The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 70

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26, 193 IS Fi Vi ROM VIGILANTE to 1V1ILLIONAIRE August Heckscher StartedWhen Life Was Swift and Dangerous By William Philip Eaton "EETING August Heckscher- one sees an obviously alert, keen, very neat man off whose shoul it fe I 1 I Iff 'f 9 I ninnmiiiiiiiiiiili-iliriimniim-iilnniHii'Tmiiniri-, r--i I ders the years roll with a minimum effect. He has a quite respectable amount August Heckscher he cannot but double up. The possessor of a fine pair of white trotting horses, he was warned by friends never to drive them at night because they were readily visible and would make him an easy target. His war against the Molly Maguires ended in i878, with the practical breaking up of the gang. But his adventures were not over.

In 1880 associates sent him to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to took over silver properties. As he approached the Point of Death Valley, the Navajo Indians went on a rampage, came off the reservation, captured the stage coach ahead of the one in which Heckscher rode, scalped the driver, rifled the mails and stole the mules. The cavalry was miles away. To go on, or to wait? The driver became roaring drunk and determined to proceed. Propped on his seat and handed the reins by Heckscher and a companion, the intoxicated mule-skinner drove through the night and the Indians, bellowing challenges to the whole race of redskins, daring them to come on.

Below, in the coach, Heckscher and his mine boss were ready, pistols drawn. They were given up for lost by relatives, friends and the New York papers, but they came through. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, the thirty-foot vein of hard coal, which had been in a wilderness, became the center of a town, and as coal was removed, the town many houses being damaged as by an earthquake. Consequently Heckscher sold out to the Heading Railroad, which promptly went into receivership, endangering his own financial position, as he had not been paid yet. He went into mining and smelting, forming the Lehigh Valley Zinc and Iron Company in 1881, later included in the New Jersey Zinc Company, which he was instrumental in forming.

From then on his interests increased, until now he is primarily interested in New York City real estate. He considers this one of the best possible investments, as New York City is not likely to suffer from earthquakes 1 the land grows constantly in value. frequently being worth more without a building than with ane. He mentions the case of the Manhattan Hotel, on Madison avenue, between Forty-second and Forty -third streets, which he bought in 1918 for 3.800,000 and sold to the National City Bank in 1924 for $6,800,000. That property now, without the building, would be worth says Mr.

Heckscher. His advice is always to buy the best it is cheaper in the end. He Is opposed to very high buildings, and would set thirty stories as the limit and would not permit more than sixty percent of any lot to be built on above the first floor. Mr. Heckscher's chief interest now lies in his benefactions and charitable work, which have many phases.

The well known Heckscher Foundation is devoted to the extending of advantages to underprivileged children, without distinction among them. His further donations have been for parks such as the beautiful gift to the town of Huntington, Long Island, with its museum and playgrounds, of which he has given several to the city. At present he is regarding with interest the experimental roof playground above Public School 31, Manhattan, which his gift made possible. If it is a success similar ones will be undertaken. A large children's camp at Peekskill, a children's clinic, a children's playground, day nursery and of grayish hair and a wideawake manner that could not have been greater in his youth.

A widower, he has recently taken a second wife. He is as active as ever, principally now in real estate and charitable work. Yet this incredible person over eighty-two years old. His father was born in 1797, so that father and son between them reach into three centuries. That father, at the age of thirteen, fought against Napoleon at Leipzig, and the fighting spirit has never died down in his successful son.

"I wish I were not so excitable," Mr. Heckscher will confess, yet a study of bis life reveals plenty that justifies excitement Born in Hamburg, Germany, 1848, in the month for which he is named, he attended the German schools until the age of fifteen, being then employed by E. Nolting and Company, a large importing house. To these years he attributes his grasp of the fundamentals of business a grasp which makes him boast that he can take over the tasks of any of his numerous employes, however diverse. Coming to America at nineteen, he spent a year learning the language, which he now speaks to perfection, scarcely betraying a trace of his mother tongue.

He was offered an opportunity to enter the anthracite coal rniiiing field by relatives, and with a little capital sent him from abroad he began his career with a severe test. The money put up and the Heckschers committed to the deal, his relative, on whose knowledge of the industry they depended, was taken seriously ill and the full burden of the business fell on the youthful August's shoulders. It was a case of sink or swim, and Heckscher swam. At that time the rich mining regions of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, were terrorized by an outlaw secret society known as the Molly Maguires. Many an assassination was attributed to the machinations of this lawless group, who always escaped conviction by the connivance of corrupt, friendly or intimidated witnesses.

To August Heckscher. as head of the Vigilantes, fell the task of driving out this festering sore. It seems almost incredible, as he tells it now, that this carefully dressed patriarch, surrounded by all that his position affords, should have gone through the days he likes to tell of. Returning from meetings at night, the members of the Vigilantes had to go as group from door to door, seeing one another home, the last two always stay- Sg together. No one knew when a urderer's pistol would flash one expected it one only hoped to get a chance to shoot back.

August Heckscher carried his hands ever ready on two cocked pistols in his coat pockets, and advises any one in similar predicament always to snoot at the sjpmach, for a man hit anywhere can continue to shoot but, struck dental clinic in Brooklyn, and several Important philanthropies in Florida are among Mr. Hecksher's many contributions to bettering the condition of unfortunates. When he is eighty -five, if it can be arranged, Mr. Heckscher plans to turn his business affairs over to "the boys" and devote himself fully to philanthropic work. Until comparatively recently, Mr.

Heckscher used to rise at five or six in the morning and swim in Long Island Sound. Now he limits himself to twenty minutes exercise after his morning shower until he Is dry and this exercise he describes as violent. Those who know Mr. Heckscher can easily believe that such exercises are violent in any sense of the word. He has not been fully examined by a physician since 1917, when he was warned of heart trouble.

Telling of this, he will knot his hard fists and strike himself violently and repeatedly on the bosom in such a way as would bring dizziness and nausea to many a younger man. Then, declaring that he never had a headache, this unbelievable man will with those same hard fists beat himself upon his head and temples in a manner that would seem bound to cause severe distress to almost any one. He works liard and long, attributes bis success to work and perseverance, and can maintain his fierce pace till past midnight. Recently he cured himself of arthritis by refusing to give in to it fighting it moving hit arm daily in his bath until, defeated by this Invincible human, the affliction slunk off. He likes to read, and has few other diversions, work satisfying him completely.

His grandchildren are a source of great pleasure to him, and he likes to show a long poem written in honor of his eightieth birthday by one of them. Hs is strong and vigorous, lively-even spry and very carefully groomed. As he sits in his large, interesting office on the tcp floor of a midtown office building there is a sense of contrast and drama in the precise tone in which he relates some life-and-death adventure ot his youth, but it is not impossible to imagine hiiu taking Uie same risks, and succeeding Just as credibly, tomorrow. In short, despite his age of eighty-two and his statement that he has only a past, while the younger men he enjoys talking to have a futare, it still seenw probable that Ume-defylg August Heckscher has still many yeais ahead of him, active and creative, aud I ioiu which humanity will benefit. WTrVf h.

few fm In the coal mines. Heckscher found bh first succcess.