George Howard Earle Jr.


George H. Earle Jr. was a Philadelphia lawyer and "financial diplomat" who was highly sought after to save ailing corporations from financial ruin.

Biography

Earle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Grandson of noted abolitionist and philanthropist, Thomas Earle, Grandson of notable American Revolutionary War Officer Samuel Van Leer and only son to Philadelphia lawyer George H. Earle Sr. and Mrs. Frances Van Leer Earle, he gained notoriety for his abilities as a "business doctor"—having turned around many organizations from the brink of financial ruin after being appointed as receiver and reorganizer. A Harvard University graduate, Earle became a member of the Philadelphia bar—following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps—practicing his trade as a lawyer in the firm of Earle & White in Philadelphia. But Earle would soon forsake the practice of law "save as a useful medicament to be employed in the cure of invalid companies, and as a study for the little indoor leisure that business leaves him." He would be appointed as president and director to nearly two dozen Philadelphia companies and corporations. Mr. Earle married Catharine H. French on 12 December 1881, two years after he graduated from Harvard. It was his desire to marry Miss French after he began earning at least five dollars a week, and his starting weekly salary at an attorney's office just fresh from college was only $2.50. They would have ten children in all, to include George Howard Earle III—former Governor of Pennsylvania.

"The Guarantee Trust and Safe Deposit Company got sick and sent for him. So did the Finance Company of Philadelphia. So did the Tradesmen's Bank. So did the Market Street National...and to-day they are all flourishing... He was consulting physician when the Reading Railroad was sick. Then he figured in two sensational cases that gave him a national reputation. One was the smash of the Chestnut Street National Bank and the Chestnut Street Trust Company... The other sensational case was the Real Estate Trust Company..."

Along with his father, Earle was a member of the Committee of One Hundred —"a non-partisan effort in aid of good government" dedicated to ending bossism politics in Philadelphia in the late 1800s. This committee of reformers, consisting initially of Independent Republicans "seeking to reform the management of the Republican party," would eventually lose influence and effectiveness. According to When Bosses Ruled Philadelphia, among proposed reasons for their ineffectiveness was the resulting "division between reformers over the question of partisanship," "poor organization and their dislike of political activism," and the fact that it was "a self-constituted body that conducted political affairs in an autocratic manner," geographically isolated from the "bulk of the city's population"—Mr. Earle himself later remarked that it had been "essentially aristocratic in temperament." Despite the committee's failure to bring about a lasting, broad-scale influence in the city, Mr. Earle would continue to speak up for good government practices, and for the protection of political liberty for all Americans.
On October 3, 1896, at a Republican meeting in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Earle urged his "fellow citizens" to vote for McKinley over Bryan, stating:
...a false prophet has come among you... who, in a country where all are in the highest class—that of the American citizens—tries to divide us into many, and then set those classes against each other; who tries to set State against State, section against section, and so nullify the great work for which Abraham Lincoln gave his life; who tries to lead us into paths of dishonor and asks us to disgrace the country for which we would give our lives...

It would not be the last time Earle would warn about the threat of populism. In a to Pennsylvania Governor Samuel Pennypacker on May 16, 1906, Earle wrote of his concern that then President Theodore Roosevelt might be yielding to the latest "craze" of "Bryanism"—i.e., yielding to populism instead of standing on principle with regard to public policy—serving to discredit the Republican party:
...some one has to speak in favor of the right when so speaking is unpopular. The more unpopular, the greater the necessity... The Republican party has done much for this country. It has often created and preserved prosperity by fighting crazes. For the first time in its history, it is yielding to one. If it would only say "we have made this prosperity, it is our child, and shall have our protection," and stand to its guns, it will beat Bryanism to death as it always has. But with its leader caring more for popularity than principle, courageous, as he is uninformed, I, myself, am convinced that it will have to go out of power in order that it may return chastened and more trusted than ever... I worked hard for Roosevelt's re-election, had great admiration for him, and still have, but I very much fear him... It is surprising at this time to find how many "old things" are true when the greater part of the world is engaged in discrediting and despising them.

After the, Earle would speak out against a —despite the "present evils," stating, "I can suggest no remedy, but would prefer present evils to those resulting from the creation of too centralized a power; and the answer, to my mind, is obvious. The true remedy must be found, not in placing our dependence upon the discretion of any one, but of every one,—that is, again, upon liberty, rather than upon power and restraint."
In an article of February 1910, Earle is depicted as a "doctor to ailing corporations", the interviewer asserting that there is "strong ground for belief that he has an idea of doctoring the country's ills in the same manner as he would a sick corporation"—
There are little lakes at Broadacres, which he has made by damming a brook, and groups of bathers can be seen there almost any day in the summer.
"The place is wide open," he said in explanation. "I have always had a profound sympathy for the man who from the day of his birth has had no foot of land that he could call his own. The least I can do is to give every one free use of mine."
When told that Mr. Rockefeller, on his estate at Pocantico Hills, had gone in for high iron fences everywhere, he shook his head gravely and said:
"That is the sort of thing we shall have to do away with some day."
It was an astonishing sentiment, coming from the president of so many corporations. It is talk of this kind that makes Earle a puzzle to many men. With millions of dollars profitably invested, with an estate that is little short of ducal, lying almost within one of the greatest and richest cities of the country; with a penchant for golf, cricket, and motoring, a mania for collecting old coins and old masters—an aristocrat, if there be any such thing in America—he is still not only an every-day man, but at times he utters sentiments that fall nothing short of socialism.
In his conversation he makes frequent reference to liberty, but if you listen you will discover that it is the liberty of Patrick Henry and Franklin, and not of Gorky or Karl Marx. He declares his belief in the doctrine of Malthus, and says that before long we shall have to reconstruct our ideas of tillage, care for our soil, and stop our extravagance, and that a lot of people will have to go to work.

Never before having sought political office for himself, Mr. Earle was eventually sought after and subsequently backed by U. S. Senator Boies Penrose to be the Republican candidate in the election for mayor of Philadelphia in 1911. In the Republican primary election held on 30 September 1911, Earle defeated William S. Vare by 23,000 votes; but Earle would lose the general election in November of that year by 4,000 votes to the Keystone-Democrat fusion candidate, Rudolph Blankenburg—an independent Republican and also former member of Philadelphia's Committee of One Hundred.
One month after Mr. Earle's unsuccessful run for mayor, he was asked to speak before the United States Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce where he gave the committee "the benefit of his experience and suggestions as to what the country needs in the way of laws amendatory of the Sherman law...and as to what further legislation is desirable to regulate interstate commerce." Earle would subsequently be asked by the chairman of the Committee, Moses E. Clapp, to draft a "tentative bill embodying views as to additional legislation." Mr. Earle's was presented by Mr. Clapp to the Committee on the evening of 29 December 1911. In Earle's draft, only eleven words were stricken from the original act—none of which are from the body —for Mr. Earle thought the act to be "practically a perfect piece of legislation," and merely sought to "strengthen" the law. An article written in the February 3, 1912 issue of Telephony states:
told the committee, the Sherman anti-trust law is not only practically a perfect piece of legislation, but it is also in complete harmony with the attitude of all peoples and all governments in the past toward this question. In the few instances where any government has attempted to foster the trust and the monopoly the result invariably has been the promotion of socialism... He advised the committee by all means to re-enact the Sherman law, making only two changes with a view, not of altering its meaning, but of strengthening and perfecting its operation.


In July 1918, Mr. Earle—then president of the Real Estate Trust Company in Philadelphia—presided over a convention held in St. Louis, Missouri by the United States Council of State Banking Associations. Some held that the purpose of the organization was to disrupt the movement to bring the "State banks and trust companies into the Federal Reserve system," but Earle issued a statement saying that State institutions meet local wants and needs just as national banks meet broader national situations, and that "as there might be matters to discuss and adjust involving conflicting interests it would be better in such instances to have a council of their own to advise and negotiate on such matters." He thought it foolish that skeptics would guess at the principles and purposes of the convention, mentioning the availability of the organization's resolutions, and ended his statement by saying, "Speaking for myself, I think an application of American principles of democracy is all that is necessary; free discussion and the fullest cooperation after it."
On March 24, 1924, The Earle Theatre—located at 11th and Market streets in Philadelphia—opened to the public. Named after Mr. Earle, the theater would showcase the 'World's Biggest Stars' to Philadelphia audiences until its final stage show on February 26, 1953.
George H. Earle Jr. died on 19 February 1928. According to a New York Times article, he "died at his home in Rittenhouse Square been ill for nearly a year." He is buried at the Church of the Redeemer churchyard in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania alongside many of his descendants, including his son, former Pennsylvania Governor, George H. Earle III. Also buried close by is his sister, Philadelphia poet Florence Earle Coates and her husband, Edward Hornor Coates—former president of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1890 to 1906.
Six years after Mr. Earle's death, his oldest son, George H. Earle III, would run for Governor of Pennsylvania on the Democratic ticket. A New York Times article reported that the candidate's mother, Mrs. George H. Earle Jr., registered as a Republican that election year. Upon being asked why she did not register as a Democrat, she answered simply, "I have always been a Republican." Her party affiliation did not keep her from appearing with her son at a Democratic rally just days before, however, where she would receive an ovation from the crowd. The article also reports that Democratic city chairman John B. Kelly—"former bricklayer who had become a wealthy contractor"—said it was only "through a misunderstanding" that Mrs. Earle registered Republican—although in light of her husband's history with and dedication to the "Party of Lincoln," Mr. Kelly's statement may have been made solely for political purposes. George Earle III went on to win the Governorship, and was the first Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania since Robert E. Pattison took office in 1891, stating later that he "literally rode into office on the coat-tails of President Roosevelt, and no hesitation in saying so." A grandson, Ralph Earle II—son to the former Governor—would be born just months after Earle Jr.'s death, and would become a U.S. Ambassador, and "chief negotiator at the SALT II round of talks on nuclear disarmament."

List of works

Notable ancestors and descendants