follow other congenial occupations.
His efforts in the investigations in connection with our educational
contributions, our medical research, and other kindred works have been
very successful. During the last ten or twelve years my son has shared
with Mr. Gates the responsibility of this work, and more recently Mr.
Starr J. Murphy has also joined with us to help Mr. Gates, who has
borne the heat and burden of the day, and has well earned some leisure
which we have wanted him to enjoy.
But to return to the story of our troubled investments: Mr. Gates went
into the study of each of these business concerns, and did the best he
could with them. It has been our policy never to allow a company in
which we had an interest to be thrown into the bankruptcy court if we
could prevent it; for receiverships are very costly in many ways and
often involve heavy sacrifices of genuine values. Our plan has been to
stay with the institution, nurse it, lend it money when necessary,
improve facilities, cheapen production, and avail ourselves of the
opportunities which time and patience are likely to bring to make it
self-sustaining and successful. So we went carefully through the
affairs of these crippled enterprises in the hard times of 1893 and
1894, carrying many of them for years after; sometimes buying the
interests of others and sometimes selling our own interest, but all or
nearly all escaped the expenses and humiliation of bankruptcy,
receivership, and foreclosure.
Before these matters were entirely closed up we had a vast amount of
experience in the doctoring of the commercially ill. My only excuse
for dwelling upon the subject at this late day is to point out the
fact to some business men who get discouraged that much can be done by
careful and patient attention, even when the business is apparently in
very deep water. It requires two things: some added capital, put in
by one's self or secured from others, and a strict adherence to the
sound natural laws of business.
THE ORE MINES
Among these investments were some shares in a number of ore mines and
an interest in the stocks and bonds of a railroad being built to carry
the ore from the mines to lake ports. We had great faith in these
mines, but to work them the railroad was necessary. It had been begun,
but in the panic of 1893 it and all other developments were nearly
ruined. Although we were minority holders of the stock, it seemed to
be "up to us" to keep the enterpr
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