The Plymouth Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1878-1901, 1901-08-08
Phenomenal Phillips Suspends
Payments in Chicago
Says the Business of His Firm lncreas-
ed so Rapidly that Accounts Be-
came Muddled and Overpayments
Ensued but Claims to be Solvent
and able to Protect all Of his Gus
TONERS.

CHICAGO, Aug, George H..
Phillips, the board of trade spec
ulator who is known as the corn
king" who is the chief spirit in
the George H. Phillips company,
with offices in the Rialto build
ing, announced yesterday that
for a short time the business of
the corporation would be sus-
pended, and their trades were
transferred to McReynolds & Co.
The suspension is attributed
by Mr.. Phillips to several causes,
chief among which are the con-
fusion of his books, which per-
mitted overpayments 20 custo-
mers to the extent of some 800, :
600, and indivual speculation by
members of the firm, customers,
and clerks to the amount of
5000, 900. These conditions,
Phillips states, have not affected
the financial standing of the firm,
which, he says, is solvent, there
being no creditors other than
customers, and he says there is
money enough to pay them.
The career of George II. Phil
lips on the board has been mete-
ORIG. He is about 80 years old
and in the few years he has been
an operator he has been unusual
ly fortunate. He first came into
prominence in the trade during
the 20-cent advance in wheat in
June last year. He made about
So5, 900 in his individual specula-
tons at that time and sold out
around the top when older spec
ulators were beginning to get
"long."
This was followed by the corn
deal of last November, which
profted the firm $4,000 and
made Phillips more notorious
|
han any broker in Chicago.
The prestige given Phillips in
the November deal made it easy
for him to get a large following
when he and L's partners deter
mined to run {. May deal. Spec
ulators throughout the country
who are ever ready to invest
their money in corn where they
think it safe, fiocked to him,
owing to the advertising given
it. Their operations became SO
heavy that the trade grew suspi-
cious, and when they were
'1ong" over 100000 bushels
of corn and oats at the end of
March and the first part of April
a raid was inaugurated and prices
dropped SHARPLY to shake the
Phillips interests out.
Greatly to the surprise of the
bear leaders Phillips simply
held on to the grain he had and
bought more on the decline
Fierce margin calls were re-
stored to, and in less than two
days 5000, 600 was put up.
This was the first real showing
of strength the Phillips people
made. 1t gave the trade an in
dlcation of the metal they were
made of, and since then there
has been no resorting to similar
tactics. The deal was closed
with an average profit of z cents,
netting about a million dollars,
on which the commissions were
SIS. 900. small figure consider
ing the risks.
The pool contained $50 mem
bers, and it was great surprise
to the trade that SO young and
inexperienced man as Phillips
could hold together so many
country spectators so long a
time. There has always been a
great deal of complaint among
the country members of the pool
over their inability to learn at
what price they were sold out.
as they had an idea that they
/ could be put in at the bottom and
out at the top without regard to
market conditions.
CRESCEUS MAKES NEW