To him the most noteworthy characteristic of the human race was that it was strangely chemic, being anything or nothing, as the hour and the condition afforded.

In his leisure moments--those free from practical calculation, which were not many--he often speculated as to what life really was.

If he had not been a great financier and, above all, a marvelous organizer he might have become a highly individualistic philosopher--a calling which, if he had thought anything about it at all at this time, would have seemed rather trivial.

His business as he saw it was with the material facts of life, or, rather, with those third and fourth degree theorems and syllogisms which control material things and so represent wealth.

He was here to deal with the great general needs of the Middle West--to seize upon, if he might, certain well-springs of wealth and power and rise to recognized authority.