Page:Whitman's Ride through Savage Lands.djvu/218

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180
Whitman's Ride

and bought a small farm. Prospecting through that state, Wisconsin and Michigan, he made up his mind that there was money in pine land, and beginning in a small way, marketed the timber, and made money. He at once invested all his money in pine timberland, bought and sold, and ever bought more pine, and the time came when he could readily sell for four times the cost of it. He was an observant man, and his success in locating and selling, by his straightforward way of doing business, soon attracted the attention of capitalists, and they persuaded him to settle in Chicago and buy and sell for them. Soon an immense business was in his hands, which continued for years, and left him with a fortune. He wearied with the years of intense business activity, retired, and said to himself, here is a snug little fortune, what is to be done with it? In the language of a notable address, delivered by the doctor before a great audience at Battle Creek, when he said, "These dead hands can carry nothing out! What, gentlemen, are you going to do with your money?" He soon settled upon a plan to spend his, and that was to use it through deserving struggling Colleges, to give to poor young men and women an intellectual, moral, and religious training. He believed that every institution for its permanency and security should have a healthy, interested, money-giving