The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1905-06-07
THE DISEASE OF WEALTH.
Russell Sage Passed his Ninetieth Year
but Does NOT Abate one jOt from
His Stingy Career.

SdBo ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF huSSSu sage as
follows:
Russell Sage is lying hopelessly i'll in
his brownstone residence at 632 Fifth
avenue, near the corner of 5Oth street.
There is nothing the matter with him
except old age and what the doctors
call senile debility. His tough, old
frame is worm out; his mind is weaken
ing, and his feeble shanks refuse to
carry him any longer. But he is nearly
ninety years old. Nature is simply as
sorting itself. His faculties are infrm,
but his ruling passion is as strong as it
ever was. Although his memory is al
most gone, he never forgets the days
for the meetings of the boards of di-
r%ectors of which he is a member, and al
ways sends his brother-in-law, Mr.. Slo-
cum, down town to get the ~ten-dollar
gold pieces to which he is not entitled,
but which are paid as fees to the direc-
tors who attend. Mr.. Sage is not en-
titled to the fee any more than any 9TH
err absent director, but he demands it
Just the same, and his associates are
willing to pay it rather than disturb his
peace of mind. Mr.. Sage is a member
of twelve or fifteen corporations. His
fees as a director amount to $50 OF 500
a week, and although he has a hundred
millions or more in stocks and bonds
packed away in safe-deposit vaults and
drawing interest among twenty or thir-
ty banks, he grasps at them as though
they were necessary to keep his flicker
ing light aflame.
He is a director in all of the Gould
companies, and up to two OF three
months cam down town every day
to meet with the boards. He was so fec
him in, and five minutes after he vas
placed in his chair he would fall asleep
from weakness and would not waken
until the meeting was over MI. Gould
told him it was not necessary for him
to come down for the meetings and
promised to send him a typewriter
copy of the minutes and the attendance
fee if he would remain at home. when
he reluctantly consented to do. The
next day, when the board adjourned,
his brother-in-law, Mr.. Slocum, was
waiting in the hall to get the minutes
and the money. He was told hat they
would be sent to Mr.. Sage by mail. In
the afternoon he returned, saying that
Mr.. Sage preferred, hat he should
bring the money himself, and he would
| not laayn until bn woo o;vop n cIO cold
piece. Every time a meeting of any of
the boards of which Mr.. Sage is a mem
Der has been held since, Mr.. Slocum
has appeared and remained until he has
gotten the money.
Mr.. Sage is not in such a hurry about
the minutes. He is willing to have them
sent by mail; but he is not capable of
reading them or understanding them if
they are read to them. He has lost his
grasp upon everything except money;
and it is only with the greatest difficulty
that he ear be induced to sign papers
which require his signature. He has
always been suspicious of the motives
of every one he had had business with
even of his w employees-Mr. Slo-
cum, Mr.. Osborn, who has been his
private secretary for more than forty
years, his physician, DR.. Mum, and
even of his wife. 1t sometimes takes
the combined influence of these people
to persuade him to sign n document.
For nearly a year he has had an at
tendant to go around with him. His
family and friends were urging him for
several months before he could be per-
suaded to employ one, and even then he
did not consent to do so until it was
arranged to place the man on the pay
roll of the corporations of which he is a
director, so that he would not be re-
CURED to pay him wages.
While many of the stories that are
told of Mr.. Sage's miserly habits and
eccentricties are fictitious, none of them
are eXaggerations. 1t would be almost
impossible for any one to imagine a
man more economical and stingy than
he. Although his income is reckoned at
S5, 900 a day, at least, and some people
think it is twice that amount, he has
lived at the rate of SIS, 600 a year or less
and his personal expenses have not
been a hundred dollars a year. That is
a very liberal estimate. He has two
suits of clothes; one for week days and
the other FOR Sunday, and he has worm
them as long as anybody a remem-
Der. He has not bou. a new over
coat for fifteen or t years, and
his hat is quite as Oh nat, if not
older. A few years az ut for a
gentleman who had dor, a favor,
and, in a confidential WY, said that he
was going to reward him with a ''tip"
that he could work for a profit. Then,
to the mans establishment, Mr.. Sage
gave him the address of a store on 7th
avenue where he could get shoes for
So a pair.
To save time, the Western Union
Telegraph Company serves a free lunch
to it's operators, and Mr.. Sage appeared
every day at a certain hour. A seat
was kept for him at a certain table up
to the last day he came downtown. He
never paid fare on the elevated rail
road, because he was a director, and
the ticket takers had instructions to let