Los Angeles herald., 1905-06-25
GOSSIP AND CHAT FROM
THE BIG METROPOLIS
NEW YORK NEWS ABOUT OUR
RENT MEN AND THINGS
Thomas F. Ryan and His Great Rise.
A Factor to Be Reekoned With.
Both Sides Pleased With Four
Year MayoraIty Term

Special Correspondence Of The Herald.
NEW YORK. June 24.-By his
Napoleonio move in the Equitable
situation, Thomas F, Ryan has
| placed himself at once In the
very front rank of financiers.
For years he had been regarded as one
Of the strongest men In the street, but
now he is spoken of in the same breath
with J. Pierpont Morgan, John ID.
Rockefeller, William Rockefeller and
Henry II. Rogers. He has distanced
ell others.
Worth millions in his own right, the
controlling spirit in the National Bank
of Commerce. the active head of the
Morton Trust company an important
factor In the Mutual Life, in control
of all the surface traction lines on
| Manhattan island and in the outlying
Bronx borough, one of the largest indi-
vidual stockholders of the American
Tobacco company and also in the light
ing companies, both gas and electric,
in Greater New York, Thomas f. Ryan
certainly is a man who must be reck-
oned with in all future big deals in the
world Of high finance.
Yet this man of might only a few
years ago was a poor boy fighting for
his livelihood. He now is but 81 years
of age, and was left an orphan at the
age of 5, with no prospects. Relatives
in Virginia cared for him until he was
sixteen, and then he became a clerk
in wholesale dry goods house, only to
get bank clerkship two years later
in Baltimore.
New York soon attracted him, and in
the old days when a stock exchange
membership cost but $4,000, he secured a
seat and from that time on was fully
able to care for himself and all who
were connected with him. His genius
for combinations carried him success
fully through the Richmond Terminal
DEAL through the Georgia Railway and
Banking company formation, through
the Hooking Valley litigation and the
Pere Marquette reorganization, and
finally through the formation of the
Metropolitan Street railway combina-
tion, which brought together the sur
face lines of the old city of New York.
With such record of accomplishment,
and yet but 81, it is small wonder that
Wall street is intently watching the
man whose latest achievement was to
save the Equitable from disaster.
Interest has become very keen in the
coming municipal election. Through
enactment of the Legislature and ap-
proval of the governor early in the
month the terms of the mayor and of
the other chief officials of the city gov
ernment have been extended from two
to four years, and the first officials to
be benefited by the increased term will
be those to be elected in November
next.
With four years in power as the prize,
in city with an annual budget which
lllo year ISdCIltS $lIU,UUU,UUU, DOCn par
ties are striving with might and main
for victory. One of the strangest fea-
lures of the entire situation is the fact
that both the Republican and the DEM
ocratic organizations favor the four
year term proposition, and each believes
that it will be the beneficiary.
Had not the leaders of each organiza-
ton felt as they do the four-ter law
never would have been enacted, for the
measure had to have the approval of a
Democratic mayor and of a Republican
governor after being passed through a
Republican Legislature with Democratic
votes.
Mayor McClellan's denomination by
the Democratic organization is not