The Word Guild

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Robert Dollar; Global Impact in Business

By Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird

-an article for the Engage Light Magazine

After coming to Canada penniless from Falkirk in Scotland, Robert Dollar became one of Scotland’s fifty wealthiest individuals, amassing a fortune of over forty million dollars ($800 million in today’s money). He was even on the cover of the March 19th, 1928 TIME magazine, and written up in the Saturday Evening Post in 1929.

Leaving school at age 12 to work in Canadian logging camps, he saved up enough cash to buy into the lumber trade itself. As most loggers spoke French, Dollar taught himself French and took over the camp’s accounting. Being a logger taught him determination, "One thing I now admire of this wild, hard life, was that we never used the word 'can't'. We had to do!"

At their peak, Dollar’s mills produced fifteen million board of lumber. While in the lumber camps, Dollar ‘always made it a practice on Sunday to take out (his) Bible to a quiet place and read it, even in the coldest of weather.” He “attributed much of his success to the teachings received from this daily reading.” Dollar advocated “clean habits, clean thoughts, plenty of exercise, fresh air and plenty of sunshine...and plenty of work...Last, but most important, fear God and keep his commandments.”

Captain Robert Dollar (originally spelt Dolour) became the founder of Dollarton in North Vancouver, and its first major employer with hundreds of local residents working at the Dollar Mill. As owner of 100 acres in North Vancouver, he could see North Vancouver’s great potential in terms of international trade and commerce. Even the local Dollarton minister had his salary paid by Dollar.

In 1895, Dollar purchased his first ship in order to move his lumber down to American markets. His first boat became a huge success because of the number of people making their way to the Alaska Gold Rush. Out of this, he began the 40-vessel Dollar Steamship Company (later becoming American President Lines). Known as the Grand Old Man of the Pacific, Dollar started three head offices in North Vancouver, San Francisco and Shanghai. His ships bore the famous "$" on their smokestacks. During his lifetime he made some 30 voyages to Asia, being the first to bring North American lumber to Asia. While in China, Dollar, with missionary zeal, built several Y.M.C.A.s, an orphanage, a school for the blind and a village school. In his autobiography, Dollar commented that “the evangelization of China means safety, security and a certainty of China becoming a great and strong nation.”

By World War I, Dollar was such an institution in Asia that his word alone was enough “collateral” to begin building ships in China that cost $30 million ($820 million in today’s dollars). Chinese people trusted Robert Dollar and accepted him as one of them. He became one of the greatest promoters of trade and friendship between China and North America. On one of his trips to China, a three-hour procession of thousands of men, women, and children passed his hotel to honor him. Even during the Chinese civil war, Dollar's agents were not molested or harmed, and his property was saved from the ravages of warring factions. Dollar commented,

I believe there is better opportunity for trade in China than in any other part of the globe. We business men deserve no credit in securing this foreign trade. It is the missionaries who deserve the credit. They preceded us and made it possible for us to trade in China and other foreign countries.

In 1923 at age 80, Dollar purchased seven “president” ships from the U.S. government which enabled him to pioneer round-the-world passenger service, being the first to publish scheduled departure and arrival times. Dollar placed a bible in every room in his boats. "By commencing the day with the reading of my Bible," Dollar said, "I find it gives much valuable information and inspiration which is past my power to express. The older I become, the more benefit do I derive from the habit of reading from chapters of the Bible each morning. It has meant guidance and help in my efforts to make a success in this world." In 1925, Dollar Line acquired the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and its trans-Pacific routes. He never sold liquor on any of his ships, and always had 11am Sunday worship services for the sailors and passengers.

Dollar’s mom died when he was nine; his grief-stricken father became an alcoholic. Out of his family pain, Dollar developed four principles to which he clung to:

1. Do not cheat.

2. Do not be lazy.

3. Do not abuse.

4. Do not drink.

Dollar was a family man with a strong work ethic and solid faith. His granddaughter remembers visiting her grandpa, saying: "We all arose at 6 a.m. and went to bed at 9 p.m. Grandfather read a passage from the bible each morning and we joined in...Grandfather sat at the end of the table and said grace before each meal. At festive occasions, he would tell us a story about his life in the Canadian north woods and have us all spellbound and laughing."

In Dollar’s diary, he wrote:

Thank God, from whom all blessings flow ...we start the year with supreme confidence in the future, knowing that God is with us and hoping prosperity will enable us to aid humanity with our money, and that we will be permitted to leave the world a little better than we found it.

Dollar never retired, saying:

It would have been nothing short of a crime for me to have retired when I reached the age of sixty, because I have accomplished far more the last twenty years of my life than I did before I reached my sixtieth birthday ... I was put in this world for a purpose and that was not to loaf and spend my time in so-called pleasure ... I was eighty years old when I thought out the practicability of starting a passenger steamship line of eight steamers to run around the world in one direction ... I hope to continue working to my last day on earth and wake up the next morning in the other world.

At the age of 88, in 1932, Robert Dollar died of bronchial pneumonia. Some of his final words were:

In this world, all we leave behind us that is worth anything is that we can be well regarded and spoken of after we are gone, and that we can say that we left the world just a little better than we found it. If we can’t accomplish these two things, then life, according to my view, has been a failure. Many people erroneously speak of a man when he is gone as having left so much money. That, according to my view, amounts to very little.

May the global discipleship of Robert Dollar inspire all of us to make a missional difference in our lives.

Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird

Co-authors, God’s Firestarter and Blue Sky