May 05, 2016 - Sale 2413

Sale 2413 - Lot 134

Price Realized: $ 938
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
TO HIS SON ASKING FOR MONEY: "COME DOWN TO HARD BUSINESS FACTS" HARRISON, BENJAMIN. Autograph Letter Signed, "Your affectionate Father, / BenjHarrison," as Senator, to his adult son, Russell Harrison ("Dear Russell"), describing the limits of his ability to advance money to him, and encouraging him to run his [newspaper publishing] business without debt. 8 pages, 8vo, written on two folded sheets; incomplete two-page holograph postscript, horizontal folds. (TFC) Indianapolis, 12 August 1887
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". . . I can of course meet the draft you have drawn. Tho' at some considerable inconvenience, but I do not see how I can advance any more. I have now 5,000$ each borrowed from the only banks I can go to and I do not see how I can increase my debt at either. . . . I shall not have any beyond our necessary living expenses. . . . Can you not sell some of your Coutts accounts to some one in the country indebted to you? You must try and return this money to me as soon as you can. . . .
"And now as to the Journal Co. You must run it so that it will pay its own bills. You cannot get further credit at the banks, and I cannot advance any money for I have not got it. It is ruin not success to enlarge the business beyond your means. . . .
"What is my Ranch at Townsend worth and could it be sold for cash? . . . I think I would like to sell it & apply the proceeds on my debts. . . . We had a good rain last night, which will help some of the corn out & better still give some chance for fall pasture."
The postscript: ". . . I would make an extra effort to save the Journal Co. if I could believe that you would hereafter keep it out of debt . . . . I wish you would send me a full statement of its affairs. . . . I am pinching . . . but I will do all this cheerfully, if you on your part will get rid of all 'false visions' and come down to hard business facts. . . ."
Russell Benjamin Harrison (1854-1936), son of President Benjamin Harrison, was a lawyer, entrepreneur, and politician; he became the owner of the Helena Daily Journal in 1890, and earned the rank of colonel in the Spanish-American War.