FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 4:  “Letters of Thomas Carlyle to his Youngest Sister.”  Edited by Charles Townsend Copeland.  Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1899.]

CHAPTER III

“THE FORGOTTEN MAN”

I

In July, 1899, the publishing community learned that financial difficulties were seriously embarrassing the great house of Harper.  For nearly a century this establishment had maintained a position almost of preeminence among American publishers.  Three generations of Harpers had successively presided over its destinies; its magazines and books had become almost a household necessity in all parts of the United States, and its authors included many of the names most celebrated in American letters.  The average American could no more associate the idea of bankruptcy with this great business than with the federal Treasury itself.  Yet this incredible disaster had virtually taken place.  At this time the public knew nothing of the impending ruin; the fact was, however, that, in July, 1899, the banking house of J.P.  Morgan & Company practically controlled this property.  This was the situation which again called Page to New York.

In the preceding year Mr. S.S.  McClure, whose recent success as editor and publisher had been little less than a sensation, had joined forces with Mr. Frank N. Doubleday, and organized the new firm of Doubleday & McClure.  This business was making rapid progress; and that it would soon become one of the leading American publishing houses was already apparent.  It was perhaps not unnatural, therefore, that Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, scanning the horizon for the men who might rescue the Harper concern from approaching disaster, should have had his attention drawn to Mr. McClure and Mr. Doubleday.  “The failure of Harper & Brothers,” Mr. Morgan said in a published statement, “would be a national calamity.”  One morning, therefore, a member of the Harper firm called upon Mr. McClure.  Without the slightest hesitation he unfolded the Harper situation to his astonished contemporary.  The solution proposed was more astonishing still.  This was that Mr. Doubleday and Mr. McClure should amalgamate their young and vigorous business with the Harper enterprise and become the active managers of the new corporation.  Both Mr. McClure and Mr. Doubleday were comparatively young men, and the magnitude of the proposed undertaking at first rather staggered them.  It was as though a small independent steel maker should suddenly be invited to take over the United States Steel Corporation.  Mr. McClure, characteristically impetuous and daring, wished to accept the invitation outright; Mr. Doubleday, however, suggested a period of probation.  The outcome was that the two men offered to take charge of Harper & Brothers for a few months, and then decide whether they wished to make the association a permanent