Old-time friends had no difficulty in recognizing him as
Percival Stultz, the German-American who, in 1898, had worked in the
Union Iron Works, and who, for two years at that time, had been
secretary of Branch 369 of the International Brotherhood of
Machinists. It was in 1901, then twenty-five years of age, that he
had taken special scientific courses at the University of California,
at the same time supporting himself by soliciting what was then known
as "life insurance." His records as a student are preserved in the
university museum, and they are unenviable. He is remembered by the
professors he sat under chiefly for his absent-mindedness.
Undoubtedly, even then, he was catching glimpses of the wide visions
that later were to be his.
His naming himself "Goliah" and shrouding himself in mystery was his
little joke, he later explained. As Goliah, or any other thing like
that, he said, he was able to touch the imagination of the world and
turn it over; but as Percival Stultz, wearing side-whiskers and
spectacles, and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds, he would
have been unable to turn over a pecan--"not even a salted pecan.
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