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 \JR(iXIA BIOGRAPHY

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l)uildings have been equipped. Mr. Stevens takes not only the view of the humanitarian in regard to Young Men's Christian Asso- ciation work among railroad men, but also that of the practical business man. He in- sists that a comfortable room where rail- read employees can gather under proper influence, to read and enjoy social inter- course, will promote not only their interests Init the interests of the railways by which they are employed. This is another view of the same doctrine of "community of in- terest," that he believes should exist be- tween railway and shipper. The Railroad Young Men's Christian Association build- ing at Richmond, erected at an expense of $100,000. is one of the results of President Stevens' help and interest in the welfare of the railroad employee. Plis principle of co-operation between carrier and shipper, employer and employee, is based upon the soundest business principles, and their ap- plication has resulted most happily for the corporations over which President Stevens has authority. In a not less degree, have shippers and employees benefitted ; which fact leads to the hope that the gospel he preaches and exemplifies may spread until strikes and lockouts with all their attending misery may fore\er disappear from our fair land.

President Stevens is a member of the Westmoreland. Commonwealth and Coun- try clubs of Richmond and the Railroad Club, of New York, and everywhere known he is popular, honored and respected. Able and untiring in business, genial and kindly- hearted, he is the ideal leader of men. and \vhile he stands at the head of his particular branch of activity, his career is not finished. but the biographer of the future will chron- icle many more years of this useful life.

Mr. Stevens married, December ly, 1881, Virginia, daughter of James S. Wilson, of Logansport, Indiana. Children : Helen, James Paul, Cecil Wade, George Wilson. The family home is at Richmond, Virginia. Mrs Stevens died on August 28, 1904.

Rev. Landon Randolph Mason. "(Jun- ston Hall," on the bank of the Potomac, the ancestral home of this branch of the Masons of Virginia, was built by George Mason, the statesman whom Thomas Jefferson declared "a man of expansive mind, profound judg- ment, urgent in argument, learned in the

lore of our former constitution, and earnest for the republican change on democratic principles." Cieorge Mason, the statesman, was the great-grandfather of Rev. Landon R. Mason, who through him descends from Colonel (icorge Mason, a member of the English Parliament in the reign of Charles I. and an officer in the army of Charles II., who, after the defeat at Worcester in 1617 escaped to Virginia in disguise, losing his estate in England. Erom Colonel George Mason sprang George Mason, the states- man, born in Doeg's, afterwards Mason's Neck, in Stafford (now Eairfax) county, X'irginia, in 1726.

After the marriage of Cieorge Mason, the statesman, to Ann, daughter of Colonel William Eilbeck, of Maryland, he built "(lUnston Hall" on the bank of the Potomac river, where he took up his permanent resi- dence. "Gunston Hall" continued in the Mason ownership until after the war, 1861- 1S65. and there ( ieorge Mason lived on terms of intimacy with his friend as well as neigh- bor, (icorge Washington, Truro parish in- cluding both Mount V^ernon and Gunston Hall. It was Mason's pen that drew up the non-importation resolutions which were presented by Washington and unanimously adopted by the Virginia legislature in 1769, one of them pledging the planters to buy no slaves imported after November i of that } ear. Against the assertion of the British Parliament of the right to tax the colonies, Mason wrote a tract entitled "Extracts from the Virginia Charters, with some Remarks upon Them." At a meeting of the people of Eairfax county, Virginia, July 17, 1774, he presented a series of twenty-four reso- lutions which reviewed the whole ground of controversy, advised a congress of the colo- nies, and urged the policy of non-intercourse with the Mother Country. The Virginia convetition sanctioned these resolutions and (in October 20, 1774, they were substantially adojited by the Eirst Continental Congress. In 1775 George Mason was a member of the \"irginia Convention, but he declined an election to Congress for family reasons and urged Erancis Lightfoot Lee to take his place. He, however, served as a mem- ber of the \"irginia committee of safety and supported open rupture with England. He was the author of the famous "Declaration of Rights" and the plan of government unanimously accepted by the Virginia con-