A LADY WHO CONTROLS MILLIONS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2540, 20 October 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A LADY WHO CONTROLS MILLIONS.

♦ " Miss Mary Gakrett, the daughter of tho founder of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad system, is an extraordinary woman," said a gentleman well acquainted with the facts, " and, but that she is a woman, would to-day be president of that road." Miss Garrett has never obtruded her individuality in the management of the great property which her father left at his death, but her influence and capacity have nevertheless been felt and recoguised by everyone who has come in contact with the financial management of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company. For many years before her father's death she was his chief assistant. Her love for her father was the ruling passion of her life, and her devotion to him was the admiration of her friends and the despair of those who sought to win her hand in marriage. Miss Garrett to-day, although few persona know it, controls and manages the Garrett iuterest in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and has for some time been the most potential factor in the manipulations of the interests of the great corporation. Although personally directing the management of the property worth not less than §20,000,000, Miss Garrett is (so the Philadelphia Record says) almost unknown to business men, because her sense of modesty and womanly reserve will not permit her to assume an individual and personal control which both her capacity for financial affairs and her direct control of millions of money would enable her to do. Thero is no woman in the United States who can command more ready cash than Miss Garrett. Her knowledge of the road and its management gives her a position in the councils of that corporation not possessed by any other individual. When her father was i living, Miss Garrett was his private I secretary, his best adviser, and his most trusted friend, even absvo any of the old gentleman's sons. It was in this capacity that she obtained her knowledge of the road and her insight into its financial affairs. After the death of her father Miss Garrett's influence over her brother, Robert Garrett, was so marked that it became a matter of current talk in Baltimore. But there were certain theories held by her brother which even the influence which she held over him could not successfully combat. When these failed Robert Garrett saw the wisdom of his sister's counsels, and practically surrendered to her the management of his interest in the road. Recently, when the syndicate which had helped the Baltimore and Ohio out of the difficulties in which it had unwittingly been plunged began to haggle about the commissions and threatened to place the road in an embarrassing position, Miss Garrett quietly brushed thcin all aside, put up needed cash, and saved the credit of the company. Since the recent death ofjlier brother, T. Harrison Garrett, Miss Mary Garrett's control of the Garrett estate has become practically unlimited during Robert Garrett's absence from the United States. Miss Garrett is a most unassuming lady, and would never be taken for a great financier. She is not fond of notoriety, and in manners and habits is a most domestic and homeloving woman. Her most ardent hope is to see the great road which her father built and brought to such great importance kept up to the position where he left it, and perpetuated as one of the greatest institutions of the country.