A Magnate's Despair: The Suicide of Paul Schulze

The Paul Schulze suicide seems to have been the product of despondency caused by debt and disappointed ambition. Mr. Schulze came from Germany and entered the Northern Pacific employ under Henry Villard, and was evidently dazzled by the Napoleonic career of Villard, and hoped, likewise, to make a colossal fortune and be a magnate in the new country which had been such an easy conquest for Mr. Villard. Mr. Schulze was of high birth, education, accomplished, of pleasing address, and became a leader in all Tacoma enterprises. He became the president of the Tacoma street railway system, in which Henry Villard was interested heavily, and also president of the Yakima Investment Company, which controlled the gigantic Yakima Irrigation project. The canal project was started by the Northern Pacific, but the canal and land belonging to it were ceded to this investment company. Schulze was the heaviest stockholder in these enterprises, but both came to grief in the hard times, leaving him heavily in debt. Moreover, the Northern Pacific had previous unfortunate experiences with employees who engaged in outside speculation, and demanded his resignation. The disasters of his great enterprises, and the loss of confidence of the company, which was at the back of his fortunes, led him to take his own life. He is said to have remarked abruptly to a friend a short time before his death: 'When a man does everything that he can to make a mark for himself and accumulate property, but is utterly baffled by circumstances for which he is in no way responsible, I think he is justified in committing suicide.' This remark shows that the desire for wealth and power had become dominant in Mr. Schulze's mind, and life in a quiet, inconspicuous, humdrum way, in which he should be only one of a great army of toilers, had no charms for him. If we all felt that way each morning sun would wade up the horizon in fresh blood.