Sept. 15. 1911 



573 



K] 



®i^®m ®i! TTo^awf 



A. I, Root 



After leaving my good friend Selser, the 

 manager of our Philadelphia house, he wir- 

 ed Mr. Thorndyke, manager of our Xew 

 York business, who met me as I got off the 

 ferry, and it is well that he did so, for Xew 

 York is a i)retty large place for a man of 

 nearly 72 to find his way in. I am not go- 

 ing to tell you much about the great city of 

 Xew York, but I will give you just a glimpse 

 here and there. Right close to our business 

 office, on Vesey St., an immense building is 

 going up. X"ow hold your breath. It is to be 

 100 stories, and the ground it will stand on 

 cost five millions of dollars. I asked Walter 

 how deep they were going to secure a founda- 

 tion for that immense structure. He said he 

 did not know; and as hundreds of workmen 

 were just then starting the foundation I ven- 

 tured to walk through the inside fence just to 

 get a glimjjse of how deep it was, and of what 

 was going on down there. I got my glimpse; 

 but a hand was put on my shoulder, and 

 somebody said, ■" Look here, old friend, this 

 is not allowed. You might get hit by the 

 derrick and other ponderous machinery." 



I afterward learned that they went down 

 170 feet. Then I asked the question how 

 much steel and cement could be i)iled on a 

 single spot of old mother Earth without 

 breaking through the crust or indenting the 

 solid ground so as to throw the structure 

 "out of true." I can not give you the di- 

 mensions — that is. how much ground this 

 structure is to occupy, but it takes one whole 

 city block. I asked Walter if such a build- 

 ing would ]>robably be all occui)ied. He 

 thought it would, Viecause it is right in the 

 heart of the business portion of the great 

 city. Can you imagine what such a struc- 

 ture, if all occupied, would rent for? I can 

 give you something to figure on a little. 

 In that locality it costs SoO.OO a month for 

 two rooms, each perhaps 12 k 15, on the third 

 story of a buikUng. W'hen I protested that 

 no one could afford to pay so much, I was 

 told that, to do business, one must be on such 

 busy streets. It is the headquarters of poul- 

 try supplies — in fact, close by the Cyjihers 

 people and others, and where people are 

 coming in almost constantly every day, and 

 are wanting to know all about poultry, etc. 

 Besides $50.00 a month for that little office 

 "upstairs," it would cost $1000 a year rent 

 for the second story of a dilapidated old 

 warehouse away over in Hoboken, almost 

 two miles away, and reached by a tunnel 

 under the river, a mile long. When I j^ro- 

 tested again against such an enormous rent 

 for such poor accommodations, I was told to 

 look around a little and see what is going 

 on in a great city. Business called me to a 

 locality but two or three blocks away, where 

 there was some vacant ground. Xow, this 

 ground was a sort of frog-pond, I should 

 call it. There was green scum on the wa- 

 ter, with mosquitoes thrown in, and no out- 

 let had been provided for draining off the 



water. Out of curiosity we inquired what 

 that vacant ground was supposed to be 

 worth. A place for building, 25 feet front, 

 running back 100 feet, was $2000. Instead 

 of getting an outlet for the water they filled 

 in with dirt, then drove down piles on which 

 to place the buildings. Of course I was dis- 

 gusted with that whole neighborhood; but 

 one of the friends suggested I should see 

 what was going on close by. Within about 

 a stone's throw of that same "frog-pond " lo- 

 cality a good lady (God bless her and all her 

 kind) of great wealth felt somewhat as I did 

 about the situation, and her heart was filled 

 with compassion for the poor children that 

 literally "swarmed" in that district; so she 

 bought a great tract of land right there 

 (where land cost so much a foot) , and had 

 already filled it in with good soil, planted 

 trees and flowers, put up swings, a beautiful 

 bathing apparatus, pure drinking water, 

 and every thing that heart could imagine 

 for the dro\ es of children who, perhaps, had 

 never had a good wholesome bath in their 

 lives, and had never before had a glimpse of 

 green grass and flowers. Wlien I actually 

 witnessed what great wealth could do in 

 transforming a locality like that I became 

 more hopeful. 



After leaving X^ew York my next point 

 was Waterbury, Ct., where my father was 

 born, and where he lived till he was about 

 twelve years old. I will tell you what call- 

 ed me there. One of our clerks here in Me- ' 

 dina (it was not a girl clerk) made a mistake 

 in addressing an A B C book. He sent it to 

 Middlebury, Ct., instead of Middlebury, Vt. 

 After it had lain in the office for quite a 

 while the postmaster gave it to his mother- 

 in-law because her father had been interest- 

 ed in bees before he died. She became taken 

 up with the book, particularly as her moth- 

 er's name was Root, and she finally wrote 

 to our company, asking if she could have 

 the book if she would pay the proper price,* 

 and she also made mention of her ancestry. 

 Such letters usually come to me, and finally 

 I scraped up an acquaintance, and then we 

 found we were relatives, and the good wo- 

 man gave me a very urgent invitation to 

 call on her when business or any thing else 

 called me that way. I not only had a nice 

 visit with her, but I found at Waterbury 

 a cousin of hers, Samuel Root; and as my 

 father and grandfather were both named 

 Samuel, we soon formed a friendship as well 

 as traced a relationship. Waterbury is now 

 a manufacturing city with something like 

 100,000 inhabitants. Middlebury is a beau- 

 tiful little suburb out on the trolley line. 

 Two things impressed me in regard to the 

 town. When I first got up in the morning 

 a group of magnificent buildings, or a pile 



* When I cautioned the clerk, and spoke of more 

 care in addre.ssing, etc., he said the " Vt." was ob- 

 .scure. and ventured, also, that he sold " two books" 

 instead of one. 



