The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-02-01
JIM KEENE AND MR.. BEECHER
Final Collapse ola Speculator Who Once
Made Money Easily and Rapidly.
Henry Ward Beecher Plans Free-Trade Cam
paign and Begins Operations Vigorously
Personal Gossip from the Metropolis.
A BROKEN sPEcULAToR.

Evidences of Wealth.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
New YORK, Jan. 31.-The enforced sale OF
James r. Keene's last horse. and his disposal OF
his final remaining share in large apartment
house. mark the failure of his latest attempts to
recoup This has reminded busy Wall Street
that Keene still existed. But it needed some
thing of the sort to recall him to memory, for he
has dropped entirely out of the financial world
and is no more a factor in the making of prices
than is any brokers' Office boy Yet Keene had
a brilliant career while it lasted He came on
here with three millions or therabouts in his
pockets and struck the boom of 1879-S0, and at
one time was worth not far from fifteen millions
of dollars. The rif-raff and the hangers on and
the adventurers of the street fastened on
to him, fiattered him, told him his mis-
sion in life and his duty toward mankind was
to break Jay Gould, and offered their advice
and influence. Keene made money fast as long
as prices advanced. He bought with great free
dom and courage and his name was in every
ones mouth. But when the tide turned, Keene
was loaded. He Gid not have the sagacity and
celebrity of Gould, who has a knack of turning
even misfortunes to good account. but kept on
getting in deeper and deeper until the inevitable
raped at his door, and he found he had lost all.
Keene's error seems to have been the error COM
mon to beginners in Wall street He wanted to
trade all the time. The coolheaded operator
waits until the market suits him. Three or four
times every year all hands in the street agree
that stocks are very low. There has been
furry, and prices have gone down 10 or 20 per
cent; they are sure to react within a compara-
lively short time Their it is that the prudent
man comes to the front with his cash. But the
man who goes down into the street every day,
and huys or sells for short turn, feels as
though he must do something every day, and
that Kind of trading never fails to wreck the
longest purse Keene was always in the market,
and he was always buying The sharp set of
fellows who manipulated Denver & Rio Grande
up to ITO or thereabouts sold a great lot of
stock to Keene, and he was compelled to take
more to hold the price against their raids when
they mad sold it short. He never was cunning
enough to conceal his operations and the sharks
of the street marked him from the first. He
was indiscreet enough TO quarrel with Jay
Gould, and to threaten him, and Gould there
after did not count him as friend. 1t is very
have Goulds friendship than his enmity. And
so Keene foundered until his money was gone.
He bids fair to become what the boys call a
ghost of Wall street. That thoroughfare is full
of ghG ts-of men who have been rich and who
now are penniless. They march down to the
street every morning, regularly as do the mil
ionaires, and wander from one brokers' Office to
another bending over the tape and talking all
day long about the market, and predicting it's
course. Once in while they put up So bill
in bucket shop and strut around like fighting
cocks if they increase it to $40; but that is the
end, for they Immediately stake the $40 and lose
it. There are exrailroad presidents and ex-
bank presidents, and ex-everybodys 1t is sad
to see them and sadder to hear them talk; but it
is the old story of fortunes thrown away in gam
bling-for Wall-street operating, as usually con-
Quoted on margins, is gambling simon pure, and
you cannot make anything else of it. Nineteen
out of twenty of the men who engage
in it leave money They always have some
good explanation of why they fail, but the fact
remains that they do fail. And that should be
convincing and should serve as warning.
Three-quarters of the Wall street operators Of
to-day are striving not to increase their fortunes,
but to get back what they have lost There is
fascination about winning few hundred dollars
that overbaances the regret of losing a few
thousand. man will lose four times running
and yet go in the fifth time with an assurance
within him that he can win back all he has lost
he has lost $4,000, he instantly believes
that he can make his fortune. He never loses
that belief while he has hundred dollars re-
naming, and when the hundred is broken he
repairs to bucket shop-having become ghost
of Wall street-frm in the belief that on cash
capital of $40 to $40 he will recuperate enough
to take him back into regular brokers' Office
where he will pile up the money until he is rich
again. And so he CANDLES every cent on which
he can put hands. The Wall street game as
played at present is a losing game, and the
sooner man who is behind the game sewers all
connection withAit, the better off he will
find himself in the immediate hereafter. Jay
Gould did not make his money trading in the
fluctuations of stocks. He did it by buying en-
tire railroads reorganizing them, watering their
stock, consolidating them and putting them on
the public at an enormous advance from first
cost. or cost to himself. His gigantic schemes
have been originated by him. The theory has
been to get possession of bankrupt roads and
consolidate them, and give them the appearance
of prosperity. The Wabash system is made up
of some twenty different roads, not more than
three Of which were paying running expenses
when Gould bought them Yet he threw them
together and ran the price Of preferred stock up
to 81 and common stock up to 60, at which
prices the public relieved him of them, and he
moved on to fresher pastures and put up fresher
jobs. bis amalgamations and his consultations
have been on most stupendous scale, and have
demanded the output of millions; but they have
brought back tens of millions The same is
true, but to lesser extent, of Vanderbilt He
has increased the fortune that his father left
him, not by speculating in stocks, but by solid
investment and by the increase in values of
the properties that came into his possession,
The men who have made fortunes through stock
speculations are indeed few. The men who have
lost fortunes in the same manner are numbered
by thousands.