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Boyhood he spent in efforts to escape farm drudgery, not by loafing but through such rational adventures as peddling dinner bells and lightning rods. Grade school and high school he was encouraged to attend, but he had to teach country school and write newspaper fillers until he saved enough to begin working his way through Oberlin College. Followed three years of study in a Cleveland law office, and then, 24, he was admitted to the bar.
Practice & Business. Stories of the industry and honesty of young Herrick beggar those of the hatchet, the cherry tree. Legendary is the $8,000 note, endorsed for a slippery friend, which the young lawyer and his wife voluntarily made good, though he knew a legal quibble which invalidated his endorsement. Factual was and is the Society for Savings, a bank operated in the interests of depositor-members, with which Mr. Herrick early associated himself and of which he is now Chairman of the Board. Success and wealth were his with the turn of the century. From then Myron Timothy Herrick enlarged his vision to scan future conquests.
Politics & Diplomacy. Already Banker Herrick had served six times as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. He now laid his head together with that of President-Maker Mark Hanna and was soon elected Governor of Ohio (1903-06). . . .
Upon resuming private life to attend to his interests, Mr. Herrick continued so politically potent that he twice declined to become Secretary of the Treasury, when offered that post by Presidents Roosevelt and Taft. Finally President Taft found a plum to tempt "the man from Cleveland." Would he accept the U. S. Ambassadorship to France? Mr. Herrick would—but for a strange, sound reason—at that time, 1912, his hobby was industrial credits, and he deemed the methods of the Credit Fonder of France the most advanced and worthy of study.
War. Barely had Ambassador Herrick tasted and copiously imbibed the nectar of French culture, when he saw the cup about to be dashed from his lips by blond Teutons to whom dusky, petite France was a morsel, not an inspiration. Nearer tramped the Conquerors. An impromptu French defense, mobilized in taxicabs seemed sure to crumble. Frightened, scared to the marrow, Frenchmen proceeded to withdraw their capital from Paris to Bordeaux. Automatically the Diplomatic Corps would follow the Government. Suddenly it was discovered that the U. S. Ambassador alone proposed to remain behind.
At the U. S. Embassy Mr. Herrick was personally warned by General Gallieni, then charged with the immediate defense of Paris. "Your Excellency!" cried the distracted General, "The German plan is to blow up Paris, section by section, until the French Government surrenders!"
Answered Myron Timothy Herrick: "I am going to stay here. Somebody ought to stay. . . . Who will protect your monuments, your museums, your libraries? If the city is occupied by the Germans. . . . I ... shall speak in the name of the United States and be assured I shall find means to prevent all massacre and pillage. ... I do not doubt that you will be victorious. Paris, as a centre of art and culture belongs to all the world. . . . France cannot perish!"