The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-03-24
HOW HE OUTWlTTED kEENE AND
HIS FRIENDS.
We MADE MANY MILLIONS
Had the Laugh on His Rival and Re.
tanned Control Of Southern Pa,
cifc Railroad.

Talbot j. Taylor & Co. has issued a
call for proxies to be voted at the
annual meeting of the Southern Pa
cific on April 8. Union Pacific has
also sent out a call for similar proxies.
The meaning Of these two events is
very plain. 1t is that the speculative
forces of Wall streets greatest specu-
lator are arrayed for battle against
the corporate powers at the command
q Wall streets greatest railroad king.
The origin Of the struggle dates
back more than a year. At that time
James R. Keene began to ask various
capitalists in Wall street certain ques-
tons relative to the possibility Of get
ting up a pool in Southern Pacific
stock. AS week followed week more
and more of Wall streets speculative
fraternity profesed a willingness to
enlist under the banner of Mr.. Keene
il a. campaign to put this stock thirty
Or forty points higher than ruling
quotations. All last spring Mr.. Keene
and his lieutenant, Talbot J.. Taylor,
worked increasingly in the completion
of this pool. They tried the market
thoroughly. They put the stock
through it's PAGES and discovered just
how much it could be moved by the
buying of a certain amount; how cas-
lily it broke under selling, how strong
a bear party had to be met and de-
feated on each move of the game,
how much capital it vas necessary
to have behind the manipulation and,
in fact, they gained in those months
Of skirmishing all the knowledge that
it was deemed necessary to possess
if the undertaking of the pool was
to be carried through to a successful
termination. S
On Mr.. Keene's return from Europe
last GUNNER the real campaign be-
gan. The great leader told his friends
that it would be short and sharp, and
that by the end of September Southern
L dClllC WOulu NC oClllllS dt PAL. ~
pool at the beginning of this short
campaign consisted of about 100000
shares of the stock of the Southern
Pacific and was composed of about
eighty members. 1t was the biggest
speculative pool, and the richest, that
Wall street has ever see 1t had
behind it an aggregate capital of near
~ 500, 000, 900. The members of it
were strong and confident, amongst
them were numbered some of Wall
streets oldest and wisest brokers, at
least two railroad presidents, two
chairmen of railroad boards, and five
independently wealthy capitalists.
Hardly a mar in it but was a director
of one or more corporations whose
stock is listed on the stock exchange.
The Wall street public knew vague
ly of the pool and to a man believed
that it would be carried through to a
successful conclusion. The name of
Keene worked wonders. They knew
him as a man who had tasted of both
victory and defeat in the war of Wall
street. The older ones remembered
how once he had gone down in failure,
and with what wonderful he
had risen again to power and wealth.
The younger ones knew him as the
great bear" the man whose on
'%slsughts on the market had many a
time put to route the strongest bull
forces of the street. OF more recent
years they knew him as the man who
had scattered to the farthest corners
of the earth the stocks of the United
States Steel corporation. For two
years he had been the most consistent
bull. He had been the right-hand
man of J. P. Morgan. He had accom-
plished in two years what no syndi-
cate had dared to undertake, namely,
The distribution of the billiOn-dOllar
capital of the United States Steel.
He had accomplished this distribution
at high prices by the most remarka-
BILE bull campaign in all the varied
history of the street. What difficulty,
then, they argued, would this man
have in distributing to the public
300, 900 shares Of such a stock as the
Southern Pac:fc'
At the outset Mr.. Keene assured
the members OF the pool that Mr.. E.
H. Hartman would not oppose in any
way the pool operation. They scat
tered literature across the continent
to tell the public that the Southern Pa
, cifc pool was going to put the stock
up partly in order that the 100000
shares hell by The IInion Pacific and