All his life, until the last five years, Mr. Stuart 
has been a man of affairs.  He went to work at 
fourteen years of age under his father, and was 
gradually compelled to do the work of both, with 
the result that before his twenty-first birthday he 
had become freight traffic manager for Central 
America’s most important railroad.  He has also 
been in charge of various consular and diplomatic 
offices from time to time.  He was land 
commissioner of the Panama Railroad; and has also 
been in the real estate and mining businesses, and 
factor of an important shipping company.  He 
brought the Salvadore Railway Company out of 
bankruptcy, 
and 
reorganized 
the 
Port 
of 
Champerico.  He has also been general counselor 
for Spanish-American affairs in New York City.  
But it is not only the able administration of such 
matters that proves the capacity of a man.  Many a 
muddler has gone through public life on the 
shoulders of competent subordinates without too 
great a loss of reputation.  But there is one sterling 
and indubitable proof of the administrator.  If he 
orders his own house well, it is certain that what 
reputation he may have made in public affairs is a 
deserved one.  
I have never met any man with the sense of 
order so admirably developed as Mr. Stuart.  He can 
lay his hands on any scrap of paper at a moment’s 
notice.  Every book in his shelves has its proper 
place.  His house is fitted with every convenience 
and even luxury, yet entirely without ostentation or 
extravagance.  Nor is the order in which things are 
kept a visible order.  No one would suspect it.  It is