Wealth file
One of the most legendary figures in the American corporate world, once known as the "God of business", "God of luck". He became the first U.S. millionaire in college, then became a trade agent for the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and had deep friendships with political leaders in the East and the West, and enjoyed a great reputation all over the world.
Type of business
Oil industry.
Growth record
Some people call him a "peacemaker" who communicates between East and West, some praise him as a "universal businessman" who is proficient in all trades and industries, and some marvel at him as a "business elf" who has magical powers. Wizard". Armand Hammer Armand Hammer, an American businessman who became a millionaire during his college years, was cordially received by Lenin; established friendships with Khrushchev and Brezhnev; was a bosom friend of the King of Libya; had close contacts with American Presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Nixon; and was personally invited by Deng Xiaoping to visit China... ...Hammer's life is like a poem, like a mystery, and more like a brilliant book, his story is a presentation of the stormy times.
The 20-year-old adventurous billionaire
May 21, 1898, Armand Hammer was born in Brownfield, New York. Hammer was born in the Bronx, New York, USA, to a grandfather who was a Russian Jew who had emigrated to the United States. His father, Juriez Hammer, was an American **** producer. Hammer was one of the founders of the U.S. ****production party, worked as a foundry worker, operated a drugstore and pharmaceutical factory, and later became a doctor by pursuing a medical degree. Well-educated and rigorously trained from an early age, Hamer possessed keen judgment and an innovative spirit.
In 1917, Hammer enrolled at Columbia University School of Medicine, where his father had also attended. At the time, his father was practicing medicine and running a pharmaceutical company, making it difficult for him to do both, which led to the company's bankruptcy. He asked his son, who was a talented businessman, to take over the company, which was on the brink of bankruptcy.
In order not to miss the school, Hamer invited a poor and excellent students to live together, free of charge to provide each other with food and lodging, the condition is that the students to go to class every day, to do a lot of notes, and bring back to him at night for him to cope with the exams and write essays. With this study "substitute", Hammer concentrated on the company's business. He reformed the company's business policy and sales methods, organized a strong team of salesmen, and changed the name of the company to the loud "United Chemical and Pharmaceutical Company". Hammer finally saved the precarious company from the brink of bankruptcy, from a dozen employees to 1,500, the product is sold nationwide, the company began to cross the ranks of the pharmaceutical industry's large enterprises.
In this way, Hammer, a 20-year-old college student, became a millionaire entirely on his own. At the same time, he not only completed the Columbia University School of Medicine on schedule, but also won the medical school honors bachelor's degree awarded by the Gold Medal, business and study without delay.
In June 1920, a major event occurred, due to a medical error, in June 1920, Hammer's father was tried and imprisoned. As one of the founders of the American ****producing party, the elder Hammer had paid close attention to the Soviet Union and had supplied essentials to the blockaded Bolshevik regime. This sudden change of heart makes the young and energetic Hammer determined to fulfill his father's attempted wish to travel to the country of his father's birth to help the Soviet Union overcome the famine and typhoid fever that is spreading there.
After a difficult journey, Hammer finally arrived in the Soviet Union. In the post-war Soviet Union, Hamer saw the heartbreaking famine, disease and death in the Urals region, but also saw a huge market, how many minerals were waiting to be mined, how many treasures were waiting to be sold, but because of the poor road to export trade, people could only hold on to the treasure mountain and starve. Hamer decided to change this situation by his own strength. He sent a telegram to his brother to buy a million dollars of wheat in the United States and ship it to the Soviet port of Leningrad to barter for a million dollars of locally produced furs and minerals.
Hammer's boldness was appreciated by the great leader Lenin, but because of a lot of controversy within the party at the time, amidst a chorus of voices that said "I'd rather starve than sell out my country," Lenin decided to give Hammer a franchise, and established an unusual friendship with Hammer. Then, Hammer contacted Ford Motor Company, American Rubber Company, Ellis Charles Equipment and Machinery Company and more than 30 American companies *** with the Soviet Union to do business, he was elected as the general representative of these companies in the Soviet Union. At the same time, under Lenin's overtures, he also acted as an agent of the Soviet Union's trade with the United States, which made Hammer's business in the Soviet Union more and more prosperous.
In 1921, Hamer read in the official Moscow newspaper that the Soviet Union was about to conduct a nationwide literacy campaign, and after reading the news, he didn't take it to heart. But when he was ready to return home, he was surprised to find that pencils were scarce and expensive in Soviet stores. This is the wealth around him! He decided to set up a pencil factory, even though the idea was strongly opposed by his friends around him. But he always stood his ground, and although he didn't know how to make pencils himself, he knew how to use people who did. He hired technicians at high salaries and used the American piece-rate system to manage production, resulting in an output of 2.5 million dollars in the first year. After a few years, Hammer not only met the needs of the Soviet pencil and pen market, but also exported to more than a dozen countries, including Britain. The plant soon became one of the largest pencil factories in the world, bringing Hamer millions of dollars in revenue as well.
Hammer's great success caused such an outcry that a young woman sent her application for a job to the chairman of the Supreme Soviet in order to work in Hammer's pencil factory. But as the trees grow large and the newspapers begin to openly denounce Hamer and the New Economic Policy, Hamer vaguely realizes that perhaps the Soviet Union is about to change and he himself will have to leave.
The strategic businessman who traveled east and west, north and south
Hammer returned to the U.S. in 1930, the most active days of his life, when he was able to turn stones into gold, covering many fields and making huge fortunes.
At that time, the Soviet regime on the czar's palace copied out of a large number of antiques and exquisite works of art is not valued, the poor people also tend to sell art at home at low prices for money 123456 mouth. Hammer spent a lot of time and energy engaged in acquisitions, time, he actually became an expert in this industry.
When Hammer to these art treasures intact to the United States, the United States is in the Great Depression, many people believe that in the case of economic recession, these old antiques will not be willing to buy. Hammer is very confident, he has invested in New York and Los Angeles to build an art gallery, and select fine art in the domestic cities on tour, causing a great sensation. He also carefully printed a catalog of art inventory, were sent to the manager of the United States of America's leading department stores, and sincerely explain, would like to 40% discount on the retail price of these works of art commissioned by the store to sell. Subsequently, he held an auction with great fanfare, making his art famous and attracting countless customers.
Hammer, never one to confine himself to one area, concentrated his efforts on the art market when he learned that Roosevelt was going to introduce the New Deal and that Prohibition would be lifted, so that the nation's demand for beer and whiskey would skyrocket, and kegs would be in short supply. Hammer made the decision to order several shipments of high-quality lumber from the Soviet Union and built a modern cask factory in New Jersey. When Prohibition was repealed, the barrels rolled off the production line and were snapped up by distilleries at high prices. He then moved from barrel production into beer production, and his Dent brand of whiskey jumped to become the nation's first-rate spirit, selling up to a million cases a year.
It's safe to say that no one knew what Hammer was going to do next; he did what he wanted, but he hit it out of the park. Because of his love of steak and the difficulty of getting good quality steak on the market, he got into cattle ranching and was equally successful. Later, he also got involved in the radio business. None of these he invested a great deal of energy in. Hammer's intuition and drive, coupled with his genius business skills and learning instincts, made him invincible, and he became a legend in the business world.
In the mid-to-late 1950s, the worldwide energy crisis became increasingly severe. To encourage private oil exploration, the U.S. government cut taxes on the oil industry while increasing taxes on other industries. This policy appealed to Hammer, who had always been adventurous, and he began to try to invest in the oil industry again, even though he was now approaching retirement age.
Hammer first approached Occidental Petroleum, which was struggling at the time. He agreed to lend the company $50,000 on the condition that two wells would be drilled, and if the wells produced oil, the profits would be split 50-50 between the two companies. Luckily, the two wells drilled by Occidental produced oil, and the oil content was also very rich. Hammer was overjoyed, and seized the opportunity to buy a large number of the company's shares, becoming the largest shareholder of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, and since then he has been fully committed to the oil business.
With his many years of experience, Hammer took a huge risk and began to build an oil kingdom. He recruited the best drilling engineers and the best geologists, and finally drilled two huge natural gas fields in California in 1961. Occidental's stock price jumped to $15 a share, and the company was strong enough to compete with the world's larger oil companies.
By then, most of the world's rich oil fields were already owned by the seven Western oil companies known as the "Seven Sisters," but Hammer took a different tack, looking to Libya.
Other oil companies abandoned no hope of oil on the two leases, Hammer perseverance, and finally in Libya hit a daily output of 7.2 million barrels of crude oil production wells, so that the Libyan people for their own country can produce oil and immense pride. The king of Libya personally received Hammer, to express his heartfelt thanks. Then, Hammer in the arid Kufra region to create a miracle - the people day and night waiting for water wells, found a rich source of groundwater. This region has not had a thorough rain for more than 20 years, and the people of the country regarded Hammer as a savior! The king of Libya was even excited to name the place where his ancestors were born "Hamer". However, Hamer refused, thinking that the drilling of oil and water wells is part of his career, and that it is the greatest happiness of his life to be able to enjoy the joy of victory with the local people***.
In the oil industry, Hammer's company went in the latest, but the earliest oil. 1974, his Occidental Petroleum Corporation annual revenue of $ 6 billion. By 1982, Occidental was the nation's 12th-largest industrial concern and the world's eighth-largest oil company next to the Seven Sisters!
He was the first Western businessman to lend a helping hand during the Soviet Union's most difficult times and to open up Soviet-American trade channels. Because of his friendships with many of the world's leaders, he traveled to different countries to deliver messages of peace and conduct personal diplomacy among the world's heads of state. He was instrumental in facilitating talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, in studying the Star Wars program, and in announcing the decision not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.
He was the founder and patron of the annual International Conference on Peace and Human Rights. He was a frequent and generous supporter of cultural, educational and social welfare programs. He founded the Cancer Research Center and chaired the U.S. President's three-member Advisory Panel on Cancer Research. He personally led a medical team to the Soviet Union to rescue victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Not only that, he is also an old friend of the Chinese people. 1979 Deng Xiaoping, during his visit to the U.S., praised Hammer's help to Lenin and invited him to visit China, hoping that Hammer would contribute to China's economic construction. 80-year-old Hammer was invited to visit China that year, and came to China many times after that, and began to pave the way for trade between the U.S. and China. 1982, he signed a contract with Chinese authorities for the Shanxi Shoushuo open-pit project, which is now under way. In 1982, he signed an agreement with the Chinese authorities on the feasibility of an open-pit coal mine in Pingshuo, Shanxi Province, and broke ground on the project in 1986, which was the largest Sino-foreign joint venture at the time. After that, his oil company bid for the exploitation of China's offshore oil resources, becoming the first American company to obtain China's offshore oil exploration rights. 1982 March, Hammer brought his collection of art treasures for half a century to China, held the "Hammer collection of paintings five hundred years of the original works of the exhibition" in Beijing, for the United States and China to open a window of cultural exchanges.
When Hammer to these art treasures intact to the United States, the United States was in the Great Depression, many people believe that, in the case of economic recession, these old antiques will not be willing to buy. Hammer is very confident, he has invested in New York and Los Angeles to build an art gallery, and select fine art in the domestic cities on tour, causing a great sensation. He also carefully printed a catalog of art inventory, were sent to the manager of the United States of America's leading department stores, and sincerely explain, would like to 40% discount on the retail price of these works of art commissioned by the store to sell. Subsequently, he held an auction with great fanfare, making his art famous and attracting countless customers.
Hammer, never one to confine himself to one area, concentrated his efforts on the art market when he learned that Roosevelt was going to introduce the New Deal and that Prohibition would be lifted, so that the nation's demand for beer and whiskey would skyrocket, and kegs would be in short supply. Hammer made the decision to order several shipments of high-quality lumber from the Soviet Union and built a modern cask factory in New Jersey. When Prohibition was repealed, the barrels rolled off the production line and were snapped up by the distilleries at high prices. He then moved from barrel production into beer production, and his Dent brand of whiskey jumped to become the nation's first-rate spirit, selling up to a million cases a year.
It's safe to say that no one knew what Hammer was going to do next; he did what he wanted, but he hit it out of the park. Because of his love of steak and the difficulty of getting good quality steak on the market, he got into cattle ranching and was equally successful. Later, he also got involved in the radio business. None of these he invested a great deal of energy in. Hammer's intuition and drive, coupled with his genius business skills and learning instincts, made him invincible, and he became a legend in the business world.
In the mid-to-late 1950s, the worldwide energy crisis became increasingly severe. To encourage private oil exploration, the U.S. government cut taxes on the oil industry while increasing taxes on other industries. This policy appealed to Hammer, who had always been adventurous, and he began to try to invest in the oil industry again, even though he was now approaching retirement age.
Hammer first approached Occidental Petroleum, which was struggling at the time. He agreed to lend the company $50,000 on the condition that two wells would be drilled, and if the wells produced oil, the profits would be split 50-50 between the two companies. Luckily, the two wells drilled by Occidental produced oil, and the oil content was also very rich. Hammer was overjoyed, and seized the opportunity to buy a large number of the company's shares, becoming the largest shareholder of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, and since then he has been fully committed to the oil business.
With his many years of experience, Hammer took a huge risk and began to build an oil kingdom. He recruited the best drilling engineers and the best geologists, and finally drilled two huge natural gas fields in California in 1961. Occidental's stock price jumped to $15 a share, and the company was strong enough to compete with the world's larger oil companies.
By then, most of the world's rich oil fields were already owned by the seven Western oil companies known as the "Seven Sisters," but Hammer took a different tack, looking to Libya.
Other oil companies abandoned no hope of oil on the two leases, Hammer perseverance, and finally in Libya hit a daily output of 7.2 million barrels of crude oil production wells, so that the Libyan people for their own country can produce oil and immense pride. The king of Libya personally received Hammer, to express his heartfelt thanks. Then, Hammer in the arid Kufra region to create a miracle - the people day and night waiting for water wells, found a rich source of groundwater. This region has not had a thorough rain for more than 20 years, and the people of the country regarded Hammer as a savior! The king of Libya was even excited to name the place where his ancestors were born "Hamer". However, Hamer refused, thinking that the drilling of oil and water wells is part of his career, and that it is the greatest happiness of his life to be able to enjoy the joy of victory with the local people***.
In the oil industry, Hammer's company went in the latest, but the earliest oil. 1974, his Occidental Petroleum Corporation annual revenues of $ 6 billion. By 1982, Occidental was the nation's 12th-largest industrial concern and the world's eighth-largest oil company next to the Seven Sisters!
Hammer's life spanned 9/10ths of a century, and he was not only a successful entrepreneur, but also a peacemaker who made important contributions to world peace and development.
He was the first Western businessman to lend a helping hand and bridge the Soviet-American trade channels during the most difficult times in the Soviet Union. Because of his friendships with many of the world's leaders, he traveled to different countries to deliver messages of peace and conducted personal diplomacy among the heads of state of the world. He was instrumental in facilitating talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, in studying the Star Wars program, and in announcing the decision not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.
He was the founder and patron of the annual International Conference on Peace and Human Rights. He was a frequent and generous supporter of cultural, educational and social welfare programs. He founded the Cancer Research Center and chaired the U.S. President's three-member Advisory Panel on Cancer Research. He personally led a medical team to the Soviet Union to rescue victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Not only that, he is also an old friend of the Chinese people. 1979 Deng Xiaoping, during his visit to the U.S., praised Hammer's help to Lenin and invited him to visit China, hoping that Hammer would contribute to China's economic construction. 80-year-old Hammer was invited to visit China that year, and came to China many times after that, starting to pave the way for trade between the U.S. and China. 1982, he signed a contract with Chinese authorities for the Shanxi Shoushuo open-pit project, which is now under way. In 1982, he signed an agreement with the Chinese authorities on the feasibility of an open-pit coal mine in Pingshuo, Shanxi Province, and broke ground on the project in 1986, which was the largest Sino-foreign joint venture at the time. After that, his oil company bid for the exploitation of China's offshore oil resources, becoming the first American company to obtain China's offshore oil exploration rights. 1982 March, Hammer brought his collection of art treasures for half a century to China, held the "Hammer collection of paintings five hundred years of the original works of the exhibition" in Beijing, for the United States and China to open a window of cultural exchanges.
Like this, Hamer did a lot of things, his life donations out of their own money can not count, for the Jews, for the anti-fascist, for peace, for education ...... he never stopped his pace. November 12, 1990, Armand Hamer this brilliant book, the original paintings of half a century to China, the exhibition opened a window for cultural exchanges between China and the United States. Hammer this wonderful book finally closed the last page, this hundred battle "business god", traveled all over the world citizen died at the age of 92 years old due to illness.
Responders:
Responders:
Yamon Hammer was the chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, a legendary figure. In the West, he was a millionaire who made gold out of stone, but in the Soviet Union and China, he is a household name of the "red capitalist", because he was the first Western entrepreneur who cooperated with the Soviet Union after the October Revolution, and was affectionately called "Comrade Hammer" by Lenin; he was the first person to visit China on a private plane, and he was the first person to visit China on a private plane. He was the first Western entrepreneur to visit China on a private jet, and was hailed by Deng Xiaoping as a "courageous man", while "Hammer's Autobiography" became a popular bestseller in China.
Hammer, a descendant of Russian immigrants, was born on May 21, 1898, in New York City. His great-grandfather, Vladimir, was a Russian Jew who became wealthy as a shipbuilder under Czar Nicholas I. He was born in New York City in 1898. By the time Hammer's grandfather Jacob married and had children, a typhoon caused a tsunami that wiped out the family fortune, and in 1875 Jacob moved to the United States with his wife and son Julius. When Julius reached the age of 15, he gave up his studies and went to work as a foundryman in a steel mill to supplement his family's income. He was young and strong and became a prominent figure among the workers. He joined the Socialist Labor Party, organized trade unions, and became an active socialist, Julius was 19 when he applied for a job as a pharmacist. After a few years, he used his saved wages to buy the owner's drugstore, and later opened two more branches and a pharmaceutical factory. And just like that, the young socialist became a young capitalist. However, Julius did not give up his beliefs and remained a devoted follower of the socialist movement in the U.S. On a socialist outing in 1897, Julius fell in love at first sight with Rose, a young widow, and soon married. A year later, they had their first child, whom Julius named Ammon Hammer, allegedly after the Socialist Labor Party's emblem, the Arm and Hammer.
Just four months after Hammer's birth, his father, Julius, enrolled in Columbia Medical School. For the next four years, Julius ran a drugstore and pharmacy as well as pursued his medical program, but true to form, he managed both his studies and his career, finally graduating in 1902. That achievement was achieved in a way that would later influence Hamer's growth.
Julius, believing that healing the sick and saving lives was more noble than making money by trading, took the plunge and sold his drugstore and pharmaceutical factory, set up a clinic in the Bronx area of New York City, and became a doctor. In his lifetime of practicing medicine, he has saved the lives of more than 5,000 babies.
The children grew up under their father's example. Hammer was the least obedient of the three brothers, but also the most creative. He skipped school, and after his father's education, he changed, rising from middle-of-the-road to first in his studies, and learning to fiddle with radios and build model airplanes outside of school, and winning a gold medal in his high school's valedictorian speech contest. In addition, he was also obsessed with such as Rockefeller, Carnegie and other famous entrepreneurs from scratch biography of the United States, began to look around the door to make money. 16 years old, he was in high school, he succeeded in doing the first "big deal". One day he saw an old two-seater convertible at auction on Broadway and was determined to buy it. He borrowed money from his half-brother Harry, who was selling at a drugstore, and promised to pay him back soon. As it turns out, he has already found work to do from a newspaper advertisement for a $20-a-day honorarium for making deliveries for a confectioner with his automobile. Sure enough, two weeks later, not only had he paid his brother back in full and acquired the automobile, but he also had coins jingling in his pocket.
Three years later, in 1917, after completing a two-year pre-medical program, Hamer hesitantly arrived at the prestigious Columbia Medical School and submitted his application for admission. The staff member in charge of registration looked him up and down and said, "You are the son of Dr. Julius, aren't you? I processed your father's application for admission in 1898, the year you were born, and I am here to welcome you again today." And so it was that Hamer proudly became a student at Columbia Medical School, and the boat of destiny carried him seemingly right on course to follow in his father's footsteps.
One day, however, his father came to Hamer on campus to tell his son the bad news: the pharmaceutical company in which he had invested his savings was on the verge of bankruptcy. And because of his own poor health, especially his desire to continue practicing medicine, he did not have the energy to take care of the management of the company; therefore, he asked his son to become the general manager of the company, but did not allow him to drop out of school. He emphasized, "Son, this is how I used to be in the past, you can be like this too."
In fact, his father's concern was completely unnecessary. Hammer had long jumped at the chance. He was extremely excited to meet such a challenge. In order not to miss school, Hamer invited a poor but excellent students to live together, free of charge to provide each other with food and lodging, on the condition that the students go to class every day, make a lot of notes, and then bring them back to him at night for him to cope with the examination and write a paper. With this study "substitute", Hammer can concentrate on the company's business. He reformed the company's business policy and sales methods, organized a strong team of salesmen, and changed the company's name to the loud "United Chemical and Pharmaceutical Company". Hammer finally saved the company from the brink of bankruptcy, from a dozen employees to 1,500, the product is sold throughout the country, the company began to cross the ranks of large enterprises in the pharmaceutical industry.
Shortly afterward, Hamer became a millionaire studying at Columbia Medical School, the only one of its kind in the nation's colleges and universities.
The average income in the United States in 1919 was $625, and Hamer's personal net income that year was more than $100 million. Academically, he received "A's" on most of his exams and was named "the most promising student" in his graduating class, and in June 1921 he received the M.D. degree that he had dreamed of as a child. He has been known as Dr. ever since, even though he never formally practiced medicine.
That's when Hamer decided to take advantage of the short six-month interval between the end of his coursework and the beginning of his internship to do the shocking thing of visiting the Soviet Union. After the October Revolution, Hamer's father, as one of the founders of the U.S.S.R., had taken a keen interest in the USSR and had supplied necessities to the blockaded Bolshevik regime. But due to a medical emergency, in June 1920, Hammer's father was tried and imprisoned. This sudden turn of events made the youthful Hamer determined to fulfill his father's attempted wish to travel to the country of his father's birth to help the Soviet Union overcome the famine and typhoid fever that was spreading there.
So Hammer sold the pharmaceutical company for $2 million, and spent more than 100,000 dollars to buy a field hospital and its supporting medical supplies and medical equipment, but also spent 15,000 dollars to buy an ambulance, painted on the side of the body, "U.S. Medical Corps to Moscow," the words. He wanted to give them to the Soviets as a welcome gift. At the time, the Soviet Union was isolated from most of the West, so to many, Hammer's trip was tantamount to an expedition to the moon. And so, at the age of 23, Hammer was on a path that would radically change his life.
The young millionaire made the arduous journey, finally arriving in the Soviet Union in the early summer of 1921. He fell ill from the strain of the journey. But he had no complaints, declined special favors, and lived a miserable wartime life with the Soviet people. He insisted on memorizing and learning to use 100 Russian words every day so that he could start working soon.
In early August 1921, Hamer accompanied a delegation to the Urals. He was puzzled by the situation here: on the one hand, there was a huge treasure and an abundance of goods, including platinum, precious stones, furs and other valuables; on the other hand, there was a severe famine, starvation and an acute shortage of the minimum necessities of life. So he asked the Soviets leading the group, "Why don't you export these things for mouthfuls of food?" "That's impossible," they replied, "Europe has just lifted its blockade against us, and it would take too long to sell these things and import grain. And it would take at least a million bushels of grain to save the people of the Urals from starvation." At this point a bold plan took shape in Hamer's mind. Remembering that the United States was having a bumper crop of grain at the time, and that the price of grain had fallen to $1 per bushel, he made the suggestion, "I have $1,000,000 in funds, and I can make an emergency purchase of 1,000,000 bushels of wheat in the United States, ship it by sea to Petrograd, and, after unloading the grain, return to the United States 1,000,000 dollars' worth of furs and other cargoes." Hammer's suggestion quickly reached Moscow, where Lenin personally returned a telegram endorsing the deal and asking Hammer to return to Moscow quickly.
The day after his arrival in Moscow, Hamer was summoned to Lenin's office. Lenin, who was pursuing a new economic policy to give the young Soviets a respite, took Hamer's offer seriously. Lenin stood up from his desk to welcome Hamer and spoke to him cordially in English. When Lenin, on behalf of the Soviet government, expressed his sincere gratitude to Hamer, the great revolutionary shed tears of emotion. From then on, a sincere and deep friendship was formed between them. Lenin encouraged Hamer to invest in a factory and allowed him to mine asbestos in Siberia, thus making him the first foreigner in the Bolshevik Soviet Union to obtain mining rights.
This began the barter trade between the United States and the Soviet Union. Hammer organized the United States, communicating with more than 30 American companies, he became the Soviet Union's agent for trade with the United States. Later, as a result of a chance discovery, Hamer set up a pencil factory in the Soviet Union. One day, he stopped into a stationery store to buy pencils, but the store only had expensive German goods. He was struck by the realization that making pencils was a new and profitable business. He didn't know how to make pencils himself, but he knew how to use people who did. He hired technicians from Germany and Britain with high salaries to set up a pencil factory, with the U.S. piece-rate wage system to manage production, the results in just seven or eight months, miraculously put into production, the first year reached 2.5 million U.S. dollars in production value. A few years later, Hammer not only met the needs of the Soviet pencil and pen market, but also exported 20% of its products to more than a dozen countries, including Britain. The plant soon became one of the largest pencil factories in the world, bringing Hamer millions of dollars in revenue as well.
Hammer spent nearly a decade in Moscow, and the Soviet Union became the billionaire's birthplace, while he supported the young Soviet regime with his efforts.
The most active period of Hammer's life, however, began when he returned to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1931. He cast his net in all directions and struck gold, achieving success in whatever profession he pursued. He was like an all-purpose magician who could conjure rabbit after rabbit out of a bowler hat in front of a large audience. His dazzling range of businesses included, in addition to buying and selling art, radio broadcasting, gold trading and philanthropy; but it was in the whisky and cattle-breeding business that his talents were best demonstrated.
Hammer returned to the U.S. in the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930s, but he saw an opportunity to make money. Though his eyes were fixed on the business of art sales, his ears were listening in all directions. He caught a clear message that Roosevelt was on his way to the White House presidency, and if he was ever elected to implement his New Deal, Prohibition, enacted in 1919, would be repealed. This would mean a surge in the national demand for beer and whiskey, and the number of kegs would show an unprecedented demand at a time when there were no kegs for sale on the market. Harmer made a snap decision and immediately ordered several shipments of quality lumber from the Soviet Union, set up a temporary barrel stave processing plant at the New York docks, and built a modern cask factory in New Jersey. The day Prohibition was repealed was also the day when the barrels rolled off the production line at Hammer Barrel Company, and his barrels were snapped up by various distilleries at high prices. Not content with being a barrel supplier, Hammer got involved in the liquor business and started a whiskey business. He purchased a number of distilleries in succession, and by means of drastic price cuts and large-scale advertising, he soon outperformed all his competitors. His Dent brand whiskey jumped to become the nation's first-class famous liquor, annual sales of up to 1 million cases.
The barrels introduced Hamer to the whiskey business, and his love of steak introduced him to another field, cattle ranching, with equal success.
Hammer's foray into cattle ranching was also purely accidental. When he complained that he couldn't get a good steak at the market, one of his employees suggested buying a cow and killing it. The cow came back, but it was a pregnant cow