Mr. Drexel said he would like me to explain how I had been able to steer clear of these unfortunate troubles.  I answered:  by strict adherence to what I believed to be my duty never to put my name to anything which I knew I could not pay at maturity; or, to recall the familiar saying of a Western friend, never to go in where you couldn’t wade.  This water was altogether too deep for me.

Regard for this rule has kept not only myself but my partners out of trouble.  Indeed, we had gone so far in our partnership agreement as to prevent ourselves from endorsing or committing ourselves in any way beyond trifling sums, except for the firm.  This I also gave as a reason why I could not endorse.

During the period which these events cover I had made repeated journeys to Europe to negotiate various securities, and in all I sold some thirty millions of dollars worth.  This was at a time when the Atlantic cable had not yet made New York a part of London financially considered, and when London bankers would lend their balances to Paris, Vienna, or Berlin for a shadow of difference in the rate of interest rather than to the United States at a higher rate.  The Republic was considered less safe than the Continent by these good people.  My brother and Mr. Phipps conducted the iron business so successfully that I could leave for weeks at a time without anxiety.  There was danger lest I should drift away from the manufacturing to the financial and banking business.  My successes abroad brought me tempting opportunities, but my preference was always for manufacturing.  I wished to make something tangible and sell it and I continued to invest my profits in extending the works at Pittsburgh.

The small shops put up originally for the Keystone Bridge Company had been leased for other purposes and ten acres of ground had been secured in Lawrenceville on which new and extensive shops were erected.  Repeated additions to the Union Iron Mills had made them the leading mills in the United States for all sorts of structural shapes.  Business was promising and all the surplus earnings I was making in other fields were required to expand the iron business.  I had become interested, with my friends of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in building some railways in the Western States, but gradually withdrew from all such enterprises and made up my mind to go entirely contrary to the adage not to put all one’s eggs in one basket.  I determined that the proper policy was “to put all good eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”

I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master in that line.  I have no faith in the policy of scattering one’s resources, and in my experience I have rarely if ever met a man who achieved preeminence in money-making—­certainly never one in manufacturing—­who was interested in many concerns.  The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.