Arthur Curtiss James was an American railroad financier and philanthropist.
Background
James was born on June 1, 1867, in New York City, the only child of Daniel Willis James and Ellen Stebbins (Curtiss) James. His paternal grandfather, Daniel James, had been a founding partner of the house of Phelps, Dodge & Company in 1834. His father, who became one of the two directing partners in 1879, helped expand Phelps Dodge's manufacturing activities and initiate the firm's investments in Arizona copper mining and Western railroading. In the 1880's D. Willis James also invested in and became a director of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway, the immediate forerunner of the Great Northern Railway Company. As a member of its finance committee he worked closely with the road's president, James J. Hill, the beginning of a long business relationship.
Education
James attended the private Arnold School in New York City and graduated from Amherst College with an A. B. degree in 1889.
Career
After graduation James entered the Phelps Dodge firm. He became a partner in 1892, and by 1900, with his father's semi-retirement, he had assumed a guiding role. At his father's death in 1907, James's inheritance made him the largest single stockholder of Phelps Dodge, which was incorporated the following year into a holding company. Yet James was essentially a finance capitalist, and although he served as a vice-president (1909-1930) and director (1908-1941) of the company, he left formal operations to others. His own business activities increasingly involved the financing of railroad systems. Throughout the 1880's and 1890's, Phelps Dodge had actively built railroads to facilitate its mining interests in the Southwest. In 1901 the firm consolidated these lines into the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad, and James was named first vice-president. In this role, over the following years, he sought to give the line transcontinental status by extending it northward and linking it to the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, of which he also became a director. James had other substantial railroad interests, inherited from his father, in the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. Neither an owner-entrepreneur, in the manner of Hill, nor a professional manager of the type which came to dominate the modern integrated company, James participated as a counselor in strategic decisions by virtue of his investments, helping to establish a "community of interests" among corporations in which he had a substantial stake. During the 1920's James shifted his attention to his interests in the Northern lines, in which he was one of the largest individual investors. He was elected to the board of the Great Northern in 1924. That same year he abandoned his efforts to extend the El Paso & Southwestern to California when the Southern Pacific, to prevent this competition, purchased the road through an exchange of securities. Although this transaction made James the largest shareholder of Southern Pacific, he sold his shares in 1926. At the same time, through a gradual accumulation of common stock, he acquired a controlling interest in the Western Pacific Railroad, of which he became chief executive officer. This road, which ran between San Francisco and Salt Lake City, also connected with Denver through its interest in the Denver & Rio Grande Western; thus the Burlington, which ran between Chicago and Denver (and of which James was a major stockholder), gained direct access to the West Coast. James also supported an extension of the Western Pacific into northern California, and by 1931 his line connected with the Great Northern, fulfilling Hill's goal of giving the Great Northern friendly access to San Francisco. With completion of these linkages, James held interests in over 40, 000 miles of rails, far surpassing the empires of earlier railroad magnates. He also served, in the course of his career, as a director of many other railroads, banks, and manufacturing industries. James was in addition an active philanthropist. Following a tradition established by his grandfather and father, he gave away without fanfare an estimated $20, 000, 000 during his lifetime. His will left about $25, 000, 000 to create the James Foundation, specifying that the income and, at the end of twenty-five years, the principal be distributed to the various institutions he had aided during his life - among them Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Amherst College, the Children's Aid Society of New York, Hampton Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and his own First Presbyterian Church of New York. At its liquidation in 1965, the foundation had disbursed more than $144, 000, 000. Yet James also enjoyed the indulgent life of the very wealthy. Although one of the richest and most powerful men in America, James was not widely known. His social and business roles were quiet; his philanthropy bordered on secrecy. In failing health during his last years, he retired from the board of the Western Pacific in 1939 and relinquished most of his other business posts over the next two years. He died of pneumonia, a month after the death of his wife, at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, and was buried in GreenWood Cemetery, Brooklyn.
Achievements
James is best known as a wealthy speculator in copper mines and railroads, being the president of his father's company, Phelps, Dodge & Co.
Politics
A lifelong Republican, James nevertheless supported Alfred E. Smith for president in 1928 because of his strong aversion to prohibition, and he backed Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Interests
An avid yachtsman, James frequently sailed his full-rigged bark to Europe, South America, and Africa, and once even around the world; he served as commodore of the prestigious New York Yacht Club in 1909-1910.
Connections
On April 23, 1890, James married Harriet Eddy Parsons of Northampton, Massachusetts, a student at Smith College. The childless couple maintained lavish homes in New York City, Newport, and Miami, and a country place in Tarrytown, New York.
Father:
Daniel Willis James
Mother:
Ellen Stebbins Curtiss
Spouse:
Harriet Eddy Parsons
Grandfather:
Daniel James
He was one of the three founder partners of Phelps, Dodge & Co., a New York trading organisation established in 1833/4, exporting cotton to England and importing manufactured goods in return such as tin, tin plate, iron and copper.
