The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-07-27
JOHN W. GATES in WALL STREET.


! him, and he questioned-so this WAL
dorf chronicle runneth
! Don't you think you would rather
buy something else than STEELE"
mo; just Steel is what 1 want" was
| the answer.
| steel or nothing?" inquired Gates.
Steel" persisted the point disburser
/ Now. l am sorry" quoth Mr.. Gates,
J sorry you won't take anything else,
for 1 think there are other things that
are going up quicker-Alton or Chesa-
| peake, or Fuller Construction, for ex-
ample-now, don't you really think
start boom in offhand?" Mr.. Gates
went on.
No; steel was ready to move, and it
was going to move
MIR. Gates produced a pencil and he
produced the back of an envelope, and
pencil and paper he passed to his en-
tertainer.
Make some figures" he said.
"How many minutes in an hour?'
Sixty"
How many hours in a day?"
''Twenty-four."
How many days in a year,"
Three hundred and sixty-five?"
How many years since the Chris
tan era began?"
Nineteen hundred and two"
80 1 thought" said Gates.
The man with the lead pencil and
the back of the envelope looked a lit
tie mystified. Two or three neighbors
were getting interested. And Gates
proceeded:
Figure. Multiply sixty by twenty
four, and you have got LAO minutes
in day; multiply LAO by S65, and you
have 525,600 minutes in a year; multi
ply 525,6 500 by 1000, and you have 1,051,-
200, 000-just about the exact amount
of stock that the United States Steel
Corporation has issued-over a dollar
for every minute since Christ was
born"
Mr.. Gates friends say this is not
true story of him. He is a bull on
steel. And he's no mathematical crank,
anyhow.
That the Gates memory is good, and
that old collisions if forgiven are not
forgot, may be surprised from the
market attitude John w. Gates main
tains toward Brooklyn Rapid Transit.
Before the Steel Trust swept trade
rivalries out of the field, the Gates in
terests in American Steel and Wire
were continually in antagonism with
Federal Steel. controlled by Gov.
Flower and his friends, Wherefore it
vas JAW az . easy LllSu " SuCCQIlD ~
a temptation to sell any of the Flower
stocks short, Brooklyn Rapid Transit
the favorite; and though he has big
brokerage firm OF his own now, neither
Mr.. Gates nor any of his associates
are ever heard of trying to help the
Brooklyn property to better quotations.
When President Greatsinger quit Tom
Lowry and Minneapolis to come to
Brooklyn to take charge year or so
ago of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit
system, Gates welcomed him as one
Western man always will welcome an
other; but still the old-time bearish-
ness tarried-wherefore a Brooklyn di-
rector, bent on missionary work insist
ed the other day on learning from Mr..
Gates himself just why this chilliness.
You see," responded Mr.. Gates, Il
believe in combining myself to railway
and industrial stocks; 1 can't afford to
go into an operate company"
How is that-operatic company"
"Yes-operatic company. l hear that
Lillian Russell and Jean de Reszke are
going into the board of directors. You
owe your company's salvation to the
fact that you have got a Greatsinger
at the head of it"
Mr.. Edward Wasserman, who loves
Mr.. Gates ardently enough to collect
commissions from him, tells Mr.. Jesse
LSWlSOllh IIldL MI. 0dl0S really mas d
way of his own making jokes.
They who measure John w. Gates
in his relations, at least to the serious
business side of life, will be much mis-
led, however, if they hasten to the con-
clusion that he is only an audacious
Spectator, an accident merely. He is
capable; he can comprehend a financial
| situation. He can see weaknesses afar
| off, he can discern where strength and
| nrfrl mi arn =
mind being called plunger-chooses,
! indeed, thus often to denominate him
self-they who lately have had his CO.
operation in large affairs, credit him
| with prudence abundance. He is not
at all the much-heralded sprinter, for
ever rushing sportively into risks, the
bigger the quicker; that good Scotch
blood in his veins is of fine old vint-
| age. A. Allaway.