The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-06-26
TGRFAT MONEY KING IS NOW BREAKING DOWN
The Story of Life Devoted Solely to the Chill
Satisfaction of Making Money for Its
Own Sake.
Bv Lindsay Denison.

aV DenlSO1.
, profits was $4,000. It was enough-for
Mr.. Bates; he retired to live on his
competence. Mr.. Sage had always re-
garded Mr.. Bates as a sane and admir-
| able person-but with this evidence of
the fallibility of human judgments he
eliminated partnership from his career.
He has had associates and assistants,
but never a partner since.
Somewhere in that long. narrow head
there is a place where intUitions of the
probable course of things developed
with wonderful frequency and accura-
cy. Next to frugality and industry,
Russell Sage is rich because of his
ability to make shrewder and quicker
guesses than other men about what
]: was going to happen. 1t came to him
as essential to his future that he must
know his way about in the world Of
politics. This was in the forties; there
was no Hanna and no Hartman from
whom to learn the lesson. With the
least possible interruption of the affairs
of his store, politics became part of
Mr.. Sage's business. He became an
alderman. a delegate to the Wing ma
tional conventions, a member of Con-
gress. He played the game we'll. too;
as when. in a stopping over of flattery
on General Wool by another Troy al
derman, Mr.. Sage rose and publicly de-
manded recognition of 1.-The real hero of
the Mexican War General Zachary
Taylor, who was present; and again,
when Mr.. Sage led in the desertion of
Henry Clay for Taylor in the conven-
ton. Nearly half a century later Mr.
Sage read of the campaign of William
Mckinley for the governorship Of Ohio
and said: There comes a President
of the United States
One may study the incidents of Mr..
Sage's life with all the exact satisfac-
ton that the mathema tician has in the
working out of an intricate problem.
1t has been observed that Mr.. Sage
took time from his store to develop his
political experience-but with what
great accumulative foresight AS a
politician he was invited to inspect and
study the Troy and Schenectady rail-
road, which was an enterprise put for
ward by Thurlow Weed and other great
Wings; Mr. Sage was instantly i'm
pressed by the potentiality of railroads.
While the pioneer capitalists We're still
pottering over short railroads as an
experiment. Russell sage had convinced
himself of the certain profitable returns
of through trunk lines. The Troy and
Schenectady, as a short line. failed, and
was bought in by the city OF Troy, of
which Mr.. Sage was one of the con-
trolling financial officers. He bought
the road from the city at a fair price.
In the fullness of time. which was very
brief, once the road was in his hands,
he sold it at a profit of about $500 600
to the combination of railroads out of
which the New York Central was made
Nathaniel Banks was speaker of the
House of Representatives in which FIR
Sage first sat. Mr.. Sage (of course)
had been one of the conspicuous Banks
enthusiasts in the preliminary caucus.
Mr.. Sage wanted to be chairman of the
Committee on Ways and Means. He
was perfectly frank in explaining why.
1t was the committee nearest to the
business interests of the nation; he
could learn more of the prospects of
the country and it's industries there
than anywhere else. Mr.. Banks could
not grant the boon; Mr. Sage could
have anything else he wanted" Mr.
Sage promptly took second place on
the committee. He learned many
things which he says We're of inestima-
bic value to him at once and later.
! Meanwhile he was becoming heavily
interested in financial institutions
There We're two banks in Troy in which
ne owned very large share. There
came the stringent days when gold
commanded a premium of $50 and silver
was nearly as high. The banks were
solvent; their vaults were full of gold
and silver. Mr.. Sage had them put in
liquidation; the depositors were paid
IN paper currency-'they had no right
to complain" said the benevolent
philanthropist; did they not get 100
cents on the dollar in the midst of a
panic?"
To follow Mr. Sage through the years
would be monotonous; whether he was
In the Northwest, looking out land and
railroads and paying his way by whole
sale horse speculations, or whether he
was sitting as a stock-and- pawn
. broker in his bare, dirty little Broad
! way office, frescoed with the rude
drawings of waiting messenger boys,
there IS not one rosy warm ray Of light
across the scene. Would he have
known If it had come? Probably not.
Romance is an accident; Russell Saee's
plan of life never contemplated acct
dents except with dread. He dealt
only in what he believed to be certain
ties.
They call him the Father of Puts
and Calls" He is proud OF the title
de got II by inventing a practical way
II,
S25, $50. or 800, could risk it in the
stock market against the Sage millions
A put, roughly defined. is "a contract
! by which the seller thereof may be
/ compelled to buy from the purchaser
thereof on any day within a certain
time certain amounts of a certain
stock" A call is "a contract by which
! the seller thereof may be compelled to
sell to the purchaser thereof on any day
within certain time certain amounts
Of certain stock" Mr.. Sage has al
most always known, better than any
one else, what was going to happen in
! the stock market; the men of little
capital have thought that they knew
/ He has matched his judgment against
/ theirs for consideration by selling
them puts and calls. With his most
: sanctimonious tone and most serious
{ expression he has always said that he
/ was doing them a favor by allowing
Ergv-