--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Evans, John Henry collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 13 number: 6 published: 1910-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Evans, John Henry, "Some Men Who Have Done Things. VI.—John C. Cutler," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 6 (April 1910): 551–558.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1306unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1306unse start_page: 551 end_page: 558 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1910-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1306unse publication_year: 1910 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1910, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Some Men Who Have Done Things. VI.—John C. Cutler — Some Men Who Have Done Things. BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS' UNIVERSITY. VI.— John C. Cutler. AN ENGLISH BOY, BY SAVING, INVESTING, AND WATCHING HIS INVEST- MENTS, RISES FROM A CLERKSHIP YIELDING ONLY EIGHT DOLLARS A MONTH TO BECOME ONE OF UTAH'S RICHEST AND SAFEST FINANCIERS. "Every young man ought to save a little every month, till saving becomes a habit. Then he should invest his savings in some- thing that will earn money for him while he sleeps. And, finally, he must watch that investment. Saving, investing, watching that's the way to become independent financially." This is what John C. Cutler, former Governor of Utah, and one of our richest men, said to me the other day when I asked him how a young man could rise who started out to work for wages. And the remark not only furnishes the key-note of the Gov- ernor's own success in life, but forms an excellent motto for any one who wants to keep his nose off the com- mercial grindstone. When he was seventeen, he had one hundred dollars. Now, he had not inherited it, for his parents were poor; he had not been given it, merely HON. JOHN C. CUTLER. because nobody in all England had 552 IMPROVEMENT ERA. money to give away; and he had not picked it up in the pros- pector's camp, for the simple reason that there was no prospect- or's camp in the town of Manchester. He had saved it. Mark that. He had saved it — one hundred dollars in five years and on a wage ranging from about eight dollars the first month to about twenty dollars the last month! that the face of money were worth what it costs in effort! Then this hundred dollars and — many another first hundred dollars —would easily have been equiv- alent to the thousands of some other men. The fact that between • twelve and seventeen he saved one hundred dollars, was a big fact. — And so I repeat it in five years he had saved one year's wages, after paying for his board and lodging and clothes. Is it any marvel that John C. Cutler is now a rich man? Meantime, his parents, who lived at Sheffield, had joined the Church, and had made arrangements to emigrate to America. John C. was not then a Latter-day Saint, but he decided to go to the New World with the family. "There's better opportunity for growth in America than in England," he explained to his employer, when he gave notice that he wished to give up his clerkship. And so, with twenty guineas in his pocket, he took ship for the west- ern land. The five years' savings, however, went in less than five minutes when the family reached a point in their journey overland where it was necessary to add a yoke of cows to the already pur- chased four yokes of oxen. Just at the time when the Cutler family got to Salt Lake work happened to be as scarce as dollars. And so the future Governor and financier, with his brother, Thomas R., trudged out among the farmers in Mill Creek, south of the city, hunting for labor. "We've got to have work of some sort," John C. declared wherever he went. All that they could get, though, was a job digging potatoes and beets on shares. But the boys dug them as cheerfully and as well as they had measured gingham and cast up accounts in the Manchester store. This was the very next day after the family's arrival in Salt Lake. And this, moreover, is the only time John C. has ever asked any one for work. After the potatoes and beets were dug he helped make a canal, occupying an old house belonging to the Brintons. The next fall he was offered a clerkship in a store in the city, which he accepted. In the three SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 553 years, during which he was employed here, he became an essential part of the firm.But, owing to a difference as to the principles on which the business should be managed, he withdrew from the establishment. Immediately he was offered places elsewhere, but he determined to launch out for himself. "I made up my mind to have a business of my own," he said, speaking of this time, "even if I had to set up a peanut stand. Should it turn out that I had money enough only to put in a stock of roasted peanuts, why, peanuts it should be. and I would add eggs and apples and other things as I could. But I had set my heart on starting out for myself." That a young man with a wife and two children should think seriously, even as a last resort, of setting up a peanut stand, may have a strange sound for us nowadays, especially in any connec- tion with the name, John C. Cutler. But it shows the stuff he was made of. For independence seems to have been a passion with him. That he did not have recourse to this means of earning a livelihood, but engaged presently in a more lucrative business, was due to a fortuitous event. The Provo woollen mills had been established, and A. 0. Smoot was looking for an agent for the Salt Lake trade. Having heard of the young English clerk's push and business ability,Mr. Smoot sought him out and offered him the agency. The two called on President Brigham Young, a bargain was struck by which John C. was to sell the product of the woollen mills on commission, and a new store was opened up in the Constitution building, on Main street. Young Cutler had practically no capital, but everybody connected with the transaction appeared to like his looks and to place great reliance on his ability and honesty. Nor were they to be deceived by appearances. Mr. Cutler made good. He laid in a stock of cloth, adding other things in the "dry" line, as the busi- ness grew, made the concern pay, and, in the end, established a knitting factory. A grand thing it is to have men build up hopes in you, but a grander thing still to fulfil those hopes! Now, a good many men, as their business increased, would have enlarged the floor space of the store. They would have secured another floor, and then another— would have widened the building, and finally torn down the whole structure, to replace it by 554 IMPROVEMENT ERA. a larger. Or, maybe, they would have established departments in other parts of the city, or even in other towns. But John C. Cutler was not born to be a mere store-keeper. His genius ran into other and more varied enterprises. As his merchandising yielded greater and greater returns, he endeavored to invest his spare money to advantage. He bought four hundred dollars worth of Utah Central, in a little while got sixty dollars as interest, and sold the bonds for six hundred and fifty dollars. A few hundred dollars he invested in sheep, which, in the twenty years he has kept them, have brought him about fifteen per cent a year on his money. And so, wherever opportunity presented itself, he put money here and there, until now he is not only one of the wealthiest men in Utah but, as nine out of ten business men will tell you, one of the very safest. For, as a number of them informed me, if, during a financial crisis, any man in Utah has money, that man is John C. Cutler. I asked him to give me the best advice for young men that his long and successful experience could suggest. "First of all,'' he said, "a young man should learn to econ- omize and save till he gets a start. He must learn that there are many things that he cannot have and that he must do without for a time. He has to do this if he is to save at all. And he cannot get a start in business unless he saves. You know the old adage, that living ten cents under your income is happiness, ten cents over is misery. Well, nothing can be truer. Every young man, therefore, no matter how small his income, ought to save some- thing out of it every month. And he should do this till saving becomes a habit, till it is second nature to live within his means. That is why I regard the building societies as such a blessing to the average wage-earner — it compels him to save so much every month out of his wages. At the end of a given time — say ten years — he has a house and lot of his own, whereas otherwise, most probably, he would not have. And he may have something of far greater value than a house and lot, at the end of that time, namely, a habit of setting apart each month some portion of his wages, but whether he is in a building association or not, every young man should form the habit of saving as much as he can. "Then, when he has a little money saved, he should look SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 555 around for an opportunity to invest it. Now, money is a tireless worker — it earns all the time, whether its owner is awake or asleep. If you have a tolerable lump of it, it's like having another pair of hands working for you— only hands that need no rest. Of course, he has to watch this investment as closely as he can. For instance, I myself invested in sheep and let them out to others. One day I learned that the man who had them was on the verge of a business break-up. I took the sheep away and placed them elsewhere. About a year or two later the man failed, and I was saved. On another occasion I found out that another man who had my sheep was speculating. I took the sheep away from him. Pretty soon he went under, and I was saved again. And so a man has to watch an investment. There's no use having money out if you don't keep track of it. To be sure, every man is liable to make — mistakes the best men. I know a man who bought some Deseret National stock at the same time that I did, and sold it not long afterward, instead of keeping it and making it earn good money." "What about speculation?" I inquired. "Is it not a bad thing?" "Well, as a matter of fact, all business is more or less of a speculation. I buy a stock of goods. 1 don't know whether I can sell them or not. I hope I can. That is why I buy. But they may stay on the shelves. Every business transaction of this sort is somewhat of a venture. But I suppose you mean speculation in the ordinary sense, sinking money in the hope cf a large return. Even that is a matter of degree. The main objection to that sort of thing is that men sometimes speculate with money that should go for other things. Here is a man, for example, who has a wife and children. The family expenses make a given demand on his regular income. Other necessary things have their demand. Each month a certain amount of money comes in, and a certain amount has to go out for these regular expenses. Now, it would be wrong for such a man to speculate with any part of the money which ought to go for the family, or other necessary use. But if he has any money not so required, money which he hasn't any special need for at the time, he may set it apart for speculative purposes, if he chooses. This is what I mean by speculation being 556 IMPROVEMENT ERA. a matter of degree. For myself, though, I prefer the safer ways of business enterprises to speculation in its less restricted sense. Often, when I am in California, I go to San Francisco to the stock exchange, but I am never tempted to buy. "Another source of grief in speculation is that the man of small capital puts it into too many things at once. I am speaking now of the person who has a certain amount which he sets aside, over and above his expense money. If I have large sums invested in, say, ten different places, and I lose on three or four, it is prob- able that I may make enough from the other six or seven invest- ments to more than offset the loss in the three or four. But if I have only a small sum, I can't afford to take chances by dividing this amount among too many investments that promise large returns, but that are risky. It would be better for me, in this case, to put my money into some two or three things that yield smaller profits, but are safe. "But there is something besides mere safe returns to con- sider. A young man who contemplates entering business should try, in the main, to put his money into enterprises that give con- stant employment to the people. Thus, while he is establishing West Side, Hon. John C. Cutler's Orange Grove, La Canejeda, California, February 5, 1910. SOME MEN WHO HAVE DONE THINGS. 657 himself on a firm basis, he will, at the same time, be building up the community. And this is good citizenship as well. "Above all things, he must deal fairly and honestly with everyone." "What, in your opinion," I asked, "are the opportunities today as compared with those under which you arose into success?" "Better, I should say— much better. There is scarcely a com- parison. Nowadays a young man stands a hundred chances where we older men stood one. Boys today have a better education, to begin with. Only yesterday, for example,a man asked me if I couldn't get him some work. He had come from one of the Southern States; he was a man of family; he could neither read nor write; and he had no trade. Such a condition ought to be impossible to the future, if we may judge by the way our boys are educated now. Nobody but will be able to read and write. And then, almost every boy nowadays can have a trade. I believe that every boy should learn a trade. He may not need it, and then again he may. For the last five years, when I have gone on my annual visit to an orange grove I have in California, I have Harold G. Cutler learning- the orange and lemon business. Pruning lemon trees, February 5, 1910. at Hon. John C. Cutler's ranch, La Canejeda, California. —, 558 IMPROVEMENT ERA. noticed a certain house there which is building. The owner works for daily wages, but he knows the carpenter's trade, and every spare moment he has, he puts on the house. It is finished now, and would have cost him between four and five thousand dollars. As it is, it has cost him only the land — six or seven hundred dollars and the actual material he has put into it. So I believe thoroughly in the manual training departments which our high schools are putting in, because they give the boys an opportunity to learn a trade; and, in case something should happen in their business ven- tures, — if they engage in business — they will have something to fall back upon. ''But opportunities to engage in business are vastly more plentiful now than they were in my younger days. A hundred new vocations have arisen, and the older ones have opened out into finer possibilities. The principles of success, though, are the same as they always have been. "In business, as in everything else that the hands and brain of man find to do, good luck is but old-fashioned good manage- ment." ti-*^-*w*'-»- < * i <* Wi^^^M A LONELY TRAIL IN THE UINTAHS.