The day book. [volume], September 07, 1912, Image 14

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
ir-
aii in his power to keep other
fifteen-year-old boys not to
mention their sisters and broth
ers and fathers- and mothers at
work under the same conditions
he resented so bitterly.
What -has- caused William
Wood's change of heart?
He has graduated from the
ranks of capitalism, and the
touch of money made him forget
the evils of long hours, blighting
toil and poor pay."
The life story of Wood is a ro
mance. Wood's father came with his
bride to Edgartown, a little vil-
lage on the shores of Nantucket
Island, forty years ago. He was
a Portuguese, from the Azores,
and could not speak a word of
English.
At Edgartown Wood took a
job piloting a little two-by-four
coasting vessel.
During the five years that
Wood sailed this channel Wil
liam was born. Soon after his
birth the Wood family (whose
name was. really not Wood at all,
. but an unpronounceable Portu
guese name which they had dis
carded (went to school until he
was fifteen' and had entered the
high school. But the family was
floor. He had a brother and two
sisters younger than himself. His
'father was ill.
So William wen,t into the 'mills.
He got a job at the Wamsutta
factories. It paid him, it is said,
$3 a week. For-three years he
held that job.
During this time he- learned to
hate the work, with all its' op
pression and its lack of decent?
pay, and one day he told the bqss
he had got "a GOOD job." It
was iri the New Bedford bank.
For a while Wood stayed with
the banking people, learning all j
the witchery of checks and drafts
and balances., And then one day
he went back to the woolen busi- -
ness. r s
.But not as a loom boy. This -times
it was as a salesman.
For several years, all over the
country, Wood sold woolens.
He sold more woolen goods to
the square mile than any one had
"ever sold before. "
And the upshot was he was
brought to the, home office to
manage ALL the salesmen.
About this time his -factory,
through mismanagement, was in
a bad way. Frederick Ayer, who
gathered his dollars out of the
bottom of a sarsaparilla bottle,
had put a million in this mill. His ,
million was fast dropping out of
sight - i
William Wood, who by this
time was engaged or almost to
Ayer's daughtersaid: - s
"Give me a million more, and j
I'll save the other million and
make a lot besides."
And he did I i
Out of that bankrupt woolen I
rnnrprn hf has rrpateA nne nf tVi .
greatest trusts in the World. It
is fated-'as being wdrth $75,000,
000, and Wood dwns a large part
of it,3nd controls it altogether.
He married. Miss Ayer, has a
young" son and daughter, keeps
so many automobiles and private
secretaries that he doesn t know