The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-12-20

underwriting, few persons in New York
knew him, and he was very much in
the background of the financial
world.
Then came the formation of the
United States Steel Corporation. the
| absorption by it of the American Steel
and Wire Company, and the begin
ming Of one of the greatest bull move
ments in stocks that the world has
ever known. Smith was Johnny-on-
the-Spot and on the right side of the
market. 1t may be said, in passing,
that thus far in his career Smith has
always been on the right side of the
market.
A Characteristic of the man is to plan
a campaign of speculation all by him.
self, get all the information to be had
that can be of any value to him, and
then back his judgment to the limit
of his capital. But the moment there
is turn in the market against him
Smith loses no time in closing out all
his holdings, even at small loss, if
necessary, and waits for new develop
ments to manifest themselves.
From the winter 1899 until the be-
! ginning of the recent bear movement
Smith continued on the right side of
the market, and. considering the cap
| ital with which he began his operations
in the street, his profits were enormous.
w ACll Tic TUE DGSdu 10 luItl, OHllln
! threw out his kedge anchors to steady
himself, while he closed out, pretty
| generally at a profit, the lines of stock
/ which he held. 1t might be supposed
/ that such man would have imme-
diately Topped over to the bear side of
the market and profited accordingly.
Not so with Smith. He promptly
! gathered in his profits and invested a
/ good part of them in New York real
estate, which he holds to-day.
His largest investments were in real
estate in The Bronx, but he also got
( some good bargains in the heart of
( Manhattan Island, including the fine
/ property at 173 Madison avenue. A
/ man who knows something of his real
/ estate transactions said the other day
that Mr.. Smith could close out his
holdings of New York realty now at a
profit of a million.
Real estate speculation absorbed Mr..
Smiths attention until quite recently,
when the cotton situation looked to
him to be worth investigating. He in
vestigated it and came to the conclu-
sion that this years crop was going to
| be small. Therefore, he ciphered out,
cotton was buy; and buy it he did.
He got into the market quickly and
got out quickly, and took with him a
few hundred thousand dollars as a re-
| suit or the plunge. Many months De-
fore that a good friend of his, who
probably knows more about the coffee
market than any man in this country,
/ told Smith some thing about coffee.
With that information Smith began to
study the coffee situation himself. AS
a. result, he sold coffee short, accord
ing to those in the trade who should
know for nearly year. A few days
before the recent rise in the market he
began to buy coffee in large quanti-
ties to cover his shorts. He covered,
4 took his profits, which were not small,
and now he is regarded as coffee
bull
In his operating in Wall street, Mr..
Smith does not intend, II he can help
it, that anybody shall get on to his
curves. To that end, he has accounts
in four or five different Stock Elk
change houses, and it is said that I'M
der no circumstances does he ever al
low one of his brokers to know any
thing about the business he does with
the others And this is the man who
came out of the West five years ago
with not more than 100000 in cash.
and in that time has cleaned up $5,-
100000!