The Murder on the Links

First published in 1923, this Agatha Christie novel features Hercule Poirot who discovers the dead body of a millionaire on a golf course in France.  Two clues may help him solve the crime.  Firstly, the dead man had been wearing his son's overcoat.  Suddenly, a love letter was in the pocket of the coat.  Before Poirot can solve the crime, a second dead body is discovered on the golf course, also killed by a paper knife made from airplane wire.  Poirot struggles to explain why the millionaire's son was in the neighbourhood that night.  He also tries to determine the connection among a number of beauties who keep popping up including one who is Captain Hastings latest crush.

At first it appears that the millionaire's son is the culprit, given that his father didn't approve of his choice of a fiancee and he wrote him out of his weeks just two weeks before the murder.  However, Poirot digs deeper and finds out that the millionaire is not Mr. Renaud but really Mr. Conneau who had fallen in love with Mme Beroldy.  He murdered her husband but then found out she wanted to marry someone other than him.  He fled to Canada.

In Canada he gains a wife and a son.  He makes his fortune in South America.  When he returns to France, he is unhappy to discover that his neighbour is Mme Beroldy.  To make matters worse, Mr Conneau's son and Mme Beroldy's daughter fall in love.  Mme Beroldy starts blackmailing Mr. Conneau regarding his crime of 22 years before.  He devises a scheme to fake his own death.  He finds the body of a tramp and digs a grave.  However, before he has a chance to bury the body, someone murders him and puts his body in the grave.  It turns out that Mme Beroldy's daughter overheard Mr. Conneau discussing his ruse and murdered him.

http://www.agathachristie.com/stories/murder-on-the-links

George Eastman: Camera Magnate was Methodical Self-Educator

"The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education.  I selected a limited number of recipients because I wanted to cover certain kinds of education and I felt that I could get results with those named quicker and more directly than if the money were spread." (George Eastman)

Millionaire businessman George Eastman was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  He lost his father at 7 and was forced to become the man of the household.  His adversity, however, seemed to drive him forward.  He amassed a fortune with the Eastman Kodak Company, which rather than spending on himself, he chose to invest in education.

George Eastman's parents were both born and raised in abolitionist households.  They believed in the importance of education.  Eastman's father founded a college which would serve as a prototype for America's first business schools.  Tragedy struck when he died, leaving his seven year old son to be the head of the household.  George's mother took in boarders, but he felt badly that she had to cook and clean for these strangers.  Tragedy struck again when George's sister fell ill with polio and died at 16.  

At 13, George quit school to start making money to support his family.  He worked both as a messenger boy and as an insurance salesman.  Following in his father's footsteps, he took a job at a bank where he would work all day, six days a week.  Evenings he spent tinkering with his new purchase, a camera.  George would work well into the night, experimenting with photo emulsions.  He would take catnaps, waking himself at regular intervals to stir the emulsions.  George was constantly trying to educate himself.  

George opened a camera and photography supply business which dominated the market by the turn of the last century.  He amassed a fortune which simply sat in a bank account, accumulating pennies for interest.  George decided to donate his money to the cause of education.  He built one of the best music schools in the world, the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.  He donated upwards of $20 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and more than $50 million to the University of Rochester.  And in keeping with his abolitionist roots, he supported the cause of black education, donating to the Tuskegee Institute and Hampton Institute.  These donations were often done anonymously as George was not one for self-aggrandizement. 

Eastman relaxing in his library courtesy http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/George_Eastman.htm.

Carnegie's Lifelong Pursuit of Knowledge

"Carnegie and Franklin both credited their success to self-education (both spent their spare moments reading any books they could get their hands on)."

Rags to riches millionaire Andrew Carnegie dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge.  While he only had a couple of years of formal education, he was constantly educating himself and claimed that this pursuit was the key to his success.

In his Scotland hometown, Carnegie used to visit the library where he would listen to the poetry of Robert Burns.  Immigrating to America, Carnegie wrote a letter to the editor protesting the fact that he couldn't borrow books from the library, a letter which gained him entry to the library.  As a telegraph deliverer he paid visits to the theatre where he lingered to watch productions of Shakespeare.  With his Pittsburgh Library card he borrowed essays written by Charles Lamb and Thomas Macaulay.  

As a teenager, he joined the debating club and pondered questions like "Should the judiciary be elected by the people?"  Carnegie explained:  "Much of my reading...had a bearing on forthcoming debates and that gave clearness and fixity to ideas." (www.artofmanliness.com/2012/03/28/andrew-carnegie-financial-lessons/)

As a businessman, first with the railroad, then in iron and steel, Carnegie poured over Pittsburgh papers as well as the New York Daily Times.  The entrepreneur started writing books sharing his business strategies like The Gospel of Wealth and The Empire of Business.  Like Benjamin Franklin, Carnegie knew that improving himself included educating himself.  "Carnegie and Franklin both credited their success to self-education (both spent their spare moments reading any books they could get their hands on)." (https://richstudents.wordpress.com/tag/carnegie/)

Carnegie amassed a fortune only surpassed by John Rockefeller.  He believed in the mantra:  "The man who dies rich dies in disgrace." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande01.html).  Carnegie started building libraries which he called "instruments of change" and "temples of learning".  One of the first libraries, a beaux arts building in Washington D.C., the inscription read "Dedicated to the diffusion of knowledge."  In total, Carnegie gave $60 million for 2500 libraries in North America and the United Kingdom, all in the name of educating both rich and poor.

For more information, read Andrew Carnegie's Letter to the Editor at  

http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2014/06/andrew-carnegies-letter-to-editor.html.

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/01/207272849/how-andrew-carnegie-turned-his-fortune-into-a-library-legacy

Laura Hillenbrand's "Four Good Legs Between Us"

"When the lives of a failed prizefighter, an aging horsebreaker and a bicycle repairman turned overnight millionaire converged around a battered racehorse named Seabiscuit, the result captivated the nation and transcended their sport."

Charles Howard, a calvary veteran, repaired bicycles for a living.  But one day, he headed to Detroit, to strike it rich in the automobile industry.  Howard introduced himself to William C. Durant, the owner of Buick, and set up shop, in San Francisco, as the sole distributor of Buicks in eight states.  The world wasn't quite ready for the horseless carriage, but that all changed after the San Francisco earthquake in which cars played a big role in transporting the wounded.  By 1908, Howard had a thriving business.  

Tom Smith, an old fashioned cowboy, had participated in the last of the great cattle drives on the American frontier.  He broke mustangs for the British to use in the Boer War.  His job was rendered obsolete with the coming of the railroad.  He was hired by various ranch owners as a horse trainer, veterinarian and blacksmith.  He never forgot about what he'd learned on the frontier; "he had cultivated a wordless, near-mystical communion with horses".  His operated by the motto: "Learn your horse." (http://www.seabiscuitonline.com/article.htm)

"Red" Pollard was the son of Irish immigrants who lost everything in the early years of the Great Depression.  Known for his spunk, he made use of that as a horse jockey and as a prizefighter.  His pugilism masked his intellect:  he was known to recite poetry and quote Shakespeare.  The life of a jockey was anything but easy.  To keep his 110 pound frame, Pollard had to vomit, undergo vicious exercise regimens and sweating rituals.  A horse blinded him in one eye after kicking him in the head and leaving debris in his brain.  

Seabiscuit, a descendant of the infamous Man-O-War, was a stubborn and reckless horse who had been "beaten up and beaten down".  Two hundred pounds underweight, he was known for pacing in his stall, lathering up when saddled, and bolting when the gate opened.  He was not your ideal candidate for a racehorse.

In 1936, millionaire Howard was looking for a winning racehorse.  Known for his "ability to recognize potential in unlikely packages", he bought Seabiscuit.  He assigned him to his trainer, the former cowboy Smith.  The first thing that Smith did was lavish Seabiscuit with affection.  Secondly, knowing he was prone to bolt, he let him do it until it was out of his system.  Thirdly, Smith calmed the horse's nerves by giving him three stallmates:  a stray dog named Pocatell, a spider monkey named Jo-Jo and a cattleroping horse named Pumpkin.  It was just what the doctor ordered.

Pollard was assigned the task of riding Seabiscuit.  The two clicked immediately.  Both were unbroken; both needed taming.  While Seabiscuit peeked too late to participate in the Kentucky Derby, a race for three year olds, he did start to win races, and he started to make headlines.  "In one year, Seabiscuit garnered more newspaper column inches than Roosevelt, Hitler, Mussolini or any other public figure."  

In 1938, a pairing of Seabiscuit and War Admiral promised to be "The Race of the Century".  Seabiscuit went out like a bolt of lightning, then slowed down to taunt his opponent, then made his trademark rush to the finish line, winning the race.  He graced the cover of Time Magazine as "Horse of the Year".  For more information on the 1938 race, read my post http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2012/06/seabiscuit.html.

Pollard had been badly injured in another race and was unable to ride Seabiscuit, asking a friend to ride in his place.  Doctors told the jockey that he might never walk or never ride again.  Later, Seabiscuit was also injured.  Pollard said:  "Old Pops and I have four good legs between us."  Horse and rider endured a slow recuperation on Howard's California ranch.

In 1940, it was icing on the cake when Pollard and Seabiscuit, both healed from their life threatening injuries, rode the racetrack at the Santa Anita Handicap.  They won the race and Howard went home a happy man, claiming the prize for the richest horserace in the world.  

Note:  Laura Hillenbrand's essay became a bestselling book Seabiscuit and an award winning movie.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/seabiscuit-biography/