John Mackay’s immense wealth put him in the same league as his industrial rivals like Andrew Carnegie and Jay Gould. Mackay never gave up in life and persevered at every impasse, achieving his success while constantly dealing with his stuttering. Niall O’Dowd wrote in Irish Central, “Ironically, the fact that we know so little about him stems from the fact that Mackay was deeply beloved by everyone who met him when the robber barons like Jay Gould and Charles Crocker and their nefarious deeds were much more in the headlines.” O’Dowd continued by addressing Mackay’s work ethic, “Mackay always felt there was great benefit and status in holding down a job. He had a bad stutter his whole life which left him shy and reserved.”
Besides mining, Mackay’s financial empire saw exponential growth with successful forays into banking and communications companies. He was livid that the universally disliked robber baron Jay Gould charged extortionate rates to use his underwater cable to Ireland from the U.S. Mackay set out to break Gould’s monopoly on underwater cables and to charge rates that were not exorbitant. Forming the Commercial Cable Company, it laid two transatlantic cables, which forced the toll-rate for transatlantic messages way down to 25 cents per word, thus breaking the despotic hold over such cables by Gould. Also, the Commercial Cable Company formed an affiliate company in 1886 called the Postal Telegraph Company, a domestic wire company that would not force the Commercial Cable Company to be held hostage by Western Union to collect and distribute telegraphic messages. Before Mackay formed the Commercial Cable Company, every single transatlantic cable between the U.S. and Europe went over wires owned by Jay Gould. What ensued was a rate war that lasted two years with Gould finally giving up on trying to run Mackay out of business. At the time, Gould made the famous quote about Mackay, “If he needs another million, he will go into his silver mines and dig it out.”
John Mackay died in 1902. A couple of years after his death, his son Clarence fulfilled his father’s dream by completing the project his father started of laying the first cable across the Pacific, which went from San Francisco to Manila, Philippines and then onto Shanghai, China.
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Unlike his high-profile financial competitors, John Mackay kept his vast philanthropic endeavors quiet and treated his employees well. More than one source cites his humble origins and his lifelong struggle with stuttering as the catalyst for his reputation for paying his many workers good wages and fostering a positive work environment.
In a life that started in working-class Dublin and then was continued under difficult family circumstances in New York City, John Mackay’s struggles and successes were once the most beloved rags-to-riches story in America. At the time of his 1902 death, he was praised in newspapers in both the U.S. and Europe. The Salt Lake City Tribune wrote in an obituary, “of all the millionaires of this country, no one was more thoroughly American than Mr. Mackay, and no one among them derived his fortune more legitimately.” The fact that John Mackay was a person who stuttered and became the wealthiest man in the world is a most compelling example of someone who refused to let his stuttering hold him back.
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