Brewers Journal. (Gibson Publishing Company), volume 41, page 188, October 1913.
Death of Adolphus Busch
DEATH OF ADOLPHUS BUSCH.
The Famous St. Louis Brewer Dies in Germany
After a Long Illness—Was One of the
Country's Most Eminent Citizens—
Enjoyed a Popularity Which
Comes to Few Men.
A POWER FOR GOOD DURING HIS LIFETIME.
Adolphus Busch, president of the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association, St. Louis, died October 10, on his estate at Langen Schwalbach. Prussia. Word of his death was received in this country through a cablegram from his son, August A. Busch, to his grandson, Adolphus Busch III. The message read: "Father passed away peacefully at 8:15."'
Mr. Busch had been a sufferer from dropsy for seven years, but when his son, August A., left America a few weeks ago to join him at his castle on the Rhine he did not know that his father was dangerously ill.
Adolphus Busch was born at Mayence-on-theRhine, Germany, July 10, 1837, the son of a well-to-do lumber merchant, (Jlrich Busch, and his wife, Barbara. He was educated at the gymnasium at his birthplace, at the Academy of Darmstadt and the high schools in Brussels. In 1857 he started out for himself and chose America as his home, locating in St. Louis. Practically his first employment in this country was that of a "general hand" in a commission house on the St. Louis levee, and his meager earnings and the small allowance from his father he was forced to spend in living, neither being sufficient to allow him to save anything.
On corning of age and into possession Of his patrimony, he established himself in the brewers supply business in St. Louis, the present house of Charles F.hlermann Hop & Malt Company, of that city, being now the direct successors of the business he established, and in which he was signally successful. In 1861 Mr. Busch married Miss Lilly Anheuser, daughter of Eberhard Anheuser. In that same year he enlisted in the Union army under the command of General Lyon. He served in the army only a short time. Mr. Busch then became associated with his father-in-law in the brewing business and in 1865 became a partner, the firm becoming known as E. Anheuser & Company. The business was incorporated in 1873 under tne name of E. Anheuser & Company Brewing Association, with E. Anheuser as president and Adolphus Busch as secretary and general manager. In 1875 the name was changed to the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association, and upon the death of Mr. Anheuser in 1880. Mr. Busch succeeded to the presidency, which position he held to the time of his death.
The Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association has done much toward founding the American bottled beer industry, as well as the beer export trade of the United States.
Under Mr. Busch's guidance the business has developed very rapidly. Year after year new structures have been added to keep pace with the ever-increasing sales, so that now the entire plant covers an area of over seventy city blocks.
The Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association owns and
operates its own railroad to connect with the terminals; also a large automobile garage for its large fleet of delivery trucks, as well as tin, carpenter, wagon, paint, harness and cooper shops. Among the thousands of employes engaged in the establishment are found men of all trades and vocations, from doctor and lawyer to the humblest day laborer. In addition to the home plant, the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association owns and operates branches in most of the important cities in the Union. The buildings comprising the plant are of most modern architecture and are built of red brick, trimmed with granite and white stone, and present a most imposing picture. In fact, this great plant is one of the show places of the city of St. Louis, several guides being constantly employed to take care of the visitors.
In addition to his brewery interests in St. Louis Mr. Busch also was a director in several banks there and of several public utility corporations. He also was interested in breweries in San Antonio, Texas, Galveston and Ft. Worth, and owned ice manufacturing plants in various parts of the country. He was head of the foreign department of the St. Louis World's Fair.
Mr. Busch's nhilanthropies were numerous, one of his most recent being a gift of $150,000 to Harvard University for the establishment of a Germanic institute. Every year he gave $5,000 to the convent of the Good Shepherd in St. Louis. His most recent local benefaction was a gift of $25,000 for the erection of a memorial to Carl Schurz, Emil Preetorius and Carl Daenzer, the trio of German editors who were in St. Louis about the time of the Civil War.
His acquaintance was almost world wide. He was an intimate friend of former Presidents Roosevelt and Taft and of Emperor William of Germany. On two occasions he was decorated by the Emperor for notable achievements, while as recently as September 29 he was decorated by the Grand Duke of Hesse with the cordon and.cross of the first class of the Order of Philip the Good, in recognition of his philanthropy to the people of Germany.
It is a coincidence that Mr. Busch died during the celebration in St. Louis of the hundredth anniversary of German independence. To the fund for financing this celebration he contributed $5,000. He was made honorary president of the German-American centennial celebration and the day the news of his death came, a telegram was sent him which read as follows:
"Adolphus Busch, Langen Schwalbach, Germany.
"To the honorary president of the German-American centennial celebration, to the philanthropist and patron of German art. science and ideals, we all send Cerman fraternal greetings."
This was signed by Dr. C. J. Hexamer, national president: Adolph Timm, national secretary; E. C. Buechel, president of the festival board, and William C. F. Lenz, national representative for Missouri.
He celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary at Pasadena, March 7, 1911. At that time he gave outright to each of his children a magnificent mansion or estate or directed them to spare no expense in building or purchasing a home to their exact liking and to send the bills to him.
Though his home was in St. Louis in recent years, Mr. Busch spent but a small portion of his time there. He usually passed the winter in Pasadena, Cal., and his summers in Germany, stopping in St. Louis about six weeks in the spring and fall.
Mr. Busch was the last of twenty-one children. He is survived by a widow and five daughters—Mrs. Jacob VV. Loeb of Chicago; Mrs. Hugo Reisinger, of New York: Mrs. Paul von Gontard, of Germany; Mrs. Edward A. Faust, of St. Louis, and Mrs. Edward Scharrer, of Stuttgart, Germany. Two sons—August A. Busch and Carl Busch, both of St. Louis—also survive.
We quote the following tributes from editorials in two of the leading daily papers of St. Louis.
The Post-Dispatch said:
The very human qualities of the man drew the public to him in an unusual intimacy. It is not going a whit beyond the fact to say that he was as well liked as he was widely known. There was no mock philanthropy about Mr. Busch. He did not patronize the public with overwhelming benefactions. He did not consider that he owed the public an apology for his great wealth, and he did not sue with huge bribes for forgiveness, forgetfulness or favor. He erected no monuments to vanity. He legitimately went about his own business with an independence which forced admiration from free American citizens—and his generosity, his kindliness, were real, prompted by the heart. Measured by the deeds that sprang from it. it was the heart of a big man.
Of what use is it to recount the mere money gifts of a man of vast wealth? How little of the true character of the donor can be told in a column of figures. Too often they are set forth for want of something better; too often they conceal, they mislead, they lie. The real generosity and genuine quality of a man are more likely to be expressed in the charity of his right hand of which his left hand neither receives nor gives a sign. Many there are whose tears of grief alone tell of the secret kindness of Mr. Busch. Yet no public appeal, no worthy cause., ever sought of him in vain.
In his death the world has lost a singular example of successful enterprise coupled with high integrity, St. Louis has lost a big private citizen actively identified with a half-century of its growth, and thousands of men and women and children have lost a good friend.
The Globe-Democrat is quoted as follows: In the business activities and public munificences of Adolphus Busch, who died yesterday at his German home, some of the great chapters in the history of the industrial life, educational advancement and scientific attainment of St. Louis, were written. In our industrialism, his high executive abilities and boundless energies supplanted a conservative management of the brewing industry with progressive methods which multiplied new processes, opened world markets, and vastly increased the opportunities of labor. These are permanent results which will survive him. along with the memory of his many liberal beneficences in different parts of the country.
In educational work, his repeated endowments of Washington University have, during a succession of years, contributed much to the raising of that institution of learning from an inferior rank to that much higher place it is now holding, and to that still higher place it is destined to reach through his liberality and that of other St. Louisans of equally great heart and mind. As a joint contributor to that splendid endowment fund of the College of Medicine in the university, his gift was not only to St. Louis but to the world; not only to a city but to all mankind. For already is that light one of the illuminating lights in the world of medical science, and one which is to shine more and more unto what will be, for that science, a much more perfect day. One joy of giving was not to be his. His offer of $50,000 to a fund of $500,000 for a St. Louis grand opera house could not be accepted. Those who know him know with what a fine pleasure he would have paid his great share toward erecting here a temple to that art he loved so much.
He was a friend of all art; a friend, in fact, of all humanity. Not quick to clasp acquaintance to the heart, or prone to wear his own heart upon his sleeve, when his friendship was won nothing but the demerit of its object could forfeit it. His coun
sel and his influence will be missed in many St. Louis institutions, of all kinds, to which he had long contributed in financial support and wise direction. He will be missed in a wide social circle to which the news of his death must come as a shock following so soon the announcement of a few days ago that his health was improved. But he has not died before the ripeness of his time. He has lived long to do many big things in big ways.
