Gold-Digger

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN HAYS HAMMOND--Farrar & Rinehart ($5).

The name of John Hays Hammond means something to men-in-the-street of three continents, but probably not one in ten knows just what or why. Forty years ago Boer schoolboys, London clerks, Nevada miners knew the name well. For in 1896 John Hays Hammond, a prisoner under sentence of death in Pretoria Gaol, was a world headliner. From a news point of view, that was the apex of his career. But Convict Hammond has lived to tell a much lengthier, triumphantly anticlimactic tale. Last week he celebrated his Both birthday by publishing his autobiography. Oldster Hammond's report on his career, like Youngster Hammond's reports on mining properties, was clear, factual, illuminating, left no doubt of the author's opinion.

Author Hammond's father was a Forty-Niner (which gives the same cachet to a Californian that a Mayflower-immigrant ancestor does to an Easterner) but not by his own choice: he was sent to San Francisco as an army officer. Young John grew up in an atmosphere of horses, guns and gold-mining. Says he: "I suppose I never was a tenderfoot." As his father wanted him to get an Eastern education, to Yale's Sheffield Scientific School he went. There he was a fair student, an outstanding athlete, captained the football and baseball teams, picked up a knowledge of boxing that later stood him in good stead. Because he wanted an outdoor job, and some-thing with an adventurous spice in it, he decided to be a mining engineer. After three years in Germany, at the Freiberg Royal School of Mines, he went back to the U. S. West to seek his fortune.

Engineer Hammond got plenty of varied experience, in California, Mexico, Central and South America, soon acquired the reputation of being an all-around capable man, with ''a nose for a mine," a useful pair of fists and a shrewd head. As soon as he could, he began to charge top-price fees. 'T exacted from my clients in the way of fees all that the traffic would bear, or almost the limit." Foreseeing a period .of depression after Cleveland's election in 1892, he decided to accept the offer of Diamond Tycoon "Barney"' Barnato (Barnett Isaacs) to be his consulting engineer in South Africa. Six months later Hammond was working for Cecil Rhodes. For seven years he was one of Rhodes's right-hand men and closest friends. Says Hammond: "He was the greatest personality I have ever known." On an exploring trip into Rhodesia with Rhodes and Dr. Jameson, Hammond investigated some ruins at Zimbabwe, came to the conclusion that he had found King Solomon's mines. In the Rand, world's No. i gold field, Hammond introduced deep-level mining, started one (the Robinson Deep) that is still being profitably worked at 8,500 ft.--the greatest depth on record.

Hammond's salary and reputation went up by leaps and bounds. But, like most Anglo-Saxons working in Boer South Africa, he was restive under the irksome Boer bureaucracy. A leading citizen of Johannesburg, though a foreigner, he was one of the leaders of the conspiracy which came to nothing with the failure of Jameson's ill-timed raid into the Transvaal. Hammond was arrested, tried for "inciting to rebellion and high treason," and with three fellow-conspirators sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to 15 years' imprisonment, and after some months, thanks to a world-wide storm of protest and Oom Paul Krugers canniness, quashed. For a fine of $125,000 Hammond went free.

Now a world figure, with an international name as a mining expert, Engineer Hammond tripped easily up the few remaining rungs of the ladder. Soon tycoons and royalty were no treat to him. He gave the Tsar fatherly advice, dined familiarly with Presidents. His friendship with Taft determined him to enter U. S. politics. Having spent his youth in attaining a large fortune, a commanding position, in middle age he turned his attention to his country: "I urged American youth to assume its civic duty and make its influence felt." Hammond became the Col. House of the Taft administration. He regularly declined office, even ambassadorships, but went to Europe on two diplomatic missions. On one of these, when he found the German Prince Rupprecht occupying the seat of honor in a special train (which had been assigned to the U. S. representative). Hammond, mindful of his official dignity, ousted him, sat tight. Two government jobs he would have taken, says Hammond, were Ambassador to the Court of St. James's and Secretary of Commerce; neither was offered. But few readers of his Autobiography will quarrel with his contented conclusion: "As I look back over these 80 years, it seems to me that I have been fortunate. .

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