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Electric). In 1892, Insull, aged 32, was its
vice president, earning $35,000 per year. He was asked to suggest a
head for the struggling Chicago Edison Co., a $12,000-a-year job. He
suggested himself and his offer was snapped up. Edison was only one of
several primitive electric companies in Chicago. After three years
Insull left it to join a rival named Commonwealth. Later he merged
the two into Commonwealth Edison. When he went to Chicago electric
power was about as reliable as the automobiles of 1905. He undertook
to make it into the efficient thing it is today. He it was who bought
and installed the first steam turbine generator ever made. It stands
today in the General Electric plant in Schenectady, marked "A
Monument to Progress.'' From Chicago he spread his activities out and
out until they blanketed 200 neighboring cities and towns. In place of
small local operating plants he built big utilities—and built them
well, for they still stand, still make money. Ultimately his domain of
well-managed power plants stretched across 32 states into Canada,
served 5,300 towns and cities, furnished electricity to 10,000,000
people. In 1899 he married Margaret A. Bird, an actress who had been a
star with Daly. Her stage name was Gladys Wallis and her husband always
called her Gladys. Their home was at No. 23 Lake Shore Drive (now No. 1,100)
in one of the first apartment buildings built on Chicago's
Gold Coast. There they reared their son Sam who probably had the finest
set of electric trains in existence at the time. Later they sent him
to St. Paul's School for polish, to Sheffield Scientific School at Yale
to prepare for his job as crown prince of the Insull empire. Meanwhile
Samuel Insull, a forbidding man in dealing with his public but well
liked by his immediate associates, used to go to his mahogany-panelled
office in Commonwealth Edison Co. at 7:10 every morning. Being English,
he could not stand steam heat and had a log fire to keep him warm.
Sometimes in a busy morning he stopped to write long letters in
longhand to his favorite correspondent, his sister Emma (now dead) who
lived in London. At 12:30 sharp he lunched at the Chicago Club, often
with his friend Harry Stuart. Afterwards he sometimes visited his other
offices in the Peoples Gas Building and in the Chicago Civic Opera
House, which he built. At 7:00 sharp he dined at home and either went
with Mrs. Insull to the opera, of which he was presiding angel, or
stayed at home, smoking a cigar, dozing in his chair and going to bed
at 9:30 or 10. For the last 20 years he never took any exercise. He
never touched alcohol. His only other notable divertissement was his
elaborate Hawthorne Farm at Libertyville. It broke his heart that, when
he stayed out in the country, the first train that he could catch in
the morning did not get him to his office until 8:20. Such was his
model life. Aside from his middle-class English hatred of publicity,
which led him sometimes to wave a gold-headed cane at photographers,
he was not an ominous figure. Some industrial opponents hated him,
but as a successful manager of utilities he had the admiration of
most businessmen. All that was undone by his bad management as a
corporate manipulator which cost investors some $750,000,000. After the
debacle came the nemesis of the Law. The Charges. First the State of
Illinois got busy. It indicted Martin Insull thrice for embezzlement.
