Charles A. Chase

A FORMER secretary of this Board, a member with an

enviable record as a public servant and as the head of a great banking institution, has fallen before the scythe of the Great Reaper. Charles Augustus Chase, vicepresident and ex-president of the Worcester County Institution for Savings, and one of the most widely known men in this city, died at his home, 39 West Street, on June 5, of hemorrhages, from which he had suffered for a year.

After a tour of Europe in 1862, Mr. Chase returned to Worcester to live. In 1864 he was elected treasurer of Worcester County, in which office he succeeded his father, who had been treasurer for thirty years. His service in this capacity covered a period of eleven years, to 1875, when he was elected registrar of deeds. Soon afterward he was chosen secretary of the Worcester Board of Trade. In 1879 he became connected with the Worcester Telephone Company as treasurer and manager.

In this same year he began his services with the Worcester County Institution for Savings, the largest savings bank in Massachusetts outside of Boston. On November 10, 1879, he was elected treasurer to succeed Charles A. Hamilton. This position he continued to fill until 1904, when he was elected president to succeed Stephen Salisbury. In 1908 he tendered his resignation as president, as he desired to retire from active life. This resignation was accepted on March 27 of that year, when Alfred L. Aiken was elected to fill the vacancy, but at the same time Mr. Chase was elected a vice-president, holding this office at the time of his death. The present handsome home of the institution was erected while he was president. He was identified with the national banking interests of the city for many years, serving as a director in the Citizens National Bank from 1880 to 1889, and as a director in the Worcester National Bank continuously since January, 1888.

mathematics. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1855, receiving from his alma mater, in 1858, the degree of Master of Arts.

During his last year in Harvard he joined the editorial staff of the Boston Advertiser, and for seven years after leaving college continued his work for that paper, serving as reporter and editor.

His activities in other corporations and associations were many and varied: he had been a director of the Merchants and Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Co.; president of the North End Street Railway Co.; director of the Free Public Library from 1866 to 1874; treasurer

of Memorial Hospital; vice-president of the Home for Aged Men; recording secretary of the American Antiquarian Society; secretary and vice-president of the Worcester Lyceum Association; vice-president of the Worcester Art Society; member of the School Board; president of the Worcester Harvard Club.

He was also actively identified with the Worcester Society of Antiquity, New England Historical Genealogical Society, Bunker Hill Monument Association and Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

the latter's bookstore in Boston. After a few months he came to Worcester, in 1847, and was employed in the dry-goods store of John B. Wyman, which was situated on Main Street opposite the present location of the Barnard, Sumner & Putnam Co. store, itself a development of the business of Mr. Wyman.

Mr. Putnam saw the business continue to grow through several changes of ownership, and was a factor in producing the swelling volume of business that has characterized the history of the company through the

tive of his early training in the customs and tenets of that sect. He was unostentatious in dress, quiet and somewhat slow of speech, of calm and equitable temperament, and impressed one with the sense of reserve power. Every organization that had for its aim the advancement of education and the public good of his native city received his active support and with him it was not merely moral support, for to that he added personal effort. He was not alone a deep thinker, an earnest student and a man of strong and clear ideas: he was more than that, he was an untiring worker who often made personal sacrifices to further a cause that appealed to him.

He made the study of historical, antiquarian and genealogical subjects his avocation, but, whether in his vocation as a banker or his avocation as an historical student, the one thought that dominated him was to advance the interests and praise the achievements of the city of his birth.

Otis E. Putnam

The first change of ownership occurred in 1850, when Mr. Wyman sold his business to H. H. Chamberlain, the firm being known as H. H. Chamberlain & Co. Upon the entrance of Lewis Barnard into the business, the name was changed to H. H. Chamberlain & Barnard, later becoming Chamberlain, Barnard & Co. By that time Mr. Putnam had become a partner, having been taken into the firm in 1877.

The present flourishing department store came into existence in 1892, when the firm was incorporated under the present name, Barnard, Sumner & Putnam Co. Of the original partners of the present company, George Sumner died in 1892 and Lewis Barnard in 1897. Upon the latter's death Mr. Putnam became president, and for years was also the

treasurer.

He had been a director in the City National Bank, the Sherman Envelope Co., the Eastern Bridge & Structural Co., the Worcester & Holden Street Railway Co. and the Worcester Electric Light Co. He was a member of this Board and of the Commonwealth Club and an honorary member of the Worcester Light Infantry, B Battery, and the Worcester Continentals.

Mr. Putnam was noted among his business associates for his ability in handling the vast mass of detail that is ever present in a busy department store.

He was an inveterate reader, delighting particularly in stories of travel and biography. In his declining days he withdrew more and more from society and passed most of his time among his beloved books.

The keynote of his life was well expressed in what he frequently quoted as his only creed-"So live that when thy summons comes to join the innumerable throng, thou wilt go, not like a galley slave scourged to his dungeon, but like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams.

NOTY

OTWITHSTANDING the fact that the imports for the month of May, 1911, show an increase of twelve millions of dollars over May, 1910, the total imports for the eleven months ending with May 31 were twenty-two million dollars less than for the corresponding period ending May 31, 1911.

The decline was noticeable not only in the so-called luxuries, but in the necessities as well. Diamonds showed a decline from $37,250,000 to $30,500,000, and importations of champagne were but one-half what they were for the previous eleven months, falling from six million to three million. The imports of wool, however, shrunk from $50,000,000 in the eleven months ending with May, 1910, to $22,000,000 in the corresponding months of the fiscal year 1911; hides and skins dropped from $105,000,000 to $64,000,000 and india rubber from $95,500,000 to $71,750,000. Leaf tobacco, lumber, furs, pig iron, copper ore, feathers and pulp wood all show a falling off.

The only materials showing increases of any moment at all are raw silk, pig copper, wood pulp and raw cotton. The machinery imported in the eleven months ending with May 31, 1910, was valued at $8,200,000. The machinery imported during the corresponding period this year amounted to $6,900,000.

The total imports for the eleven months ending with May 31, 1910, were $1,437,100,000. For the eleven months ending with May 31, 1911, the total imports were $1,405,400,000.

These figures can be accepted as a fair exhibit of the general business slackening typical of the year 1910, and so far of the year 1911. The mill situation which in 1910 was serious enough, in 1911 steadily grows worse.

At the beginning of July upwards of 17,000,000 spindles ceased to whir for longer or shorter periods. This comprises over 60 per cent. of the country's total spindleage, and means that $200,000,000 of capital lies dormant and unproductive.

New Bedford suffers the least from this enforced curtailment, only 10 to 15 per cent. of her cotton mills being shut down, but in Fall River fully 30 per cent. are idle, as this Magazine goes to press, and in the South the average is as high as from 40 to 50 per cent. Every mill in South Carolina, at the beginning of this month, shut down for two weeks. It seems impossible for cotton manufacturers to make money under existing conditions. On yarns, for example, raw material costs nineteen cents; cost of manufacturing four and marketing one, making a total of twenty-four cents. These same yarns are selling in the open market for twenty-two

cents.

The situation in the machinery business is almost as bad. Scores of machine tool builders are piling up stock in the warehouse that they have no means of knowing when they will find a market for, in order to keep their help from being scattered to the four winds of heaven.

Railroad equipment companies furnish still a third tale of woe. Their business has suffered as much during the past six months as either of the other lines. The largest concern in this city has been uniquely for

tunate in this respect, having had plenty of orders and being run to capacity. The American Car & Foundry Co. and the Pressed Steel Car Co. are only operating about 25 per cent. of their plants, and good judges say that their earnings for the last six months will not be much more than one-half what they were for the corresponding period last year.

The Baldwin Locomotive Co. is practically shut down on account of a strike, and the American Locomotive Co. is only running one-half shift.

Similar stories emanate from every branch of industry, and the same doleful strain will undoubtedly continue to be heard as long as the threat of tariff revision continues. It cannot be controverted that the manufacturing industries suffer for lack of a sound and permanent basis on which to do business.

In 1907 we had a panic. Whatever may have been its cause, whether it was a bankers' panic or somebody else's, the results were equally disastrous to the commercial life of the nation. As soon as we had recovered from it, the agitation over the Payne-Aldrich tariff began, and business was in a chaotic condition until its schedules were announced. Furthermore, along with this historic document the government promulgated a corporation tax, which certainly did not lighten the manufacturer's load any. As soon as the new tariff went into effect complaints of bad faith on the part of its makers began to be heard, and these have steadily grown louder and bitterer. The wool schedule has at last been attacked, and there are rumors now of another complete revision.

Meanwhile, the government has been busy with suits against Standard Oil and American Tobacco, and investigations at this moment into the management of the U. S. Steel Corporation and the American Sugar Co. are going forward at the hands of Congressional probers.

With a panic, a corporation tax, two revisions of the tariff and the Grand Jury in continuous session during the last four years, the lot of the average American business man, whether he be connected with big business or little business, has been anything but a happy

one.

The only satisfactory feature of the existing situation at the close of the fiscal year June 30, 1911, was the fact that the U. S. treasury showed a surplus on that date of $42,971,468. This can be wholly attributed to the corporation tax, which up to date has yielded $53,727,546. It is rather gratifying to know that Uncle Sam can be prosperous if the rest of us can't.

A Picture Without a Frame

The Worcester Magazine has devoted a large amount of space in this issue advisedly to the new union passenger station in this city, and to the proposed development of the square in front of it.

It is extremely difficult to make Worcester people understand that this city does not loom up in the eyes of the people of this country the way it looms up in our

own eyes.

Talking with a prominent Worcester manufacturer the other day, he told the writer of a conversation he had had, within a week, with a leading New York business man who did not know where Worcester was. On the train to Grand Rapids last fall the writer fell into conversation with his seat-mate-an extremely intelligent woman residing in Detroit. She had heard of Boston, but Worcester was a new one to her.

In the mail that comes regularly to this office, at least one-quarter of the letters written outside of New England are addressed to "Worchester," Mass. Even letters from government officials have come addressed that way. Perhaps another quarter come addressed "Wooster," Mass.

Now in these days of rapid intelligence, of well-nigh universal knowledge, with our aeroplanes, our automobiles, our lightning expresses, our telegraphs, telephones, cables and wireless, to say nothing of the slower going mails, it is little less than a crime for Worcester to be so illy known.

It is high time that we not only knew ourselves better, our shortcomings and our weaknesses, and corrected them, but that we made an impression upon America by our progressive, hustling, modern spirit so that our neighbors shall know us better also.

We have been in the past altogether too indifferent about Worcester, too negligent about curing her faults, and very much too modest about singing her praises.

Now Worcester has in her new Union Station from a publicity standpoint, for the next twelve months at least, her greatest asset of value. Architects, railroad men, travelers are all going to look this station over with interest, and are going to talk about it after they go away.

The Chicago & Northwestern Railway opened a new terminal in Chicago the same day the station in this city was opened. The railroad officia's of the Chicago & Northwestern have spent a large amount of money making the people of this country acquainted with the beauties of their station. The Worcester Board of Trade is endeavoring, in this issue of the Worcester Magazine, to perform for the Boston & Albany R. R. and the city of Worcester the function that the Chicago & Northwestern performed for itself and the city of Chicago.

We hope you will be pleased with our story of this beautiful structure. We cannot do it justice in cold type, no matter how hard we try. The pictures will help some, but we want those of you who read this to come to Worcester and see the building for yourselves. If you do we are satisfied that you will declare that the half has not been told, and that when we assert there is not a handsomer station between Chicago and Boston, outside of New York city, and that there is not a more modern one in this country, you will not convict us of overpraise.

It is modeled on the very best of the great European terminals. If the city will, as we hope, beautify the square in front of it according to the plans drawn by Frederick Law Olmsted and recommended by this Board, Worcester will be better known inside of five years than any other city in New England outside of Boston.

It is just such innovations as these that make cities famous. The country has grown so large, and cities the size of Worcester have become so numerous, that they must have some peculiar advantage, some exceptional qualification, to push them out of the ruck.

If Worcester can provide a modern terminal at her very gateway flanked by a park and tower and boulevard as unusual and as beautiful as Washington Square, as the old station tower and as Shrewsbury Boulevard promise to be, this city will bulk large in the eyes not only of the traveling public, but of commercial America. On the sordid materialistic grounds of a mere advertisement Worcester has never had such an opportunity to secure for herself, for nothing, publicity of the highest possible type, as she has in focusing attention on her beautiful new Union Station through developing its immediate surroundings.

As it stands to-day the station is a picture without a frame.

The One Bright Spot

The one bright spot in the surrounding gloom in the business world appears to be the continued growth of the export trade of the American machine tool builder. The American machinist who has for a generation studiously confined his business to the American market finds himself to-day practically where he was ten years ago. The American machinist who has gone across the water to sell his goods has, in the majority of cases, found two markets where he had but one before. He has not lost the one at home, and he has found an additional one abroad.

Prior to 1890 the total value of all the iron and steel exports from this country had never totaled $25,000,000 in a single year. In 1908 it had risen to $183,982,182, and this year the Department of Commerce and Labor is of the opinion that it will reach $235,000,000, or almost ten times what it was twenty years ago.

Of this vast total machinery of various sorts, machine tools, typewriters, pumps, printing presses, etc., etc., contributed nearly one-half; the figures for the ten months ending in April being $90,000,000 in round figures against $65,000,000 for the corresponding period one

year ago.

Worcester is naturally interested in the showing made by the machine tool industry, in which so much of her money and so much of her future are bound up. The improvement in this one item is most gratifying. The exports for ten months amounted to nearly $8,000,000, against only $3,000,000 in the corresponding period of 1910.

In connection with this matter the Worcester Magazine is very glad to publish, in another section of this issue, an article detailing the formation of what is known as the Allied Machinery Co., a New York concern closely affiliated and in fact launched by the National City Bank, whose principal business is to be the development of the foreign trade of our tool builders.

The general manager of this company is Capt. Godfrey L. Carden, well and favorably known to this Board and to many Worcester people. Captain Carden, through his government connections, has had unusual opportunities to familiarize himself with the trade developments of Europe with particular reference to machine tools, and his advice, investigations and first-hand knowledge will be of incalculable value to the concerns making up the Allied Machinery Company.

It may be coincidence, and it may not, but it appears to be the fact everywhere, not only in the machine tool business but in every other business, that the concerns doing a large export business are not only among the most progressive of our business houses, but are among the most successful as well.

Denholm & McKay common.. Denholm & McKay pfd..

Graton & Knight Mfg. common.

Graton & Knight Mfg. pfd..

Royal Worcester Corset Co...

160

United States Envelope common.

United States Envelope pfd..

Worcester Gas Light

280

May 21. Rev. Earle J. Harold, minister of the Society of Friends Church, resigns to accept call from Greensboro, N. C.

22. Rev. Michael J. McKenna, of Springfield, succeeds Rev. John F. Boyle as an assistant rector of St. John's Church.

23. Annual banquet of Holy Cross Alumni Association of Worcester County. Rt. Rev. Joseph J. Rice, bishop of Burlington, Vt., the principal speaker.

24. Annual convention of Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters in Mechanics Hall.

24. Mrs. Florence S. Slocomb re-elected president of Worcester Woman's Club.

25. New Masonic Home at Charlton dedicated with impressive ceremonies.

26.

Worcester Art Museum School graduates class of seven. 26. First Presbyterian Church celebrates silver anniversary. 28. Gen. Horatio C. King, Brooklyn, speaks at memorial exercises of Geo. H. Ward Post, G. A. R., at Mechanics Hall. 29.

William P. Taylor, recently educational director of Y. M. C. A., elected director of Independent Industrial School, Beverly. 30. Stamp sales at Worcester Postoffice for May, 1911, are $37,957.62, an increase of $3403.63 over May, 1910.

June 1. Annual banquet of Worcester County Bar Association at Bay State House.

3. Annual meeting of New England Association of Commercial Executives held in Worcester; Board of Trade and Merchants Association hosts; Herbert N. Davison chosen president and Edward B. Clapp secretary.

4. New Union Station opened for public use.

4.

Edward Sherlock, Boston, succeeds Peleg F. Murray as State police officer in Worcester District.

4. Dr. Arthur Mees, conductor of Worcester Music Festival, appointed director of the Cecilia Society, Boston.

5. Matthew B. Lamb appointed delegate to represent the State at National Conference of Charities and Corrections, in Boston. 6. David H. Fanning gives silver loving-cup to Board of Trade for prize in membership contest.

8. Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduates class numbering seventy-seven.

8. Bill for retention of South Worcester station signed by Governor Foss.

8. Worcester Port of Entry receives during May 377 packages, valued at $24,587.

8. One hundred and twenty-eight applications for naturalization papers in Superior Court.

9. Col. G. A. Keeler sells interest in Bay State Hotel and retires from management.

9. Dr. J. K. Warren elected president of Hahnemann Hospital Corporation.

9. Howard B. Gibbs, nine years instructor in Worcester Academy, goes to Duxbury to take charge of Powder Point School. 10. Prof. Levi L. Conant designated acting president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

10. Dr. Melvin G. Overlock accepts invitation to attend Seventh International Conference against Tuberculosis, in Rome.