"J. Pierpont Morgan takes Judge Gary's place as chairman of the United States Steel board of directors. That will please stockholders. Mr. Morgan's father created the company, with the assistance of Judge Gary, James A. Farrell* and other able citizens, and changed a half a billion worth of stock that Carnegie called 'not even water, mere air' into stock, now worth more than $220 a share, the 40 per cent dividend included.
"To change 'thin air' to a solidly established stock worth more than a billion real dollars shows what American business can do."
In such summary fashion did that super-journalist, Arthur Brisbane, dispose of an item of financial information that had appeared on the front page of almost every U. S. newssheet. He had apparently forgotten to point out the name of the little-known man who had been elected, with John P. Morgan, the new chairman of the board, and James Augustine Farrell, new chief executive officer, to control the enormous destinies of the United States Steel Corporation. This was Myron Charles Taylor who had been made head of the finance committee.
Of the first two, there was little to be said. It was true that John P. Morgan, the big, impressive, genial 61-year-old, Episcopal banker, whose name in every language is a synonym for the power of wealth, had never before accepted a principal office in an enterprise which his banking house had financed.* Many people have observed the increasing potency of silver-haired, 65-year-old, Catholic James Augustine Farrell, whose father was a New Haven shipowner.
Myron Charles Taylor, the 54-year-old Quaker, was born in Lyons, New York. After graduating from Cornell, in 1894, he practised law in Manhattan until his legal connections brought him an advantageous opportunity to enter the textile industry in which other members of his family already held interests. None of them had ever displayed the energy or ability which characterized the operations of Myron Taylor. The consolidations which he effected, his ability to push his companies into prosperity, attracted the attention of financial bigwigs, especially the attention of George Fisher Baker, Chairman of the First National Bank of Manhattan. Banker Baker, who with the first John P. Morgan and the late Judge Gary constituted the first U. S. steel triumvirate, made Mr. Taylor a director of his bank.
Gradually, Myron Taylor cut down his textile holdings and became essentially a banker. He was elected to the directorate of two railroads— the New York Central and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; he was made a trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York. It was rumored that Banker Baker persuaded Myron Taylor to become one of the directors of U. S. Steel; surely, it was his support coupled with the approval of John P. Morgan that gave Myron Taylor one of the three executive offices in this gargantuan corporation.