MARSHALL FIELD, one of the greatest merchants of the United States, and
that means of the world, is not readily accessible to interviewers. He
probably feels, like most men of real prominence, that his place in the
history of his time is established, and he is not seeking for the fame
that is certain to attend his name and his business achievements. No
more significant story, none more full of stimulus, of encouragement,
of brain-inspiring and pulse-thrilling potency has been told in any
romance. It is grand in its very simplicity, in its very lack of
assumption of special gifts or extraordinary foresight. The Phœnix-like
revival from the ashes of ruined Chicago is spoken of by Mr. Field as
an incident in the natural and to be expected in the order of events.
In Marshall Field it was no doubt natural and to be expected, and it
touches the very keynote of the character of the celebrated western
merchant, sprung from rugged eastern soil, whose career is an example
to be studied with profit by every farmer boy, by every office boy,
by every clerk and artisan,—yes, and by every middle-aged business
man, whether going along smoothly or confronted by apparently ruinous
circumstances, throughout our broad land.
I was introduced to Mr. Field in the private office of Mr. Harry G.
Selfridge, his most trusted lieutenant, and this first of interviews
with the head of Chicago’s greatest mercantile house followed.
“My object,” I said to Mr. Field, “is to obtain your opinion as to what
makes for and constitutes success in life.”
“That can be quickly given,” said Mr. Field; “what would you like to
know?”
“I wish to know something of your early life, and under what conditions
you began it.”
“I was born in Conway, Massachusetts, in 1835. My father’s farm was
among the rocks and hills of that section, and not very fertile.”
“And the conditions were?”
“Hard.”
“You mean that you were poor?”
“Yes, as all people were in those days, more or less. My father was a
farmer. I was brought up under farming conditions, such as they were at
that time.”