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THE CHICAGO BANKER
October 23, !pop]
GOERZ LENSES
9 ■ A PICTURE taken with the Goerz Dagor Lens ■ is as sharp at the edge as in the center. The ^ distant object is as clear in detail as the near.
This is because a Dagor Lens is corrected for astigmatism just as it is corrected for all other aberration.
This feature is important if you plan to enlarge your photographs. It is only one of the qualities in Goerz Lenses which make them the best lenses for both amateur and professional photography.
Everyone who wishes to do really serious and good photographic work should insist on having his camera equipped with the Goerz Dagor. Your dealer can do it for you, whether your camera is an Ansco, a Century, any Kodak, a Premo or Seneca.
When there is no chance to get it again, get it light the first time with a
GOERZ DAGOR
Our free catalogue, sent on request, describes Goerz Lenses, the XL Sector Shutter (quick, smooth, compact and accurate), Trieder Binoculars (small in size, yet powerful), and
the GOERZ ANSCHUTZ CAMERA, a folding focal-plane camera that has a speed up to 1-1000th of a second. Small, compact, light in weight.
C. P. GOERZ AMERICAN OPTICAL COMPANY Office and Factory: 79 East 130th Street, New York
Dealers’ Distributing Agencies: In Chicago—Jackson & Semmelmeyer; San Francisco—Hirsch A Kaiser. In Canada—li. F. Smith. Montreal.
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and “John Steel” innocent and the lucky lover, are handled beautifully. It is another Isham success.
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“The Southerner”—A Sectional Novel
In “The Southerner,” author unknown, a difficult subject is undertaken. It is supposed to be the biography of a real person—Nicholas Worth. It is full of real history and sure enough romance. It gives a new view of Southern life, a view quite unusual. Beginning with the war, it follows the course of thought in the South. It glances at the period of reconstruction, but really focuses about the present. What holds the attention is the absolutely truthful summing up of the effects of the Civil War, and of the attitude of the men of the South and the North toward each other then and now.
“I have sometimes thought,” writes Nicholas Worth, “that many of the men who survived that unnatural war unwittingly did us greater harm than the war itself. It gave every one of them the intensest experience of his life, and ever afterwards he referred every other experience to this. Thus it stopped the thought of most of them
Isham’s “Half a Chance”
The newest book from the Bobbs-Merrill press is “Half a Chance” by Frederick S. Isham, author of “Under the Rose” and “Lady of the Mount.”
The story here told is a dramatic one. It opens on the Lord Nelson bound for Australia with the governor, Sir Charles Wray, his wife, and little niece, Jocelyn, and Lord Ronsdale on board. The time was that of transportation of British criminals and there were a number of convicts on board. To one of them, “the Frisco Pet,” who had been a prize fighter, the little girl gives a King George coin.
The ship is wrecked. The little girl slips out of the life-boat and goes back for her dickey bird. The convict saves her as the ship sinks and swims with her to the life-boat, passes her in, and as he is about to climb after is struck in the face by Sir Ronsdale, unseen by the others, and pushed back in the sea.
Fate wills it that, years afterwards, in England, the ex-convict and Lord Ronsdale are rivals for the hand of Jocelyn. The adventures and conflicts which prove Ronsdale to be the guilty one
Rockefeller’s Book
John D. Rockefeller’s “Random Reminiscences of Men and Events,” published by Doubleday, Page & Co., New York, is an interesting volume from the perusal of which the reader will arrive at a better idea of the personal character of the great organizer of business who has been criticised and maligned from one end of the world to the other. Mr. Rockefeller prefaces his recollections in an introductory chapter whose simplicity reflects true modesty and also has the ring of sincerity. He then begins by discussing “Some Old Friends,” and from talking about his personal relations with many men with whom he has been associated in business, he drifts into an account of how he got his start in life, and of his first venture in the oil business. His story in this regard is very interesting, as it reveals the fact that the beginnings of what was later to become the Standard Oil Company were not so promising as to make the securing of capital an easy thing. The fact is, Mr. Rockefeller had his financial pinches, like most men who have built up large enterprises from nothing. In referring to the absorption of oil enterprise by the Standard Oil Company, Mr. Rockefeller dwells upon the Backus purchase, concerning which it has been charged that he personally robbed a defenceless widow of an extremely valuable property, paying her therefor only a mere fraction of its worth. He gives an account of the purchase, which was not the result of compulsion, or any influence whatever on the part of the Standard Oil Company, and prints correspondence showing that he had ordered the payment to Mrs. Backus of $10,-000 more than the purchase price which had been agreed upon, “in order to make doubly sure that she should receive full value.” Mr. Rockefeller also touches upon the matter of rebates, admitting that the Standard Oil Company did receive rebates from the railroads prior to 1880, but adds that it “received no advantages for which it did not give full compensation.” He then explains: “The reason for rebates was that such was the railroads’ method of business. A public rate was made and collected by the railroad companies, but, so far as my knowledge extends, was seldom retained in full; a portion of it was repaid to the shipper as a rebate. By this method the real rate of freight which any shipper paid was not known by his competitors nor by other railroad companies, the amount being a matter of bargain with the carryink company. Each shipper made the best bargain that he could, but whether he was doing better than his competitor was only a matter of conjecture. Much depended upon whether the shipper had the advantage of competition of carriers.” He says the Standard company gave advantages to the railroads for the purpose of reducing the cost of transportation. It shipped in large quantities, it provided regular traffic, it exempted the railroads from liability for fire and carried its own insurance, and provided terminal facilities at its own expense. But, he adds, “notwithstanding these special allowances, this traffic from the Standard Oil Company was far more profitable to the railroad companies than the smaller and irregular traffic, which might have paid a higher date.” The “Reminiscences” close with chapters on giving—“The Difficult Art of Giving,” and1 “The Benevolent Trust: The Value of the Co-operative Principle
Younger American Humorists
Wallace Rice, himself a comedian of reputation, has compiled the fun and philosophy from the younger American humorists into a neat pocket volume. The favorites from Dooley and Ade to Kiser and Lewis. They all are included in short epigrams, witty sayings and clever verse. It is a delightful book, published by the Dodge Publishing Co., and sells at fifty cents.