The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-12-27
LIFE STORY READS
LIKE A ROMANCE
Col, Bill Greene Typical Ranch
man and Plunger
ANECDOTES FULL OF COLOR
The Man Who Is Now More Than
Ever In the Public Eye Has Had
Career of Exceptional
Interest. \.
ANECDOTES FULL OF COLOR

From the New York World.
William Cornell Greene, who made
flying leap to fame by spending $4,000
OIL. newspaper advertisements last Tues
day, simply to publicly denounce Thos.
". Lawson as a liar. fakir and charla-
tan, is a curious tumble of Bat Master
son and j. Pierpont Morgan.
He came to New York four years ago.
the sole owner of a property which in
1902 had an actual market value of $685.
O16,0O0 Today his real friends hate to
think of how much ne has got left
Wall street has been a terribly costly
venture with him. His money has been
taken away from him in wads that
would stagger half a dozen national
banks. He boosted on Tuesday that
he had s15,0OO.0OO left to fight Lawson.
On Thursday he admitted that the two
days of the Lawson slump in Greene
Consolidated Copper had cost him ex-
actly s4143 32s.17. At that time he de-
clared he had s5.OO0OOO left to fight Law
son.
Where all his millions have gone is
no secret to the men who have followed
| his Wall street career closely. Many of
them regard him as the most colossal
"angel' that ever got south of Pine
| street The estimates that these men
place upon the remnant of his wealth
| do not tally with the most recent of his
| own figures. They are lower by a wide
margin.
His title of colonel is purely cour-
tesy. 1t was given him when with his
sudden and stupendous bound to enor-
nous riches he abandoned the less con-
ventlonal sobriquet of Bronco Bill. :"
| by which he was known in Southern
Arizona for over a quarter of a century.
Native of Westchester.
| Colonel Greene is forty-eght years old.
| He was born in Westchester county, a
| few miles above the present New York
| City line, his family being very nice
people but not distinguished in any way
He got the western fever before he
reached the age of manhood and finally
| drifted to Southern Arizona, not far
from the Mexican line. Bisbee, a little
town forty miles from the line, was the
metropolis which knew him best until he
became a thirty-time millionaire.
People who thought the Colonel suf
fered with cold feet" when he failed
to go to Lawson's Boston office on sche-
dule time, and characterized him as a
'four-fiushing bad man." made mis-
take.
He has a number of absurd hangers-on
and they tell absurd stories about his
ability as a gun-hghter his courage,
nerve etc Conservative men who knew
him in the old days In Arizona declare
that while these stories are ridiculous the
colonel was as good an all-around man
as the average expert piainsman. He
could shoot with the best of them, ride
of 0ar wit
West of them, and never showed the
white feather in times of stress. He herd
ed cattle in a dangerous Indian country
and twenty years ago shot at Indians
and was shot at by Indians times in
Vulnerable.
One of the absurd stories told about
the Colonel is this. The end of the Sec
ond finger of his left hand is missing.
A bullet took 1t off. In one of his In
dian fights twenty odd years ago he
was surrounded by small band. The
firing brought his cowboy friends UP on
the gallop. They found him lying dazed
In the grass behind his dead horse. He
was wounded in two or tire Places one
of the wounds being on the finger. A
count of dead Indians was made on the
line of the circle which the attacking
party made Thirteen corpses was the
total
Col. Greene is anything but the plains
man in appearance today. High living,
rich food and the luxurious life of a
multi millionaire in this city during the
past four years has piled mountains of
fat on him.. He is about feet 10 inches
tall and weighs 230 pounds or more. He
is not only fat, he is fiabby. Any exer-
tion makes him puff. rheumatism as
sails him at times. He has a rich forid
color, not the kind due to outdoor life,
but to liberal patronage of a gener-
orsly equipped table.
The Colonel is good-natured but explo-
sive. In the company of millionaires he
affects the manners of the plainsman. In
the company of ordinary mortals he af-
fects the manner of the millionaire; the
sold, substantial man of weighty business
| AFFAIRS: the flnancier whose utterances
are of deep import to the Wall street
world.
| Here is the way the Colonel came to
| be the owner of property that had
| value of SSS, 0000 900 and more. Just across
| the Mexican Inc from Southern Arizona
was a great tract of pasture land which
was purchased in 1885 by a syndicate of
Californiants headed by United States
| Senator George C. Perkins.
There was a number of ranches on the
property One of them was called the
Cananea- The land was in the state of
| Sonora. Year after year the land af-
forded fair grazing for the cattle kept
| upon 1t.
In the latter part of the sOs "Broncho
| Biz Greene had amassed enough
money to give up cattle herding and to
| purchase a small ranch of his own In
| Southern Arizona close to the Mexican
| line. His ranch prospered and he began
tc pile up money. In his variegated life
| he had picked up a practical knowledge
/ of mining and the value of ore
There Is a peculiar law in Mexico.
| Grants to pasture lands. such as the
Perkins syndicate had obtained. do not
carry with them title to certain min
| erals which may be found on the land,
| such as copper, gold or silver. ANY
person can go on to private lanos and
locate for gold. silver and copper If
he finds 1t he can put in a claim for the
land. All that he has to do is to pay
| a fair price based upon its value as a
| pasture Should the owner refuse to
| sell he can get possession by condemna
tion proceedings after paying a nominal
price.
Copper on Neighbours Land.
Greene's little ranch was on the Ari-
zona side of the me, the pasture land
| of the Perkins syndicate was on the
| Mexican side. Greene frequently rode
| over the property of his neighbors In
| 1899 he got an idea from his mining
knowledge that there might be copper
| deposits on the Cananea ranch. He
prospected quietly and In the end To-
| Gated eight mines. He put in his claims
for the property and the Perkins syndi-