong to the Chamber of Commerce, one of the first to be turned to, 
 as a matter of course, was Mr. Morgan. His response was immedi- 
 ate and generous. Mr. Morgan was the first man to whom I spoke 
 in connection with the purchase of the new site for Columbia Univer- 
 sity. His liearty approval of the plan, and his spontaneous offer of 
 $100,000 to carry it out, were an immense encouragement to me. So 
 generally was it known that Mr. Morgan was both public spirited 
 and generous, that his primacy in this regard was as unconsciously 
 recognized as in the financial world. For things appealing to public 
 spirit, it was almost taken for granted that Mr. Morgan would con- 
 tribute ; and I do not know myself of a single instance in which that 
 expectation was disappointed. In a certain sense, this attitude of 
 his became in a way a touchstone as to the merit of such a proposal. 
 If ^Ir. Morgan approved of it. he gave; and if he gave, others 
 would give. If, on the other hand, Mr. Morgan was not sufficiently 
 interested to contribute, the supporters of the proposal asked them- 
 selves anew whether the project which they had in view really was 
 worth while. The range within which his public spirit and his 
 benevolence might be appealed to was so large, that it may be said of 
 
21 
 
 him, in the words of the Roman poet, that " nothing human was 
 alien to him." 
 
 As I contemplate Mr. Morgan's financial career I am impressed 
 by one characteristic that seems to me to be the dominant note through 
 it all. Mr. Morgan's genius was pre-eminently constructive. There 
 are a great many men in the United States and all over the world, 
 to-day, who are richer because Mr. Morgan has lived. I doubt if 
 there are any who are poorer. He accumulated a vast fortune for 
 himself; but he did it by enriching others at the same time. He did 
 not become rich himself by making others poorer. He animated 
 others with confidence and with courage, and in this fine fashion he 
 illustrated that faith that can remove mountains. 
 
 The C'ity of New York has recently seen a fine illustration of his 
 quality and his international influence. For two years the city has 
 been carrying on negotiations in regard to the dual subway plan. 
 At the beginning, the Morgan Firm, with Mr. Morgan's ready 
 approval, agreed to finance the Interborough's needs, assuming a con- 
 tract with the city to be made, to the extent of $17(),()()U,()0(). The 
 negotiations dragged along, month after month, always getting a little 
 nearer to the end but often appearing to be on the point of breaking 
 down. In all these critical months, there has been no moment when the 
 withdrawal of this firm from its contingent engagement to finance the 
 Interborough might not have been fatal to the enterprise. Much was 
 said, at times, in the public press that might have provoked their 
 withdrawal ; often the progress of negotiations was disappointingly 
 slow; but, with a loyalty not less devoted than that of the city offici- 
 als, the Morgan Firm patiently abode the issue, thus securing for 
 the city of their houie the happy outcome in which we are all even 
 now rejoicing. So much for Mr. Morgan's quality, as illustrated by 
 his banking house. Consider this matter, no\v, for the light that it 
 throws on Mr. M:)RGAn's international influence. Hestated, recently, 
 before tlie Congressional Committee, that the syndicate participa- 
 ting in this engagement numbered 286. The members of it included 
 many underwriters abroad, us well as at home. England, Scotland, 
 
22 
 
 France, Genuauj, Austria, Holland and Switzerland were all repre- 
 sented. During these two years of uncertainty the money market 
 has not always been easy. Europe has recently bid nine per cent, 
 for money on this market. And when the consummation was reached 
 the other day and the contracts were signed, the financial sky was by 
 no means so clear as when the negotiations were begun. But of all 
 this the city recked nothing. Its great citizen, through his banking 
 liouse, had given his word, and the city knew that whatever else 
 might fail the money would not ; for in pledging his own faith he 
 had, in a sense, pledged the faith of the world. This is the manner 
 of man whose loss New York mourns to-day. 
 
 Mv only intimate relationship with Mr. Morgan was in the 
 Vestry of St. Georgs:'s Church, of which, at the time of his death, he 
 was the Senior Warden. He became a Vestryman in 1868 ; Junior 
 Warden in 1885 ; and Senior Warden in 1890. You all know how 
 manifold and how great were the affairs with which Mr. Morgan 
 dealt ; but he always had time for St. George's. When he was in 
 the country, I think he never missed a meeting of the Vestry ; and 
 in these meetings he manifested as alert an interest in the welfare of 
 the Parish as he could have shown in the largest enterprise with 
 which he was connected. In a just definition of the word "great," I 
 am not sure that Mr. Morgan did not think St. George's Church, 
 with its manifold ministries to the neighborhood in which it stands, 
 the greatest interest he had. While he always stated his views with 
 candor, lie took great pains to make his fellow Vestrymen feel that 
 their views were as well entitled to consideration as his own ; and he 
 always accepted gracefully the decisions of the majority. Mr. Mor- 
 gan attained an eminence so high, that I like to think that it was 
 his generous support during many years which has made this great 
 free Church a [)08sil)ility. I know of nothing which reveals so clearly 
 the essential democracy of the man. 
 
 I once heard my father say of a certain firm that they were " money 
 good." I asked him wliat he meant. His reply was " They have 
 money, but not character. You can sell them for cash as much as 
 
23 
 
 you please, but give them no credit." If Mr. Morgan could sum- 
 marize in a word the lesson that he would like his countrymen to 
 learn from his business career, I believe it would be that character is 
 better than riches. That a man should be trustworthy ; that is to 
 say, worthy of being trusted, was in his view the thing that counts. 
 
 Mr. Morgan, during his long life, did much for Art ; much for 
 Science ; much for Education ; much for the cause of Religion ; but 
 I doubt if anything that he did, or all that he did, surpasses in value 
 to the American people and to our generation his impressive insistence 
 upon character, as the one fundamental and eternal essential for 
 business success that is worth while. 
 
24 
 
 MINl'TK ^VX]> RKSOLT'TIONS 
 
 PRKSKNTKl) HV I'R.VXK A. VAXOIOUI.Il', ].:S(^., 
 i'iji:sini:NT of tiik x.vtionai- city bank. 
 
 We have lost a leader. Our country has lost a noble citizen. Other 
 countries too are mourning the passing of a great hearted man, a 
 private citizen wliose high character and dominant personality made 
 a world-wide impression, and whose loss has caused world-wide sorrow. 
 
 The death of John Pierpont Morgan brings us together to-day to 
 give expression to the grief of a whole nation. It is fitting that we 
 should inscribe upon our tablets for posterity a. lasting tribute to his 
 name and our reverent and affectionate memory of his character and 
 noble qualities. 
 
 The responsibilities of great power rested long upon his shoulders. 
 Rarely, if ever, has a private citizen swayed such power ; but in a 
 true sense it was not the power of a private citizen, — it was the dele- 
 gated authority of an international constituency that trusted him, and 
 by their franchises freely selected him as their representative and 
 trustee. He commanded because he was endowed through nobility of 
 character with the right to command. He was strong because he ever 
 saw in power only the opportunity for right doing. He was trusted 
 with vast administration because pre-eminently he recognized fully the 
 high responsibility of trusteeship. He was a leader of men because in 
 him men saw right-mindedness, purity of purpose, great courage, 
 breadth of vision, wise optimism, and always a relation to his associates 
 and to society that subordinated self-interest and emphasized his desire 
 to be of service. 
 
 Let the career of this man, the position he attained, the influence 
 he wielded, stand ever as a refutation of the thought that business is 
 without sentiment. His great power over men had its roots in sym- 
 pathy. It was a quality of spirit that gave him the power and domi- 
 nance which he so rightfully maintained. His was not a leadership 
 of cold intellect, but of high character, of inflexible trustworthiness, 
 of broad sympathies, of a desire always to upbuild and develop, and 
 
25 
 
 to be of service in the largest measure to his community, to his 
 country, and to many countries, — for he was truly a citizen of the 
 world ; be it, therefore 
 
 Resolved, That the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York 
 directs that there be placed upon its records its sentiments of deep 
 reverence for the memory of John Pierpont Morgan, man of 
 character ; its enduring appreciation of the dominant force for good 
 which he wielded through a long life of masterful endeavor and far- 
 reaching accomplishment ; and be it further 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be suitably engrossed 
 and sent to the family, and that the entire proceedings of this meet- 
 ing be compiled in a memorial volume. 
 
 The minute and resolutions were unanimously adopted by a stand- 
 ing vote. 
 
 The Chamber then adjourned. 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
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