Excerpt from America's Successful Men of Affairs, Vol. 2: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography

New York city is a great commercial and financial center and the gateway through which rolls an enormous traffic by sea and land. The pursuits of her people relate mainly to trade, transportation, manufactures, the construction of buildings and development of the ever growing city and its suburbs, and to banking, finance and the management of corporations. It is an old, settled, prosperous and refined community and the home of several millions of people. Beyond the metrop olis, there are, indeed, other great cities, but it may fairly be said, that, in the United States at large, man is brought closer to nature and to the vast and even yet only partially developed resources of America's magnificent domain. A greater variety of pursuits give occupation to the people and enlist the interest of the leaders of industry. The struggle for success is yet attended, in some parts of the country, with personal hardship, unusual excitement and even danger; and it follows that the biographies in Volume II., taken as a whole, present a greater variety of experience, are intrinsically more entertaining, and perhaps hold up to View a truer picture of American life than those of the companion volume.

The keynote Of this work is success in business and practical affairs. Little or no attention is paid the lives Of men whose prominence is due solely to wealth, inherited from a preceding generation, and none at all, unless the possessor of large means has performed actions of merit and made a name through his own labors and ability.

In the preparation of all the sketches, the Editor has received cordial aid from individuals and families, to whom he acknowledges indebtedness, and it is thought that the biographies are all substantially correct.

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