The Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Representative Men of Chicago, Milwaukee and the World's Columbian Exposition

              BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
103
later the firm name was changed to Farwell, Field & Co., Mr. L. Z. Leiter becoming a partner at that time. In 1865 Messrs. Field and Leiter withdrew from the business and associated them¬ selves with Mr. Potter Palmer, who was then con¬ ducting on Lake street a prosperous dry goods business which he had established in 1852, the firm name becoming Field, Palmer and Leiter. This firm continued till January, 1867, when Mr. Palmer retired from the business and the firm name changed to Field, Leiter & Co. In the fall of 1868 the business was removed to the north¬ east corner of State and Washington streets, where it continued to prosper until swept away in the general conflagration of October 8th and 9th, 1871. At the time of this disaster, the business of the firm, amounting to $8,000,000 a year, was carried on in a single building. The value of the firm's property destroyed was estimated to be $3,500,000, on which $2,500,000 of insurance was collected. The firm at once resumed business in the old street railway barn at the southwest cor¬ ner of State and Eighteenth streets, and without delay replaced the destroyed edifice at the corner of State and Washington streets by an elegantly planned structure, to be thereafter devoted exclu¬ sively to the retail trade, while a commodious building was erected at the corner of Madison and Market streets for the accommodation of the wholesale department. This department was afterwards, in 1887, removed to its present loca¬ tion on Adams street, into the massive stone structure covering an entire block, and built expressly for it, and which is regarded as among the finest models of commercial architecture extant. Upon the completion of the new struc¬ ture the retail department was removed to the old site, and thenceforward the business has shown a marvelous growth, the sales having in¬ creased from $8,000,000 a year, before the great fire, to the enormous sum of $35,000,000 in 1891. Since 1881, when Mr. Leiter retired from the bus¬ iness, it has been conducted under the firm name of Marshall Field & Co.
It certainly is not asserting too much to say of one who can direct and control a business of such magnitude, extending, as it does, from the Alps to the Rocky Mountains—;for it involves branch houses in England, France and Germany—that he must possess, aside from mercantile foresight
and sagacity, the happy faculty of reading and judging men, unusual powers of organization, and executive ability of a high order; in a word, that his must be a master mind, And yet, if one shall seek in Mr. Field's career the rules that have led to his success, they will be found along the lines of well-tried and old-time maxims. Honesty and fair dealing; cash purchases ; short credits; promptness, truthfulness, fidelity—all these are strictly enforced and adhered to. Faithfulness on the part of employes is promoted by the knowledge that good service means advancement as opportunity opens and that neglect of duty will not be tolerated, and is further enhanced by the interest taken by the employer in the personal welfare of the deserving.
While estimates of the size of great fortunes are oftentimes matters of guess work, it is grati¬ fying to know that his strict adherence to correct business principles has brought to Mr. Field a fortune that is placed by his close friends at about $35,000,000.
A particularly noticeable trait of Mr. Field's character is modesty. He is of a retiring dispo¬ sition, and shrinks from newspaper notoriety. Anything like ostentation in charity he studiously avoids. Though he contributes freely to worthy objects, he has pronounced views in the matter of giving, and is careful not to add to the indis¬ criminate benevolence that often does more harm than good. His desire is to avoid any responsi¬ bility for blunting endeavor or for encouraging idleness. He assists in practically all the com¬ mendable movements of a public character in his city requiring funds. As instances, he recently gave a plot of ground worth $100,000 for the building of the Baptist University about to be instituted in Chicago with the important aid of Mr. Rockefeller. To the Manual Training School of the same city he gave $20,000. His list of personal beneficiaries is very large, and no one who has any kind of real claim upon him is disregarded. The extent of what he does in this respect the world, doubtless, will never know. It is not his practice to figure conspicuously at the head of subscription papers, or to be personally conspicuous anywhere, but his gifts of all kinds in the course of a year amount to a large aggre¬ gate. He is a member of most of the principal clubs, but cannot be called a club man. Thought-