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"THE FOOT-WASHING CEREMONY OF THE MENNONITES" One of a series of fourteen mural paintings by Mr. Van Ingen, representing the Religious Sects of Pennsylvania

of which is a suite of apartments-on the left for the judges, on the right for the Bar.

The

The room itself, 72 feet by 42, has a pair of large windows at each end; but these during the sessions of the court are to be obscured by heavy hangings of velour, thus leaving the dome the sole source of outside light. The interior finish is of mahogany, in the purest style of the Greek Doric, its proportions and mouldings being based on those of the Erectheum. Around the walls proceeds a wainscot nine feet high, divided into panels, which, like those of the doors and the frames of the windows, are decorated with Greek grille, that in modern language may be described as a union of the Greek and St. George's crosses. wall space above the cornice of the wainscot, later to be adorned by Mr. Abbey with mural paintings typifying the evolution of the various branches of Law, is divided into panels by pilasters, while four pairs of much larger pilasters occupy the angles of the walls. These support a beautiful entablature, consisting of an architrave of three plain bands, a frieze decorated with the anthemion, or honeysuckle ornament, and a cornice that comprises the heart-and-leaf motive, dentils, and eggand-dart moulding. Upon this decorative structure of mahogany rests the ceiling, which is divided up into coffers that surround the circular opening of the dome with beams, decorated in white and gold, with ornament similar to that

of the entablature. of the entablature. A particularly attractive feature is the gilt bronze necklace of anthemion design that encircles the collar to the dome. The drum of the latter is divided into twelve windows, framed with Greek grille, opening into the outer shell and thus affording ventilation. The dome itself, consisting of twelve segments, is constructed of American glass, with a pattern of green scroll-work upon a ground clouded with amber, pearl, and gray.

The embellishment of the main door, similar in design to that of the windows, comprises two Ionic columns supporting an entablature upon which rests a richly moulded pediment, the angles of the latter adorned with the Greek ornament known as acroteria.

THE ARCHITECT'S INSPIRATION

Every good architect is something of an idealist. It is the artist in him that makes him a dreamer of dreams, even while he must be a practical man. With such men-and Mr. Huston is one of them-the artistic conception of a building like this Capitol is in a dream. The offspring of a union of memory and creativeness, it is full-grown at birth and stands clear to the eye of the spirit as objects loom up complete in a sleeper's vision. So a painter may see his picture finished before the canvas is stretched, a sculptor his group before he has touched the clay. For each of them the vision is a reality, more real even than the

finished work: for the one is what he had in his soul to accomplish; the other is what after pains of labor and under many limitations it has actually become.

Therefore to enter into a man's work, as he at length delivers it over to the world, one should try to enter also into the spirit that begot it. The hard thing always is to find the clue. In the case of this building, I found it-for myself at any rate-in the inscription that twice encircles the interior of the dome. The utterance will be recognized as William Penn's:

"THERE MAY BE ROOM FOR SUCH A HOLY EXPERIMENT FOR THE NATIONS WANT A PRECEDENT. AND MY GOD WILL MAKE IT THE SEED OF A NATION THAT AN EXAMPLE MAY BE SET UP TO THE NATIONS. THAT WE MAY DO THE THING THAT IS TRULY WISE AND JUST."

Where will be found a nobler ideal? It is rich in inspiration for the present as for the past, not without its condemnation of experiments that are unholy, and full of reminder that precedent begets preceden continually. Who shall say what buildings in other states may be patterned after this? how its influence may react on its own? It will be a precedent for good. And in art one of the synonyms for good is beautiful.

Standing beneath the dome, I believe that the architect's ideal was that of a shrine, conceived as a habitation for the spirit of this utterance-great, as befits the magnitude of its significance; soaring high, as with its aspiration; strong, serene, and beautiful as the faith that is in it.

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"THE VICTORY OF THE PEOPLE"

A model for the quadriga made by Mr. Solon Borglum, from the architect's design

THE ROMANTIC STORY OF GARDNER WILLIAMS, THE AMERICAN ENGINEER WHO MADE THE SOUTH AFRICAN DIAMOND MONOPOLY A HUGE SUCCESS-HIS FIGHT AT CECIL RHODES'S SIDE TO SECURE CONTROL OF THE MINES AND HIS LATER MANAGEMENT OF THE DIAMOND OUTPUT OF THE CAPTURED CRATERS-HIS LIFE AS AN ORGANIZER, EXECUTIVE, SCIENTIST, AND WRITER

W

BY

M. G. CUNNIFF

HEN Mr. Alfred Mosely, the Englishman who so admires American ways that he brings commissions over to study them, was asked the reason of his admiration, he said:

"Gardner F. Williams, the American mining engineer who directs the diamond output of the world."

Mr. Mosely made his fortune in South Africa. He watched Cecil Rhodes's dream of empire develop and knew the men who made it real. The one who took his imagination was Gardner Williams. "The country that can produce such a man," he said to himself, "is a country from which mine can learn."

age

Few men have earned such a tribute. Here was a man who had left Michigan at the of fifteen to go with a pioneering father to Cali fornia in the flush days of the early mining camps, had had a taste of California mining, had gone when still a young man to explore in South Africa, and had become general manager of the great monopoly of the diamond mines. A fighter of financial battles and a manager of men, a writer, a scientist, and one of the world's greatest engineers, he so stamped his personality on the people among whom he lived that he was fêted and cheered by all South Africa when he retired last spring and came back to the United States to build a home for his leisure years in the land of his birth. Here was a man who played a man's part in perhaps the most inspiring and romantic undertaking of his time.

His father went, with a little capital, to California in the fifties and the son entered California College-afterward the University. He wished to become a mining engineer, but there was no good mining school in the country. "Perfect yourself," said his father, "even if you have to go abroad." So off he

went to the Mining Academy of Freiberg, among the lead mines of Saxony. On his return to San Francisco in 1866, two well-spent years in the mint made him an expert assayer, and then he went to mining in the Pioche country of southern Nevada. He came back to be appointed receiver of a water and mining company in northern California. Within a year the company was paying dividends for the first time and his diplomacy had brought into harmony the two warring factions that had necessitated the receivership.

From this post he was called, by an invitation from a classmate at Freiberg named De Crano, who had organized an exploring company for the Rothschilds, to look for valuable minerals in Mashonaland. Then began his acquaintance with bush and karroo, with the slow advance of ox teams across the level veldt," with the handling of Zulus and Matabeles and other natives, with the sturdy but pig-headed Boers, with the adventurers who were rushing in hordes to this new Golconda. He shot clephants and lions, lived off the country, panned and tested the sand and gravel of every stream, and scoured the region for promising outcrops or hints of value. On his way back to London to report he fell in with Cecil Rhodes, who happened to be a fellow passenger on the steamer a meeting that proved to be the turning point in his career.

Rhodes had often said that he strove for wealth, because only through wealth could he hope to realize his plan of British empire. in South Africa. "Chinese" Gordon once told him of refusing a roomful of gold with which the Chinese Government wished to reward him for subduing the Taiping rebellion. "What would you have done?" he asked Rhodes.

"Taken it," was the reply, "and as many

more roomfuls as they would have given me. It's no use to us to have big ideas, if we haven't the money to carry them out."

And since it was on the claims he controlled in the De Beers diamond mine that he based his hopes of wealth, he talked eagerly with this American mining engineer, as the steamer kicked its way up the African coast, of possible ways to make his diamond mining pay as hugely as he thought it should. Arm in arm they paced the deck day after day and evening after evening. They were kindred spirits. Rhodes told Williams what he knew of the wild land that the American had been exploring, and Williams explained and diagramed the art of mining. And both talked of men and of how men may be handled.

After a short stay in England, Mr. Williams came home to see his family. In the midst of his visit he was surprised to receive a cablegram from Rhodes asking him to resign from the Exploration Company and come out and take charge of his diamond mine. He started at once for London, met Rhodes, and early in 1886 sailed back to the Cape as General Manager of the DeBeers Company. He took hold of the mining operations at once and quickly familiarized himself with conditions. Then Rhodes unfolded his big idea.

It had been taken for granted when the diamonds were discovered that the fields were in Boer territory in the Orange Free State. The British, however, had asserted that the boundary of the Griqua country over which they had a protectorate included the diamond fields, and they had organized the district as the British territory of Griqualand West. Its northern boundary, however,, had not been accurately surveyed. Mankoroane, a native chief, maintained that some of his territory had been included. Rhodes, who was then a member of the Cape Parliament, had himself appointed one of a delimitation commission to straighten the matter out. Once out of communication with Capetown, he treated with Mankoroane as if he were Minister, Peacecommissioner, and Sovereign in one. Making concessions to the chief, he secured his whole territory, including all of Lower Bechuanaland -and then calmly came back and asked the Cape Government to ratify his action. It refused. He turned then to the British Government, which reluctantly established a protectorate. Then disgusted with the lack of interest of the two Governments, who could not see,

as he could, a vision of an Africa "all red" with the tint of British dominion, he decided that if his vision were to crystallize into fact, he must do the work himself. He would gain control of the diamond mines, form a gigantic private corporation, and then push forward under its aegis.

The picture that the diamond fields then presented was this: The first diamond seekers had ruled that mining claims should be thirty feet square. From these little claims the miners had proceeded to take out the diamondbearing blue-ground. As the holes went deeper it soon became plain that the blue-ground was the filling of the craters of extinct volcanoes, ringed in a roughly circular form with "reef," as the worthless country rock is called. The craters there were four of them: DeBeers, Kimberly, Dutoitspan, and Bultfonteinlooked like pits swarmed over by ants, for the claimholders and their Kaffir workmen were feverishly digging away at their blocks of ground, some at one depth and some at another, hoisting their output to the edge of the crater by long cables that slanted into the huge pits like filaments of cobweb. In some cases the thirty-foot claims had been subdivided; in other cases a number had been consolidated. Only the DeBeers Company and a few others had done any underground mining. Already the claim-holders were being troubled by unexpected avalanches from the sides of the crater, which were sliding down and burying claims clear to the centre of the crater under tons of "reef." It was becoming evident that open mining would have to be abandoned.

The DeBeers Company by its successive accretions had already become the strongest element in the DeBeers mine; but in the other prize crater, the Kimberly mine, Barney Barnato, in control of the Central claims, was the leading figure. Mr. Williams, talking with claim-holder after claim-holder in the De Beers mine in the next two years, gradually made them see that it was to their interest to amalgamate with the De Beers companyuntil the control of that crater was clinched. The problem was to get a footing in the Kimberly mine. Here there were two other large holdings beside Barnato's Central-one called the French Company, the other W. A. Hall's Claims. Rhodes tried to buy the Hall Claims, but in vain. Here was a check.

"Let us buy the French Company," said Mr. Williams.

"How shall we raise the money?" returned Rhodes.

"Let me try," said the General Manager. Forthwith he wrote to London to his old friends Mr. DeCrano and Mr. Hamilton Smith, the founders of the Exploration Company. Outlining the situation, he requested them to put the matter to Lord Rothschild and to ask him if he would finance the enterprise if Rhodes could persuade the French Company to sell. Before a reply could come, Rhodes suggested that they follow on the heels of the letter and hammer while the iron was hot. They met Mr. DeCrano in London, and the three went into conference with Lord Rothschild. Rhodes declared that he needed a million pounds sterling. Rothschild was non-committal. The meeting broke up on the understanding that Rhodes and Mr. Williams should see first what could be done with the French Company. Rhodes went out of the door first. As Mr. Williams and Mr. DeCrano were making their adieus Rothschild said to them: "If Mr. Rhodes can buy the company, I think I can raise the million pounds."

That night Rhodes, Mr. Williams, and Mr. DeCrano went to Paris. Within a week they had persuaded the directors of the French Company to sell. Back in London, Rhodes told Lord Rothschild that £750,000 would do. The money was paid over; 50,000 shares of the DeBeers Company's stock at £15 a share were issued to take up the loan; and the Rothschilds entered a syndicate to sell the stock. The far-sighted Rhodes arranged with Lord Rothschild that the DeBeers Company should take half of any profit the syndicate should make on the stock between prices of £15 and £20 a share within three months. By this little afterthought, in which Rhodes out-financed a Rothschild, the company made £100,000. The huge loan had not merely cost them nothing-it had paid a profit.

On the return of the two men to South Africa contented with their success, Barnato saw what was coming, and began to fight. He besought the stockholders of the French Company not to ratify the sale their directors had made, offering them £300,000 more than the DeBeers Company had paid for the property. Rhodes, however, persuaded Barnato to permit the sale to go through as agreed, on the understanding that the French Company's property should be turned over to Barnato's Central Company in return for shares.

Barnato acquiesced. Rhodes's DeBeers Company, then, now in possession of the whole De Beers crater, acquired in the Kimberly crater not the French Company's property, but a fifth of the shares in Barnato's Central Company which owned it. This seemed a very slight footing in the Kimberly crater. It looked as if Rhodes and Williams had lost and Barnato had won.

Barnato immediately began to operate the Central mine, now the predominant working in the Kimberly crater, in competition with the De Beers mine which Mr. Williams was gradually bringing under a unified system. Such was the output that Mr. Williams was able to show Rhodes that, with anything like equal efficiency in the development of the Kimberly mine, more diamonds would soon be produced than the market would take without smashing prices and perhaps ruining the companies. "Monopoly is the only possibility," he said. Rhodes tried to get Barnato to work in harmony with him to control the market, but the Kimberly man said, "No."

Rhodes immediately decided that the only chance for monopoly lay in acquiring control of the Central Company. He brought his project before the late Alfred Beit, who, coming to South Africa as a diamond buyer, had organized the firm of Wernher, Beit & Co., and had become a powerful figure in the diamond market and in the development of claims in the Kimberly mine. He asked for £2,000,000. Beit said what Lord Rothschild had said, "I'll find the money, if you will get the shares."

Straightway Rhodes began buying shares of the Central mine in open market. Barnato joined issue. He too began buying. Up and up went the price of the stock and neither man flinched. Time and again Rhodes made offers to Barnato, but the little Kimberly man stuck to his guns. Finally, when the stock had reached an outrageous figure and the price of diamonds had dropped to fourteen shillings a carat, Rhodes invited Barnato to confer with him. They walked the floor all night, Rhodes working as he had never worked before, and when morning came Barnato had surrendered. Rhodes had succeeded in persuading him that some of Barnato's own directors and largest shareholders had been disloyally unloading their stock on him, that the Kimberly man was really standing alone. It was one of the greatest financial battles of the century, and Rhodes won by the sheer force of his personality, for

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