based partly on this principle that it escaped the fate which might have befallen, under later conditions, an unprotected commission business.

The mixture of balance and prudence in his business policy, and of personal flexibility and impersonal stability in his business achievements, was the natural expression of two different aspects of Mark Hanna's disposition. His nature was impulsive, and his impulses frequently had an explosive expression, but at the same time he was cautious and considerate. Although his will was insistent and aggressive, it was not headstrong. He knew what he could and could not do, and he knew when and how long to wait. All the most important actions of his life were the result of unconscious instincts and intentions rather than conscious purposes; but he had no sooner acted in obedience to some deep-rooted personal instinct than his candid intelligence began with coolness and caution to search for the best means of making his will prevail. His will was strong and dominant, largely because it was not calculating; and it was effective, because once having been "set" it could call to its assistance the resources of a well-stored, ingenious and deliberate mind. Mark Hanna's experience came to him as the result for the most part of his instinctive action, but he digested and used it by virtue of a capable and considerate intelligence.

Almost all of Mr. Hanna's close associates testify to this combination of unconscious and deliberate elements in his behavior. Mr. Leonard C. Hanna remarks that while his decisions were often the result of study and reflection, they also came at times from intuition. Mr. Andrew Squire says that he seemed to know by intuition things that other men had to acquire by reading and long experience; but this shrewd witness adds that Mr. Hanna was not ordinarily a man of quick judgment. He usually canvassed a matter thoroughly before reaching a conclusion, and when once the decision was made, he was hard to move. "While Mr. Hanna was quick to reach a conclusion," says Mr. A. C. Saunders, "he was not hasty. He thought things over very carefully. He would give a matter of importance considerable time, and when his mind was made up, go into it with his whole heart. I should say that he

was both a bold man and a careful one. He took risks, but he never went beyond his depth, and invariably had his enterprises safely financed before he attempted to carry them out. All of us consulted him on practically all matters, and he knew the business so well that most of his decisions would come quickly. He also consulted his partners and frequently acted on their recommendation. He was usually right, but he could be convinced of his error whenever he was wrong."

Mark Hanna's relation with other men brings out, however, his best qualities in business as in politics. His great success as an organizer was the outcome chiefly of his faculty of getting good work and loyal coöperation out of his associates; and the testimony of Mr. Saunders in the preceding paragraph affords some inkling as to the way in which such results were obtained. He organized everything with which he was concerned, and in organizing he was obliged to delegate responsibility. But his organizations never became mere machines. They were always living things, to which their director imparted his own vitality. He had the faculty of supervising without interfering, and of making his own general responsibility effective without emasculating the specific responsibilities of his subordinates and associates. His success in this respect was not, of course, due to the application of any definite rule, but to the plane of mutual confidence and understanding, on which the relationship was established.

The keystone of his business structure was absolute integrity in the fulfilment of his contracts. Mr. Leonard C. Hanna asserts that from January, 1875, when he entered the firm, until the day of Mark Hanna's death, he never knew the binding quality of any agreement, no matter how disadvantageous, to be questioned. They never considered for a moment the possibility of evading an engagement. "I have sat here," he says, "for thirty years" (his statement was made in 1905), "and during that time I have seen hundreds of thousands of dollars lost by contracts, but never was there a hint that the obligation was not to be fulfilled to the letter. If we agreed to sell pig-iron at a certain price, and an increase in the cost of the raw materials caused us to lose a very large sum of money, the man who bought the iron got it. In 1903 the price of pig-iron fell five

or six dollars a ton very quickly. The firm of M. A. Hanna & Co. had a large amount of business booked ahead at the higher price; and after the fall many purchasers of our iron backed out of their contracts, and many others tried to do so. Although we could not sell the product at the price, we took all the raw materials we had agreed to buy. So it had always been during the business career of Mark Hanna." Mr. Hanna adds that his brother would never do any more business with a man who repudiated his contracts.

This scrupulous business integrity was in Mr. Hanna's case something more than ordinary honesty. It was partly an expression of the instinctive loyalty which pervaded all his personal associations. The business of M. A. Hanna & Co. was based not only on a system of contracts, but also upon a group of alliances; and the substance of many of these contracts and all of these alliances consisted of a personal tie. He had confidence in other people, and he inspired it in them. His firm, although a producer itself, could not have become and remained the sales-agent of so many independent producers unless these men knew that their agent was dealing fairly with them and was not discriminating for or against any one of its customers. The consequence was an unusual permanence in the alliances, by virtue of which M. A. Hanna & Co. procured a large part of its business. Its relations with the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Canbria Iron Co., with the Schlesingers and others, began early and endured throughout and beyond Mr. Hanna's life.

His attorney, Mr. Andrew Squire, emphasizes particularly one peculiarity of Mr. Hanna's in his method of negotiating a contract. Instead of insisting upon those aspects of an agreement which might make it look attractive to his interlocutor, his method and habit was frequently to bring out and never to disguise the dubious aspects of a proposed transaction. His motive in so doing, according to Mr. Squire, was to avoid any possible future disappointment or misunderstanding, and so, even if that particular transaction was disadvantageous, to create or maintain confidential relations with the man. Mr. Squire's partner, James H. Dempsey, testifies to the same effect. "Mr. Hanna," he says, 66 never made his offer so small that there was no chance of the other man taking it up. In making

a large contract, he usually knew exactly what it was worth to his firm and he invariably based his proposals on a live-and-letlive rule. He never sought to get something for nothing and he never drove a hard bargain." The bargain, that is, was always subordinated to the obligation of dealing fairly with the other man.

Mr. James J. Hill cites a specific instance of Mark Hanna's candor and scrupulous fairness in business negotiations which is worth quoting in detail, and which shows why his associates had implicit confidence in him. In 1870 Mr. Hill went to Cleveland to buy a considerable quantity of gas coal. His intention was to purchase Youghiogheny coal, and he stepped into the office of Rhodes & Co., met Mr. Hanna and asked for prices on that particular stock. Mr. Hanna replied that he had Youghiogheny coal for sale, but that his firm were simply agents for it. Then going to a window and pointing across the street, he said: "There is the central office of the company that mines the sort of coal you want, and my suggestion is that you deal directly with them. I have no doubt that you can buy it as cheaply as we can, and by giving them your order you will save the commission." Mr. Hill was so much impressed by Mr. Hanna's fair dealing that the result of the incident was a series of mutually advantageous business transactions. He implies that Mr. Hanna could easily either have sold him the coal he wanted on commission or else sold him some other similar coal as a substitute.

Many of his business ties were so enduring and so personal that they were rather friendships than alliances. Indeed, almost all of Mr. Hanna's close business associates became friends, for he was never satisfied until he had made a friend out of a man whom he liked and trusted. Once the friendship was formed it was rarely shattered. Mr. Hanna would not only do anything in his power to keep his friend, but he often became blind to the man's faults. Ordinarily he was a shrewd judge of other people. His clear bright brown eyes had in them a searching quality, which made the object of his inspection feel transparent and exposed. As a matter of fact, he usually put a correct estimate upon his associates and assistants as may be inferred from his success as an organizer. But, of course,

he made his mistakes in his business as well as in his political allies, and if he had come to have any friendship for a man whom he had made a mistake in trusting, it was hard to convince him of his error. He would remain faithful to the tie- even when the man had, to the satisfaction of other people, shown himself to be unworthy, not merely of loyalty, but sometimes of respect.

Inevitably a man like Mr. Hanna made enemies in business as well as friends. He had, indeed, no gift for personal quarrels as he had a gift for personal loyalties. He did not cherish grudges. There was nothing vindictive in his nature. But he liked to have his own way, and if any other man blocked a path which he believed himself entitled to travel, the obstructor might well be somewhat roughly and ruthlessly pushed aside. When he was in a fight he fought hard, and like all strong and self-willed men he enjoyed fighting. Probably he made certain unnecessary enmities. He was at times during his business career an unpleasantly plain-dealer. Certain of his associates testify, indeed, that never in their presence was he brusque or harsh; but evidently he could be harsh, when he was rubbed or had rubbed himself the wrong way. One unfavorable witness states that during his early years he "was positively indifferent to popularity."

The witness quoted above may well be exaggerating, for he admitted some measure of prejudice. But there is sufficient corrobation for the general statement that he might at times be, or appear to be, arbitrary and self-assertive. He was a quick, impulsive man, impatient of what seemed to him unnecessary and perverse opposition, and when excited he might become peremptory in manner and explosive in speech. He might in the heat of the moment blurt out his opinions without any mincing of words, and without, perhaps, very much consideration for the feelings of others. Many men who subsequently became his friends and warm admirers were, before they came to know him, prejudiced against him by his manner and local reputation.

Judge William B. Sanders, who was for many years associated with Mr. Squire and Mr. Dempsey as attorneys for Mr. Hanna, says of him: "In Mr. Hanna's business life, before he became known as a national politician, he had not learned the art of saying 'No' without offence. He was plain and quick, and