Morton, Paul, , Michigan 1857 1911 Male Businessman Secretary of Navy business executive and secretary of the navy for one year after July 1, 1904, was the son of Julius Sterling [q. v. ] and Caroline (Joy) Morton.
His parents, of native stock, were early Nebraska pioneers who resided at Nebraska City, although Paul was born at Detroit, Mich. , his mother's home.
A "gold Democrat, " like his father, he became a Roosevelt Republican.
Impatient of formal education, Paul joined the Burlington Railroad at fifteen and by 1890 had become its general freight agent.
He served the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company for the next six years, and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad for eight years after 1896.
As second vice-president of the Santa Fé, he handled freight rates on a competitive basis, not caring to deny the illegalities involved when in 1901 the Interstate Commerce Commission questioned him.
His "unusual mental poise, energy, and executive ability" (New York Evening Post, Jan. 20, 1911) made him a marked figure on the witness stand, developing a tradition that he could "look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell" (G. B. Clarkson, Industrial America in the World War, 1923, p. 44).
Morton took over the new post July 1, 1904, and shortly declared in Chicago that the United States navy "should be the most formidable in existence" (New York Evening Post, July 15, 1904).
In his only annual report, in November, he recited the General Board arguments for strengthening the navy, taking pride in the unusual number of fleet additions of the year.
The Interstate Commerce Commission handed down the Santa Fé opinion, Feb. 1, 1905 (10 Interstate Commerce Reports, 472), forwarding the testimony to the attorney-general who employed Judson Harmon and Frederick N. Judson to inquire into its sufficiency as a basis for prosecution.
He was rejected by his own company for a life policy in December 1910, and the rejection was justified when his heart failed him suddenly in January 1911.
[There is a good obituary of Paul Morton in the N. Y. Evening Post, Jan. 20, 1911.
See also: Who's Who in America, 1910-11; Edwin Lefèvre, "Paul Morton--Human Dynamo, " Cosmopolitan Mag. , Oct. 1905; the Nation, June 30, 1904, June 22, 29, 1905. ]
These traits, perhaps, rather than his record as a rebater, attracted the interest of President Roosevelt, who called him to Washington at the close of the Republican National Convention of 1904; and the next day it was announced that Morton was to become secretary of the navy, vice Moody who was transferred to be attorney-general.
