YouSaid · the spoken record

Henry Flagler

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12

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2022-05-19

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2022-05-19

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1. “Said and anchor it we have done. The project that so many had turned away from and others had derided became a reality. Few people in history have accomplished so great a task or lived to experience such a moment as Flagler did. On his way off the platform, Flagler placed a hand on Parrot's shoulder and whispered, Now I can die happy, my dream is fulfilled.”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “He would board his private railroad car at the West Palm Beach Station for a 220-mile trip that would culminate in Key West and punctuate the dream of a lifetime. At 10.34 a.m., Henry Flagler, his back bent with age, and his dim eyes brimming with tears, stepped out onto the observation platform to an ovation the likes of which he had never encountered. He had ridden his own iron to Key West at last. A military band played and a children's chorus of one thousand voices sang patriotic songs in flagglers honor. A choked up flaggler turned to parrot and whispered I can hear the children, but I cannot see them. Parrot, nearly overcome himself, simply gripped his old friend's arm and squeezed. When finally called upon to speak, Flagler managed to rally. We have been trying to anchor Key West to the mainland.”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Old man alive was his dream of seeing the project completed. Yes, he's getting old, he's starting to get hunched over. He's getting a little weaker, but he's still got that fire in the belly. And we see that because this is when he sends one of his executives down. They're like, okay, we're almost, we know we can do this. Where is the train going to terminate at? We got to build a terminal. And so it says by then the keys was the most populous city in Florida. With its port ranked as the 13th busiest in the nation. And so it says it's one by four miles of territory had been built and overbuilt already. By the time Joseph Perrot arrived, that's the guy that flaggers sent, there was simply no more land to be had. Certainly not enough for flagglers' ambitious plans. There's no more dry land in Key West, Parrot reported to his boss. Then make some, Flaggler replied. And Perrot did. He constructed a bulkhead above the northwest corner of the island and dredged thousands of cubicles.”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “And so after every hurricane, they're forced to rebuild, they're forced to proceed work again. Flywood still have a giant problem with personnel. And he realizes, okay, we're taking northern people from the northeast in America. They're not acclimated to this condition. And so he winds up finding people from the Cayman Islands and from some tropical Central American and Caribbean islands. And once he starts importing them, he's like, oh, they're used to these conditions. Humidity and heat is just natural. They've been born and raised in this environment. So that was like a major breakthrough that he discovered just the importance of finding people that have already been accustomed and adapted to the work level that you require, right? And so it says the Spanish workers had always been stayers in Flaggler's eyes, meaning that they don't desert. They don't leave. And as word got back to their countrymen about improved living and working conditions on the process,”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Letter written to an associate at the time, Flagger provides a glimpse of his own self image, okay? I was born with an Oak Constitution. The only excess I believe I have indulged in has been that of hard work. He's seventy four. This part was actually kind of inspiring to me because the idea, you know, like you never know, what am I going to feel like when I'm 74? Am I going to have the energy? Are you going to want to actually continue doing working and contributing to your fellow humans and to society? And if we're like Flagler, if we're lucky enough to be like Flaggler, he's like, yeah. So he says, I believe the only excess I believe I've indulged in has been that of hard work. I have, however, one ailment, which is uncurable, old age. And that I am submitting to as gracefully as possible. I am quite sure, however, that I possess as much vitality and can do as much work as the average man of forty five.”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Going to have several points where all of the options in front of you would not be described as good, right? Flaggler at this point is trying to figure out, okay, I have two ways to build the railroad. Neither is good, but he has to do this part, right, where most people fail and trip up. He's got to actually solve this problem just to have the opportunity to get to an even more difficult problem, which is that of the building in the road actually in the keys. So it's really insane. And if you're building, especially if you're like your engineering physical difficult products, this book is probably interesting because, again, it's one of the most challenging engineering feats that humans have done, especially at the time. So it said his surveying party were to encounter the same daunting conditions that James Ingram and his men meant while crossing the Everglades in the opposite direction. So those are plants, guys, okay? A decade before, endless stretches of marshland.”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Can't like he sent an expedition down there. He's like, it's a swamp. It's Everglades. You can't, the whole area is like, there's no way you can build a railroad through there. Well, Flagler wants to investigate for himself. He sends his people down there and they found, oh, it's hell. But really, I'm just going to read two paragraphs to you, a little longer, two and a half paragraphs maybe. But really the way I think about this what I wrote to myself when I got to this section is I sat here and thought about, because I sat on these two pages for a while, that the metaphor here is during like your attention.”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Now, keep in mind where we are in this story, Flagler is almost 70. And this is what he's got going on in his life. He was still a member of the board of directors of Standard Oil, the largest corporation in the world at the time. And as the chief executive officer of the Florida East Coast Railroad and its various subsidiaries, he was called upon to oversee a vast network of undertakings that stretched the entire length of Florida, including extensive freight and passenger operations, the management of a wide variety of hotels and resorts, the direction of massive land sales, and development operation, and much more. And what I love is I'm going to read a paragraph. I'm going to extend this because there's several paragraphs in the book like this. He is not at all interested in retiring. And it's in fact, if you think about what he is, he's choosing to run directly towards more difficult. That is actually one of his admirable traits, in my opinion. He could retire long at last, join his new bride at their fabulous new mansion in Palm Beach, where he could rest and enjoy the”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Ordered his railroad built exactly where his foes had assumed it could not be done, had tremendous expense, Flaggler's railroad went southward to Palm Beach nonetheless, and the town of Juno withered and died”

   2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “and his marriage to Ida and his marriage to Mary, Flagler's actions were generally undertaken as the culmination of a meticulous process of preparation on his part. And so let's get another insight into his personality and what dealing with Henry Flagger would be like. In the 1890s, when Flagger had announced his intention to extend his railway along the central coast upon Beach, a group of landowners from the then prosperous town of Juneau then used to be prosperous. What happened to them? I wonder. And the then prosperous town of Juneau had formed a consortium pooling their real estate holdings in order to force up the price Flagler would have to pay for his right of way. The group was certain that Flagler would have to meet their inflated price in order to avoid sending his line through a broad swath of marsh and swamp that would drive the cost of construction through the roof, presented with their demands.”

    2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “This stuff is happening in our mind, okay? It was not the sort of contention that would hold up in court. So Flagler turned to more practical methods. It took considerable doing, but on April 9th, 1901, two years later, a bill was introduced into the Florida legislator to be entitled an act making incurable insanity a ground for divorce. He changed the law to get divorced. Before the month was out, the bill had sailed through both houses and had been signed into law by the governor. How do you think he convinced him to do that? He convinced him to do it the same way they convinced him to do it today with money. It was rumored that it cost him $20,000 in bribes to see the bill passed and a number of quote unquote gifts made to buy Flagler to Florida's public universities were documented. That's ruthless. It is well documented that Flagler planned his actions carefully, though he might appear to have acted in haste at times as with his contract.”

    2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “An honest woman of her. There was one obstacle, however. Flagler was still a married man. In typical fashion, Flagler went immediately to work on the problem. In 1899, three weeks after proposing to marry, Flagler announced that he was moving his legal residence from New York to Florida. Why is he doing that? He allowed another two months to pass and then petitioned the Supreme Court of New York that Ida, which is his second wife, could be certified insane and thus incompetent, a matter that could scarcely be contested, as she had been more for more than two years been locked in a private asylum, carrying on a one-sided conversation with the Tsar of Russia. New York's divorce law was similar to that of Florida, in that divorce could only be granted where adultery could be proven. While Ida had stated that she had indeed committed adultery on several occasions, she's saying this that she committed adultery with the Tsar of Russia. The Tsar of Russia is in Russia. He's not in her asylum.”

    2022-05-19 · Founders · #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source