Philadelphia & Reading President Stricken on the Street Saturday. Unconscious to the End. Was Distinguished as a Lawyer, Business Man, Financier, and Administrator of Railroads.
Special to the New York Times
Philadelphia, April 26 – George F. Baer, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, which combines the railway lines and coal corporations generally known as the Anthracite Coal Trust, died at his home, 1718 Spruce Street, at 7:40 o’clock tonight. He was stricken with a severe gastric attack while walking from his home to his office in the Reading Terminal yesterday morning at 9 o’clock, and never completely regained consciousness after being removed to his home. He was 72 years old.
Mrs. Baer, who is also past 70, took her position at her husband’s bedside yesterday at noon and refused to leave it throughout the night and today. At the bedside with her when Mr. Bauer died were his five daughters, Mrs. Emily Baer Conrad of Reading, Penn,; Mrs. William Griscom Coxe of Wilmington, Del,; Mrs. Heber L. Smith of Reading, Penn.; Mrs. William N. Apel of Lancaster, Penn,; and Mrs. Isaac Heister.
George Frederick Baer, President of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad was distinguished as a lawyer, a business man, a financier, and an administrator of railroads. He achieved his first success as a lawyer, and ten years before the outside world ever heard of him he was retained to represent the interest of J. P. Morgan & Co. by the late Mr. Morgan, whose attention he had attracted and whose confidence he had won. As a lawyer, perhaps, he rendered his greatest service to the Reading Railroad.
He became by common consent the leader of the anthracite mine operators when they prepared for the great coal strike of 1902, which lasted six months, caused the idleness of 150,000 men and cost all together $90,000,000. Throughout that struggle between capital and labor he kept to the fore. When the mine workers proposed a joint conference between a committee to represent them and a committee to represent the presidents of the railroads affected by the strike, it was Mr. Baer who said no. When a proposal looking toward a settlement was made directly to Mr. Baer he replied that the anthracite mining was a “business and not a religious, sentimental, or academic proposition.”
While that conflict was in progress he received the nickname of “Divine Right Baer,” because of a letter he is said to have written setting his forth his belief that “the rights and interest of laboring men will be protected and cared for not by the labor agitators, but by Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interest of the country.”
Mr. Baer was of German descent. His ancestors with hundreds of their countrymen sought refugee in American during the colonial period when they fled the religious persecution of the Palatinate. He was born on April 13, 1842, near the village of Lavansville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, the son of Solomon and Anna Baer. Subsequently the family moved into the village where George received a high school education.
He became a apprentice in the office of The Somerset Democrat at the early age of 14, remained at the work for several years and then studied for a short period at the Somerset Academy. Next he obtained a position at the Ashtola Lumber Mills, near Johnstown, where he learned bookkeeping and eventually became treasurer and head bookkeeper for the company. He picked up knowledge of surveying during this period and located a railroad from mills to Johnstown which was never built.
In order to continue his studies he left the employ of the lumber company and he entered the sophomore class at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster. Within a year he returned to Somerset County and made a futile attempt to publish the Somerset Democrat, on which he worked as an apprentice. He brought criticism upon himself because he opposed the idea of a civil conflict, but when he saw that his advocacy of peace was hopeless, he entered the service at the beginning of the war between the north and south and was in Company E, 133rd Pennsylvania Volunteers. He then was only 19 years old, and before his twentieth birthday he was elevated to the rank of Major, he having been the youngest officer to attain the rank in the Army of the Potomac. He took part in the Battles of Antietam, Chancellorville, and Fredericksburg, in addition to many other engagements of less importance. At the expiration of his term of service he was discharged with the rank of Adjutant General of the Second Brigade.
Mr. Baer began the study of law with one of his brothers following immediately from his return of the war, and at the end of a little more than a year he was admitted to the bar of Somerset County. He celebrated his twentieth-second birthday by trying his first case, a suit for slander, which he won. The same year he removed to Reading, where he had planned to become editor of The Reading Eagle. Disagreement with the proprietor of that publication led him to resume the practice of law, and almost at the beginning of his practice in Reading he was fortunate in being retained as counsel in a case collaterally connected with the celebrated Muhlenburg estate. It involved the examination of title to certain lands, and young Baer discovered a defect in the legal instruments, overlooked by several leading members of the bar, which vitiated many valuable interests. His opponent settled the case without further contest when young Baer’s discovery had been verified and a fee of $5,000, something unusual for that period, was paid to Mr. Baer.
Mr. Baer rose to a position of prominence at the Reading bar all of a sudden. He was sought by important interests as counsel, and a few years later was retained by the Berks County Railroad, for which he fought successfully several suits against the Reading Company.
Subsequently Mr. Baer became the confidential advisor of John S. Richards, counsel for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, and in 1871, a year before the death of Mr. Richards, he was appointed counsel for the railroad. He accepted the new position with the reservation that it should not conflict with his duties in connection with the Berks County Road, for which he was still acting as counsel when it was absorbed by the Reading system
When the panic of 1873 prostrated many industries, Mr. Baer with unusual abilities assisted in rehabilitation of many notable enterprises, among them being the banking firm of the Bushnog Brothers, whose properties included valuable paper mills, furnaces and other concerns valued at from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000. He managed these properties for several years after being made assignee and finally he bought them and assumed their obligations. His success with this venture proved his ability as a financier and capitalist, and it was only a short while after that he became confidential advisor of J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family in the State of Pennsylvania.
The reorganization of the Philadelphia & Reading system in 1893 brought Mr. Baer again into prominence in connection with that property. The reorganization of the system was regarded as almost impossible by the group of New York financiers with whom he was associated, because of certain difficulties to be confronted with the law. At a meeting at which a proposal was considered, it is said that J.P. Morgan turned to Mr. Baer and asked him what he thought about it.
“I believe that it can be done,” said Mr. Baer. “In fact, I have already prepared a brief on the subject, which is in my desk, and if you will give me time to consult it and consider the subject. I am certain that I can show you that it can be accomplished.”
Mr. Morgan, it is said, looked at Mr. Baer and gave him a hearty slap on the back, exclaiming, “You’re my man; I want a man who can do things.”
The meeting was adjourned, and when it was reconvened Baer made his promise good. He was a Director of the Reading Company, and in 1897, on the retirement of Joseph S. Harris, he succeeded to the presidency. That the Jersey Central was bought for the Reading on a single sheet of memorandum paper, carrying a multiplication table of Baer, is an old story.
Subsequently Mr. Baer grew closer to the Morgan interest. When the consolidation of the coal properties which was in consideration Baer was ready with his Temple Iron Company charter, one thing that was essential to its accomplishment. He sold the property and charter to Mr. Morgan, retaining an interest, and was elected President of the comparatively insignificant corporation, which I reality controlled the bulk of the anthracite coal properties in Pennsylvania and of whose board every member who was at that time a President of some railway system.
Mr. Baer prided himself on being the second oldest railroad President in the world. He said he believed that President Thomas of the Lehigh Valley was the only man who exceeded him in point of years. Just prior to his seventieth birthday, in 1912, there was a great deal of talk of his retirement as President of the Reading Railroad. Mr. Baer was asked about the rumor, and he said he had not thought of retiring as long as the stockholders were pleased with his management. He thought then that it would appear as an act of “moral cowardice” for him to quit when the government had so many suits pending against the coal roads. He said:
“If you have your hands in the lion’s mouth, don’t pinch his tail. It is better not to do so, for such a thing would be most unwise. If the court decides there are illegal combinations, ‘sufficient for the day is the evil of thereof.’”
The age limit for the President of the Reading Railroad, was 70 years, and that was considerably in advance of most of the railroads of the country, which retire their officers long before they reach that age. Mr. Baer himself was responsible for extending the age of employment on his system from 38 to 45 years. He was always proud that he worked as hard as any minor employee of the road. A committee of baggage men once went to him with protest against being asked to take two weeks’ vacation without pay.
“I’ll do it myself anytime without pay,” was the reply from Mr. Baer.
Reading, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Baer still went daily to his offices in the Reading Terminal Building, called him her “most eminent citizen. ”The people of that city used to give him many banquets. Three times the people of Berks County tried to make him the Democrat candidate for Governor. Five times his neighbors tried to send him to Congress. Each time his reply was, “I’m too busy.”
Almost to the last day of his life Mr. Baer remained just as alert as he used to be at thirty years ago when he was in the prime of his activities. He was accustomed to arise each morning at 6 o’clock and at 8 o’clock take a train to Philadelphia. The hour and a half journey home in the afternoon at 4 o’clock was made with the same punctuality.
Mr. Baer was an even tempered man. He was calm and quiet in his manner of talking, and was a good story teller as his assistants and foreman, who used to go regularly every Friday to the “story telling session,” have borne witness. Here is a story he used to tell of himself:
“I had a peculiar experience one summer. I was sitting on my porch at Reading, after dinner, smoking a cigar, when up the walk came a very tall man, with a carpet bag is in hand. He stopped at the bottom of the steps and said,” Be you the President of the Reading Railroad?” I drew up my shoulders and said I was. Then he walked up the steps and said, “What is the price from here to Niagara Falls and back?” I said, “my dear friend, I do not know. You will have to go down to the ticket office.’ Picking up his carpet bag he looked at me. You are the President of the Reading Railroad and don’t know the price of a ticket to Niagara Falls and back he exclaimed. Again I said that I didn’t. Then he walked down the steps, turned and said, “Well, you’re a hell of a railroad president!”
In his personal manner Mr. Baer did not betray any of the characteristics of the fighter he was credited with have been. He had a military carriage, and was only slightly above medium height. His hair and beard was gray and his eyes were steel blue, keen and penetrating. Often his eyelids were contracted. He held his head firmly and moved only his eyes to look aside. In his dress was plain and unassuming.
He had unbounded confidence in himself, and he performed his work with as few words as possible. His reticence was caused no doubt by years of forced restraint. He professed to have learned a lesson from the experience of a predecessor, who, after getting into trouble with the Reading directors because of an ill-timed speech, went out, bought a copy of the Ten Commandments, and added an eleventh, which read “Keep your mouth shut.”
In his political affiliations Mr. Baer was a Republican, although he never took more than a passive interest in the affairs of that party. He was always a regular contributor to his party’s campaign fund. At intervals he assisted his party candidates with public utterances and his private counsel.
In religion he was of German Reformed faith, and was a liberal supporter of its institutions, particularly its educational institutions. He was a member and formerly President of the Pennsylvania German Society. He was active in the establishment of the Reading Public Library, and for many years was a member of the Reading Park Commission. One of his hobbies was floriculture. His residence, called Hawthorne, is one of the most attractive places in Reading, but is not pretentious. He was widely read in Germanic and Dutch literature, and was a devoted student of history. His Reading home was conspicuous chiefly for its fine library. Mr. Baer spoke what was commonly called “Pennsylvania Dutch” with a fluency which won him many cases. The degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Letters were awarded to him by Franklin and Marshall College, his alma mater, of whose Board of Trustees he had been President for many years.
Submitted by Brenda.
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