MEN OF AFFAIRS

Robert Joseph Fisher was born at Athens, Tennessee. His father, Richard M. Fisher, was of German descent, and moved to Tennessee from Virginia. His mother, Ann M. Gettys, is of Scotch-Irish descent, and was born at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which town was founded by, and took its name from, her grandfather. Mr. Fisher received a collegiate education at the East Tennessee Wesleyan University, at Athens, and while at school stood at the head of his classes, showing a marked predilection for mathematics. On account of business reverses sustained by his father, he left school and began business life as a clerk in a store in his native town. Subsequently he became teller in the Cleveland National Bank, at Cleveland, in his native state. Upon the death of his father, in 1883, Mr. Fisher returned to Athens and organized the First National Bank of Athens, of which he was the cashier and principal executive officer for about thirteen years. During this period Mr. Fisher promoted, and was a leading spirit in, the organization of the principal industries of his home town, which resulted in doubling the population of the place in a few years.

ROBERT JOSEPH FISHER

He was offered the position of cashier in national banks at Chattanooga and Knoxville, but declined. In 1892 he conceived the idea of the Fisher Book Typewriter and Billing Machine, for writing in bound books and for billing in commercial houses. During the succeeding four years he devoted every spare moment to improving his machine, to making his own drawings therefor, to taking out numerous patents, and to overcoming the problems and difficulties which only those who attempt to originate a machine of more than two thousand parts can appreciate. In 1896 he resigned his position in the bank, to devote his entire attention to his inventions. The Fisher Typewriter Company was organized, and two years and one hundred thousand dollars were spent before his first perfect machine was produced. The machines were manufactured at Athens for several years, notwithstanding Mr. Fisher was laughed at when he stated that he was going to manufacture in the South a piece of mechanism as nice as a watch, and in which measurements of one-half of one-thousandth of an inch were common; but the machines were made in the South as accurately as they could have been made anywhere.

After a few years, realizing that it would require a million of dollars to successfully manufacture and introduce his machine, and that this money could not be obtained in the South, he sold his stock and royalty interests in the company to eastern capitalists. A large factory, employing nearly one thousand skilled mechanics, now manufactures his machines at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and several millions of dollars have been invested in the business. The principal office of the company is in New York, with branches in all of the principal cities of the world. There is scarcely a large business in the North and East that does not use his machine, one firm in Chicago alone using four hundred of them. For several years after disposing of his interests in the company, Mr. Fisher retained a connection with it as its inventor. After returning to Athens, Mr. Fisher erected the Athens Hosiery Mills, of which he is the soleproprietor, and which is the largest individual business enterprise in his native county.

Although this business lays a heavy tax on his time and energy, it does not prevent the continuance of his inventions. Over seventy-five different patents, in this and foreign countries, attest his unabated zeal in this work. In 1900 he was awarded the John Scott Medal for meritorious invention by the city of Philadelphia, on the recommendation of Franklin Institute.

The Fisher home, in Athens, is one of typical Southern comfort, Mrs. Fisher, who comes from the prominent Gauche family of New Orleans, delighting in the exercise of hospitality no less than in her devotion to the welfare of her husband and two young sons.

To rise, in a few short years, by sheer force of character—by pluck and brains—from a humble beginning as a clerk in a small retail business in a country town to an eminence where one becomes the cynosure of all eyes in business, is a rare experience, indeed.

And yet that has happened in the life of a citizen of New Orleans—William Perry Brown, the Cotton King.

WILLIAM PERRY BROWN

He was born on a farm, and lived there until well advanced in his teens. When not at school, in his early years, the lad did chores about his home, the Civil War having left his father, who was a Confederate soldier of unblemished record, in reduced circumstances, as were all the people of his section. Under such circumstances, young Brown’s training and habits were on lines that tend to build character. They taught him, in his youth, the obligations of duty, the essentiality of self-denial and self-control, of faith in himself, and of hope for success. The lessons were not unheeded.

In meeting difficulties and overcoming obstacles in business which would paralyze an operator of less heroic mold, he is cool, collected, resourceful. Neither by change of countenance, speech nor manner does he ever betray any fear he may feel as to the outcome of the situation in which he is placed.

He is practical, and does things in a common-sense way, avoiding the spectacular as much as possible—his self-reliance and self-assertion being less conspicuous in speech than action.

Mr. Brown’s faith in the idea that cotton has been selling too low is not a thing of a day’s growth. He is an observer of men and a student of events, noting causes and the effects produced. Therein lies the secret of his success. He realizes that supply and demand regulate prices, when market conditions are normal—free from manipulation to produce, by artful management, deceptive situations.

In 1898-99 cotton was selling at and around 4¾ cents in New Orleans, and at still lower figures at interior points—a price showing on its face the staple was selling below the cost of production. The condition was abnormal. Mr. Brown saw it, and realizedit could not long endure. Looking backward, he had the wisdom to perceive that for several years preceding the production of cotton had not kept pace with the consumption; that consumption was limited, not by the acreage, which, under favorable circumstances, could be planted, but by the labor that could be commanded to till the fields and gather the crop. He saw that the prosperity of the country, the world over, was drawing laborers from the cotton fields to furnish them more remunerative employment in industrial pursuits and enterprises, where the profits on manufactured products, and in their transportation and distribution, enabled capital to pay bigger wages than could be earned on the farm. As “the stars in their courses fought against Sisera” of old, so the sun and the seasons, and the prosperity of the country, producing a scarcity of labor for farm work, fought the bears, causing cotton production to lag while speeding its consumption. The inevitable followed. The demand exceeded the supply, and the natural tendency of prices was upward. Seeing the unusually strong statistical position of cotton, and anticipating the inescapable results that would follow such conditions, if the markets were intelligently watched and artful manipulation to lower prices prevented, Mr. Brown set himself to work legitimately to aid the staple to “corner itself.” The management of the campaign for months was all that could have been expected. The plan was happily conceived, and executed with great courage and skill. Prices advanced until, in January, 1904, it looked as though they would soar to the skies. The effort to punish the Southern operators leading the fight—the men who were reared on cotton plantations and sympathized with the producers, because brought up among them, and who also knew the long suffering entailed by low prices—proved unavailing, until Sully went by the board. The combinations of Wall Street and wealthy Wall Street bears to lower prices and break down the bull leaders so far succeeded, that, about February 1, 1904, Sully was driven to the wall and prices sank so rapidly that plethoric purses in a few seconds were reduced to aching voids. Excitement on the Cotton Exchanges of New York and New Orleans ran to tidal wave proportions. Seeing their fortunes melt like mist before the morning’s sun, men lost their heads and the panic became appalling. It was like Bedlam broken loose. Pandemonium reigned, and there is no telling where the decline would have stopped had it not been for the iron nerve and reckless indifference to the assaults of the enemy on the part of the Napoleonic bull leader. It was seemingly a Waterloo, there is no doubt about that. But the daring and intrepid leader rallied enough of the Old Guard to escape Helena. By many, it was thought, and apparently with reason, the day of his destiny was over with Captain Brown, but it proved not so. He has gone right along bulling the market off and on from that day to this, as though thedire day on which Sully’s sun went down was a mere incident in his career.

The old-time speculators, as well as spinners, have been made since then unwillingly to pay something like the prices which trade conditions undisturbed justified. No trick or scheme or effort known to the smooth manipulators to bring about the downfall of Brown, by a decline in cotton, have been spared. So far, he has weathered every storm and bids fair to continue to ride the gale.

Mr. Winston claims, with Patrick Henry, descent from the old Quaker family of Winston, among the earliest settlers of Virginia. His grandfather, Pleasant Winston, having married a Miss Clark, of Lynchburg, and thus coming into possession of a number of slaves which his religion forbade him to hold and the laws of his state forbade him to free, sent them to Liberia to join the new colony founded there. His oldest son, Bowling Henry Winston, on his graduation from the University of Virginia, removed to Indiana and married there, becoming a farmer. John Clark Winston was born here in 1856. He was educated in Virginia and at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1881. It was his intention to study law, but he accepted a tempting offer to take charge of the Western branch of a Philadelphia publishing house, and the fascination of this business so grew upon him that in 1884 he entered it on his own account. His first venture was made in a small building in Philadelphia, just opposite the imposing structure which now bears his name. While devoting himself to business Mr. Winston has always maintained an interest in religious, educational and civic affairs.

JOHN CLARK WINSTON

As chairman of the Committee of Seventy, he has taken a prominent part in the reform movement in Philadelphia which resulted in the overthrow of the corrupt Republican organization. Although a Republican in National affairs, he has steadily fought for non-partisanship in municipal matters. The City Party was organized by the Committee of Seventy on the platform that city officers should be chosen without regard to political party, and solely in the interest of honesty and efficiency.

Mr. Winston was made Chairman of the Committee of Seventy at the very beginning of the reform movement, and may be regarded as one of the originators of the movement. His name was prominently mentioned in connection with the nomination for governor, and again for that of mayor, but he has steadily avowed his disinclination for holding office.

Mr. Winston was president of the Haverford Alumni Association for two years and has also taken an active interest in the work of the Historical Association and in several athletic clubs.

Dr. Charles Chassaignac was born, reared and educated, with the exception of post-graduate work in European universities, in New Orleans. He graduated in medicine in 1883 at the age of twenty-one. Since beginninghis practice Dr. Chassaignac has been identified with every movement looking to the sanitary and hygienic improvement of his native city. He was one of the founders of and a member of the first faculty of the New Orleans Training School for Nurses, which was the first of its kind established in the South. It is managed by the New Orleans Polyclinic, in conjunction with the New Orleans Sanitarium, a private hospital which it owns.

DOCTOR CHARLES CHASSAIGNAC

The New Orleans Polyclinic, of which Dr. Chassaignac is president, was the first post-graduate medical school in the South, having been established twenty years ago. It draws students from all parts of the union, but particularly from the South.

During the last epidemic of yellow fever the physicians of New Orleans did noteworthy work all through the infected districts, stamping out the scourge in a shorter time than has ever been done before. Dr. Chassaignac was one of the promoters of the organized and systematic effort which resulted so successfully, doing efficient work in the parish of Tallulah, where the epidemic was stopped in two weeks. It is safe to say that Louisiana’s doctors and State Board of Health have the situation too well in hand to permit the dread disease to gain a foothold again.

In the midst of the multitudinous duties imposed by his lectures, his public work and his large private practice, Dr. Chassaignac finds time to act as co-editor of theNew Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, one of the oldest of its kind in the country. In addition, he has occupied many of the prominent medical positions in the city and state, having served as president of the State Medical Society, president of the Charity Hospital Alumni Association and three times president of the Orleans Parish Medical Society. Mrs. Chassaignac was Miss Jennie Morris, a member of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in New Orleans.

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