Los Angeles herald., 1905-11-05
Banking i'm Bonanza Days


sum of money, and needed it at once,
and Fair supplied IT to them and re-
sumed his connection with the bank.
How great the stress was, was guessed
when even the Flood block on Market
street was mortgaged.
One would suppose that Fair, seeing
the fate of his partners in trying to
corner the worlds wheat market, would
let that fad severely alone. Not So
He in turn plunged in and was glad
TO draw out with a loss which was
generally estimated at from twelve to
fifteen millions of dollars. He was for
! tunately so situated that he could
stand the pressure and pass the incl
dent to profit and loss. Flood was
dead, and Mackay had had all the
wheat speculation he cared for.
AS for the bank itself, it meandered
along and was as far as ever from con-
ciliating the good will of he. CONNER
cial community. Money it had in
abundance, but WOO it ever so ardently,
the business man was coy. Gen.
Houghton was placed at its head but
still the commercial classes stood
aloof.
Here for Its Head
1t was at this stage of its affairs that
Mackay and Fair conceived the wise
Idea of coming to Los Angeles for a
head for their hitherto unmanageable
institution. The fame of l. w. He'll
man as a financier had penetrated to
San Francisco, and even to New York
In the latter city he had affiliations
with the most influential capitalists,
and bankers like the Seligmans and
Others some of them his near relatives.
twenty-five years ago the great mil
lionaire, Michael Reese offered He'll
man a salary of $4,000 a year if he
would go up to San Francisco and su-
perintend his business affairs. Like
Michael Reese, the Nevada bank peo-
pie, about the opening of the nineties.
thought the president of the Farmers
and Merchants bank of Los Angeles
was the man for the hour, and they in
vited him to go up to San Francisco
to reorganize their bank and become
its heau. The work was carried out
with an aplomb. a completeness and a
success which has been rarely equaled
and never surpassed on the Pacific
coast.
Anyone who goes down to Front and
SAMSON streets on a Jewish holiday
and notices the almost universal closure
of the business houses on such occa-
sions would be almost tempted to think
the whole commerce of San Francisco
was i'm the hands of the Hebrews. They
at once identified themselves with Mr..
Hellman, their fellow religionist. and
the long neglected Nevada bank shot
up to the financial empyrean with a
Los Angeles banker directing its course
From that day Fair and Mackay and
young Flood had no occasion for any
anxiety about their banking interests
and the financial goose swung high
The whole incident was highly in
structve and almost spectacular.
OF all places on the footstool Los An
geles was the locality for doing a bank
ing business n generation ago. anC
even later. The ordinary get ricf
quickster" was not i'm It with the
banker Of that day l once heard the
late i. j. Rose say that he had paid
over 100000 for money which he had
borrowed at 21s per cent a month, and
II such rates were paid by the owner
OF the famous Sunny Slope ranch what
must have been charged to the poor
man?
High Interest
/ With Governor John G.. Downey
charging poor Ferguson 12h per cent
month, and all sorts Of sums like that