The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1902-05-16
CECIL RHODES SUCCESSOR.
ALFRED BELT, WHO IS WORTH A PALTRY
HUNDRED MILLION.

h't'9 III Tue "ofH': is COMING lioill uH-
der cover. He will be, in many res
poets, Rhodes successor, and the
fierce light that beats upon a throne
viii soon make hlm one Of the most
talked about men of the time.
His name is Alfred Belt Short and
ugly as it is, that name could make an
otherwise worthless bit of paper into
a check that might be used to shake
Wall street and Lombard street to the
foundations. Whether he is really
richer than JOHN D. Rocke feller is a
question that Beit himself probably
could not answer. Two men who
have been closely associated with him
in widely different ways have told me
in the last few days that this financier
could probably not scrape together
more than 500, 600 900 or so just now
although it has been stated in print
that he has that many pounds, or $780,
100000. Both of these authorities
agreed, however, that the end of the
war in South Africa, where this for
tune has its roots, would assuredly
bring a prodigious increase in the Belt
wealth.
If he keeps on at the rate of the
last 10 years, the world will not have
to wait much longer before getting its
first sight of Millionaire.
This mysterious multi-millionaire
was born in the same year, 1858, as
the man into whose shoes he is ex-
pected to step. Likes Rhodes, he is
bachelor, and for the same reason
that Rhodes and Kitchener got the
credit of being woman-h haters-because
they were two much engrossed in their
ambitions to have time to give atten-
:nr to domestic affairs.
Lnr Rhodes, again, lie gave no in
dication in youth of being anything
unusual. lie was born in Hamburg
40 years ago, coming of an old, solid
Hebrew family, not vastly wealthy,
but rich enough to give him good
education in the German schools and
to get him a good place in u banking
house. His !uc., began when he was
% and was drawn to South Africa by
news of the diamond discoveries. He
got there little before Cecil Rhodes
arrived, in the hope of keeping out of
the early grave to which his physician
had surrendered him.
Belt made money as diamond mcr-
chant at Kimlerpv, and invested it in
diamond mines, which brought him
into close touch with young Rhodes,
who was laying the foundations of his
fortune by his scheme :or consolidating
the diamond interests scheme that
proved a godsend to Belt. In fact,
Belt seems to have been Rhodes chief
helper in the business.
Belt branched out into the banking
business, becoming a partner in the
firm of Jules Porges & Co., predeces-
sors of the present great firm of Wer-
ner, Belt & Co. When gold was dis
covered in the Transvaal, Belt was on
the ground floor again, and, with his
Johannesburg partner, Herman Eek
stein, soon became one of the great
captains of the South African gold in
dustry. He is credited with having
transformed South African gold-min-
ing from a speculation into steady
we'll organized, conservative business.
He had the good Judgment to import
the highest quality of American ma
chinery and to pay prodisious salaries
to such mining en- ngineers as John Hays
Hammond, Herman Jennings and Louis
Seymour to advise and superintend
the huge enterprise, which, before the
war, was putting out $50, 100000
worth of precious metal year, and
which, besides paying heavy taxes to
Kruger, turned s20,000,000 a year OF
profit over to its shareholders.
This lucky son of Hamburg was
grubbing along with only meagre
two or three millions in 1890. Most
of the stream ct wealth that has pour
ed into his Golfers ever since came from
the gold of Johannesburg and the dia-
monds of Kimberley. Some of the di-
mond fortune was pure luck, When
Rhodes, Belt and poor Barney Bar
nato became life governors, under the
original De Beers charter, they stipu-
lated, without dreaming that much
would come of it beyond making an
impression on the shareholders, that
they shou,l have one-fourth of the pro-
fits, after the Company had paid 80
per cent. to the shareholders. But the
diamonds were so astoundingly plen-
tiful that this fourth of the surplus
turned out for 10 years before the war
about Sl,00O,0OO year. When it is
considered that Rhodes and Belt were
likewise the chief shareholders, with
their 80 per cent. and their three
fourths of the surplus profit, one can
understand how it is that they didn t
run short Of pin money.
The Belt interests, however, are not
limited to johannesburg and kimber'