"I had no dolls when I was little, and I'll have no children when I'm old. That's my story. That's all there is to it."
To the brown-eyed, full-lipped, barren girl of 21 who spoke thus in San Francisco last week, her personal tragedy was of first importance. But her statement also meant that, with her, one of the most distinguished ancestral heritages in U. S. history had come to an appalling end.
Manhattan-born in 1791 of English stock, shrewd, self-made Peter Cooper pioneered in iron manufacturing, built the first U. S. steam locomotive ("Tom Thumb"), promoted the first transatlantic cables, built one of the first big U. S. fortunes. An industrialist and inventor of genius, he won his most lasting fame by founding Manhattan's great free educational centre, Cooper Union. His creed:
"I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner. I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good." A college friendship cemented by twelve hours in an open boat after a ship wreck made lifelong partners of Peter Cooper's son Edward and Abram Stevens Hewitt. Together they took over the Cooper iron works at Trenton, N. J. and Partner Hewitt married Peter Cooper's only daughter, Sarah Amelia. Vastly successful in business, Abram Hewitt built the first U. S. open-hearth furnace, manufactured the first U. S. steel of commercial value, directed Cooper Union for 40 years as secretary of its board, helped smash Tammany's Boss Tweed and, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, in 1876 led the fight to establish Samuel J. Tilden's claim to the Presidency. Abram Hewitt's career reached its climax in 1886 when, in a rousing personal victory, he beat Candidates Henry George and Theodore Roosevelt to become a great reform Mayor of New York City.