A Review of A. B. Farquhar's "The First Million the Hardest"

Date Published: June 28, 2021
​Date Modified: January 1, 2024

This biography of A. B. Farquhar was published in 1922 and is sometimes entitled The First Million the Hardest and sometimes The Autobiography of A. B. Farquhar with a first chapter entitled "The First Million the Hardest." It was an absolute pleasure to read.

Again I have to start a review with the statement that this was an industrialist of the early 20th Century that I had never read about. ​An industrialist, though, that put his farm equipment on the land of possibly every farmer in the northeast of the time.

​A Review of "The First Million the Hardest" by A. B. Farquhar with Samuel Crowther

• Reviews of the Day: 1922
• Selected Quotes from "The First Million the Hardest"
• This Author’s Thoughts and Perceptions

 Reviews of the Day: 1922

"The book is the straightforward account of a lifetime's endeavors that started before the Civil War and covered seventy years of the history of this country. … It is from excellent cloth such as this that Mr. Farquhar's book is cut. He gives a vivid picture of the upbuilding of the country, particularly the South. …

​"His own business was gutted by fire, but he built it up again. He was ruined at the time of the great panic, but once again set to work. He knew Garfield, Cleveland, Roosevelt, and a host of notables. 'The First Million the Hardest' is a book that can be recommended to all."

The York Gazette and Daily, August 16, 1922

"The title of this strong and sterling book is exceedingly ill-chosen, it gives a wrong idea of the book itself, suggesting that it is a mere first-hand story of the accumulation of brute wealth, money, dollars, hard cash.

​"The book is in reality not in the least like this; it is the sane, sober, dignified record of a fine life. … It would be a good thing if every ambitious school-boy, whose ideal of "success" is the bare, rapid accumulation of money, should study this fine record of a life which typifies the best in old-fashioned Americanism."

The Harford Courant, August 20, 1922

 Selected Quotes/Stories from "The First Million the Hardest"​​

This was a book like Henry Ford's that is bookmarked everywhere with fun quotes, blunt talk and great stories from a chief executive. One of the best stories involves what Mr. Farquhar observes one day as General Grant, obviously upset, hops on his horse and gallops off in the direction of the White House. The rest is history.

​Read that story "The Day General Grant Stood Against a Sitting President" by selecting the image provided.

A link to General Grant's story

​Some of the best quotes are in stories that Mr. Farquhar shares about his peers and political acquaintances:

• Thomas Carlyle quote: "There are but two ways of getting a living, a man must either work or steal."
  
  
• "There was no mutuality among either banks or bankers [during the latest bank panic]. They might join in a profit but never in a loss."
  
  
• J. L. Mott at Iron and Steel Association Meeting: "If my foresight were as good as my hindsight I should be better off by a damned sight."

An Autobiography of A.B. Farquhar

• ​"Panics do not teach logic."

​​

• ​"A man can today more easily do in a couple of hours all that we could do then in a day; but compressing so many of our old days into a single day makes for an intensity of work that cannot well be kept up through the long hours that we worked then.
  
  ​"Many of the older men kill themselves by trying to work through the hours they used to work; they do not realize that the score and not the hours is what counts.

"Under modern conditions they should not attempt to work twelve hours a day. I am not certain that eight or any other arbitrary figure is right. It all depends upon the work. It is hard to get away from calculating work by hours instead of by results."

This description of Abraham Lincoln from the book is wonderful

"Exactly at half past four the President came out. Since I had seen him at his first inauguration his face had grown sadder but his eye even more kindly. And he had taken on a kind of simple majestic dignity that seemed more of the soul than of person—a dignity and a majesty that one felt rather than saw.

​"No painting, no statue, no attempt at re-creation of him on the stage, has ever given even a suggestion of this surrounding quality, of this atmosphere that came from him and lifted him away from the rut of ordinary mortals."

A. B. Farquhar, The First Million the Hardest

 This Author's Thoughts and Perceptions

Again I have to start a review with the statement that this was an industrialist of the early 20th Century that I had never read about. This biography of A. B. Farquhar published in 1922 is sometimes entitled The First Million the Hardest. It was an absolute pleasure to read.

​An industrialist, though, that put his equipment on the land of possibly every farmer in the northeast of the time.

​The selection below of farm implements from one of Farquhar's catalogs seems to make this point.

Cheers,

​- Pete

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