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public. In 1908 old Thomas Mellon died on his 95th birthday
but he had long outlived his money-making days—Son Andrew and Son
Dick, who worked with him, were at the height of their powers, building
up the Mellon banks, building up Gulf Oil, building Aluminum Co.
Patent struggles had threatened their aluminum monopoly but they bought
out contenders whom they could not beat at law. As their patents
expired they fortified their monopoly by other means—acquired all the
available bauxite deposits in the U. S. and South America, pre-empted
cheap waterpower sites at Niagara, in the Carolinas, in Canada. The
Aluminum company got rid of competition as effectively as Standard Oil
before it, and as unscrupulously, said would-be rivals. Profits were
plowed back into the business—$70,000,000 of them had gone back in by
1917. The market value of its stock, largely Mellon owned, was
$150,000,000. Just at the beginning of the War Mellon also bought
Kopper Co. which turned into a gold mine with the war demand for coal
tar products for explosives. Millions added to millions—the best part
of the $2,000,000,000 fortune of the Mellons had already been
assembled. In 1921 Pennsylvania's politicians pressed Mr. Harding to
name "America's second richest man" Secretary of the
Treasury. If the announcement had been made publicly few could have
guessed who was meant. The Press had never told the public that Andrew
Mellon existed. Never before 1921 had the name of Andrew Mellon
appeared in a famed newspaper whose motto is "All the News
That's Fit to Print!" (N. Y. Times}. The Author— Harvey
O'Connor, 36, born in Minneapolis, son of a railway cook, was raised in
the Northwest, spent his early years as a journalist for the radical
wing of American labor—editor of the Daily Call, International Weekly,
Union Record (labor paper)—all in Seattle. In the 1920's he was editor
for three years of the journal of the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers, later eastern bureau manager of the Federated Press (news
service for Labor and liberal papers). Many another man is better
fitted to write the story of Andrew Mellon's career, but within the
limits of his training Author O'Connor has done a far better job than
could be expected. On the labor policies and monopolistic tendencies
of Mellon companies he looks with ill-concealed hatred, does not
think to pry closely into the real causes of Andrew Mellon's success.
Between the lines of his book these things appear: Mellon's willingness
to back the right (but unknown) young men with substantial capital;
Mellon's policy of lending to others for their ventures but never
borrowing for Mellon ventures — building Mellon companies by plowing
back profits decade after decade; Mellon's uncanny judgment as banker,
as promoter, above all as investor.
Gutter to Grave
