The St. Johns herald., 1894-07-12
PROFIT IN WRITING.
There Is Much for Famous Men Who Care to Wield the Pen.
Leading Politicians, Financiers and Lit terateurs Who Have Been Offered and Paid Big Prices for
 Their Work.


 higher rates for magazine or newspa. per articles than almost any of those Htterateurs who have gained fame by reason of their writings. Mir. James R. Keene, who is we'll known as one o1 the most successful and picturesque ot those men who deal in Wall street in New York city, has been many times asked to write over his own signature upon any topic which he chose and to name his own price, which would cheerfully be paid. As Mir. Keene sometimes has found his fortune ap- preciate as much as S1OO.000 in single day it is easy to see that if he charged for such service in proportion to his earning capacity he would receive an almost fabulous sum for an article from 2,000 to 5000 words in length.
 The only occasion since those early days of his poverty, when he made his living as a newspaper writer, that Mir. Keene oyercame his disinclination to write was in the summer of 1877, just after he had held at bay an army of Wall street spectators, having sus- tained the market single handed for an entire day, backed by gold which his California friends sent to him, and thereby unquestionably prevented such apanic as this country has not seen, excepting possibly in 1857 and 1873.
 The strain upon his nervous system of thus maintaining the market against the combined assault of frightened in- vestors and spectators was so great that a few days after Mir. Keene was stricken with an illness which threat ened to develop into paralysis of the brain. He was removed to Long < Branch as soon as it was possible to lift him from his bed, and there, after some difficulty and through the offices of the late Sam Ward, Mir. Keene con- sented to dictate an interview for pub- lication.
 At that time Mir. Ward was enter taining his nephew, F. Marion Craw- ford, and had been so highly pleased with story which MT. Crawford told him of an experience in India that he advised the young man to write it out and that he would see that it found a publisher, and thus it was that the story which made Marion Crawford famous, "Mr. Isaacs,'' came to be writ ten and printed and Crawford's career determined.
 Mir. Keene was greatly interested in Mir. Wards narration to him of this tale, which had not been printed, and he told Mir. Ward some of the early California experiences of his which seemed quite as marvellous as did the story of MT. Isaacs, and it was then that MT. Ward said to him: "Mr. Keene, if you were not great specu- lator you might become great novel ist."
 Mr. Keene finally received the repre- sentative of one of the New York news papers. He lay upon his bed, which was in quiet room of one of the Long Branch hotels. The room was very simply furnished, and it seemed impos- sible to believe that the man who lay there content apparently with the al most humble surroundings of this ten by twelve room was able, if he chose, to buy the hotel and a good deal of the adjacent property without materially affecting his pocketbook.
 He began slowly to dictate. It seemed as though he weighed every word. He frequently changed word in order to put in its place another which would more clearly express his meaning. When a sentence or para graph had been written down MT. Keene would ask to have it read over, and when this was done he repeated it several times, his patience and care be- ing quite as great as characterized Ruslkin or Russell Lowell when they were engaged in prose composition.
 Thus for five hours this great finan- cier lay there composing and dictating this article. The mental strain was exhaustive both upon Mir. Ward, who was present, and upon the newspaper reporter. Once during the interview a telegram was brought to MT. Keene from the hotel office. He opened it, read it and tossed it upon the table with no more concern than though it had announced most trivial matter to him.
 This article appeared the following day in print. It was the sensational publication of the month. It was re- published either in whole or part in great number of newspapers. It com manded attention not only from finan- ciers, to whom every word uttered by MT. Keene then and since upon finan- cial matters was received with absorb ing interest, but it also made a deep impression upon literary men on ac- count of the singular purity of it's English and the lucidity and felicity of its style.
 The editor of the paper in which the article appeared would gladly have sent Mir. Keene a check for &, 800 for it, but the great financier did not and would not write for pay. He earned fortune while he was dictating that article, for the telegram which he re- ceived announced that a sudden ap- preciation that day in line of stocks held by MT. Keene was so great that if he chose to sell his profits would be S150,O00.