There is a quaint old gentleman livin’ in this big city now who has lived in it for a long time, and has made a lot a lot of money in it. He is a queer sort of a chap, but the way he made his money is queerer.
His name is Baker–Abner Baker–and he used to have a store in Greenwich Street, and he was known as “the bean man,” because he made his money out of beans. And this is how he made it:
When the war broke out everybody in New York and throughout the North thought of either one of two things–either helpin’ the Government to make war, or of helpin’ themselves to make money out of the Government; generally the latter. Some patriots went to the front, and other patriots didn’t. Those who went to the front got the bullets, and those who didn’t got the money.
Some stay-at-home patriots got up a corner in blankets or army clothing, sold the Government scoddy, and made millions. Some stayed at home and bought up all the old army muskets they could cheap and sold ‘em to the government dear. Everybody tried to corner the Government in somethin’, and so Baker cornered it in beans.
But this much must be said for Baker, he was a square man after his fashion, and he did two things that most of the army contractors didn’t do. He gave the Government to the exact quantity he promised every time, and he gave it a fair quality. He sold Uncle Sam good beans and plenty of ‘em, as a patriot, but he got his own price for ‘em, as a contractor.
The idea about beans didn’t come to Baker at once. Ideas that pan out seldom do. But he made up his mind from the start that he would get a pull on somethin’, and then he thought day and night what that somethin’ should be.
It must be somethin’ that the Government must have, because the boys in blue all needed it. It must be somethin’ in which there wouldn’t be any competition, for Baker didn’t have enough money then to come into competition with anybody. He didn’t own above ten thousand dollars in the world. It must be somethin’ which could be kept stored till it was wanted, for he didn’t have any establishment in which to store it or to keep large quantities of it on hand. It must be all this. But where could he hit upon the somethin’ which would be all these, upon which somebody hadn’t already hit before him?
He walked the streets by day and walked ‘em by night, he read the papers, he got people to talk about the war, sayin’ little himself about it, but listenin’ to their ideas. But the idea of the somethin’ didn’t come, though he had been a year and more pondering over it.
One day, when he wasn’t ponderin’ over it at all, he got it. He went into a drinkin’ saloon on Nassau street once–he wasn’t a drinkin’ man, but he wasn’t a straight-laced man, either–and while there he and his friend took a bite of some very nice beans on the free lunch counter, just to get even with their drinks. While eatin’, his friend remarked to Baker: “How the boys would enjoy these beans in the army.”
“Are the soldiers so fond of beans?” asked Baker.
“Fond of ‘em!” said his friend; “Why they live on ‘em in the army. It is about all they have to live on–beans and hardtack. They can cook anythin’ if they have beans. Why, the sayin’ is in the army that a soldier will ‘swim a river for a bean.’”
“Ah, indeed, indeed!” said Baker, in the slow way that he had when he wanted to keep cool, and he said no more. But he felt like yellin’ at the top of his voice, “I have found it.” For he had found it. Found the “somethin’” he had been lookin’ for for a year and more; found the way to make a fortune; found the idea of his life by accident at a free lunch counter.
This was about two o’clock in the afternoon. By four o’clock Baker was talkin’ about beans, in his slow way, to dealers in beans, and askin’ all sorts of questions, in his slow, calm, cool, indirect way, about beans, just as if out of mere curiosity, nothin’ more. What could beans be to him?
And here is just where his real, first-class smartness came in. He went all ‘round the city, all ‘round other cities, all ‘round the country, makin’ bargains for beans–gettin’ the control of the bean market, in fact, of the country, without the bean dealers knowin’ it or droppin’ on it ‘emselves.
All each dealer did know was that a New York man, by the name of Baker, had bought up his beans on contract at the lowest price, payin’ a little money down to bind the bargain, the rest of the beans to be held by him till called for by the man by the name of Baker within a given time, and if the party by the name of Baker didn’t send for the rest of the beans within the given time, why the bargain was off and the money already paid was forfeited.
Then, within the time that Baker had set for himself, the number of troops in the field got to be so great that provisions began to give out, and the boys in blue clamored for beans. Then, of course, the Government called for contracts for supplying the army with beans, the contract, of course, to be given to the lowest bidder, or the man who could afford to furnish the beans to Uncle Sam at the lowest price. There was, of course, no man to put in a bid for this bean contract but Baker, as all the other bean men had bound themselves by written contracts to hold their beans subject to Baker’s order. So Baker put in the only bid, which was, of course, the lowest.
The Government, in fact, had no choice. It was Baker or nothin’. All Baker or no beans. So it had to be all Baker. The shrewd fellow, with the slow, cool way with him, made over a quarter of a million dollars off of one contract.
Perhaps the best point in the whole thing is that Baker didn’t really have to furnish any securities or sureties on his contract with Uncle Sam. To do this he might have been compelled to give his little scheme away to his sureties, who would have gobbled the idea for ‘emselves. No, he merely got the contract indorsed, sometimes by his clerks, sometimes by his porters (who didn’t bother to read what they were signin’; in fact Baker didn’t let ‘em). The Government authorities didn’t of course know who’s the names were on the contract as sureties; all they knew was that everythin’ seemed to be in form, and drawn up all right, and that the Government got its beans. For Baker sent on his beans to Uncle Sam at once, and kept on sendin’, so that Uncle Sam had to keep on sendin’ the money, good Government money, which Baker paid out at once to his jobbers, keepin’ the profit for himself as his own little racket.
It was one of the neatest operations I have ever heard tell of–nothing could be neater–and Baker, although he didn’t care much for ‘em as vegetables, never havin’ beans on his own table, was a regular Jay Gould in beans.
But it wasn’t after all so much beans that made him his fortune as brains–beans and brains together. He kept his own counsel and held his own tongue. He was the great bean man, because he was the great silent man. But for that very reason there will never be a great bean woman!
[Editor’s notes: It appears that the profile above is original, i.e. no other writings mention Abner Baker. But he did exist: Abner S. Baker (1817-1885) was a produce dealer in New York City from the early 1860s onward. Though beans may have made him rich during the war, in the 1870s he (and his partner, son John Byron Baker (1844-1925)) had to file for bankruptcy. However, before his death in 1885, Abner Baker and son had regained their fortune. The son, John Byron Baker, was able to retire at an early age to an estate on Long Island, where he became a noted horseman. Shrewdness must have run in the family.]
