The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-31

From the Baltimore News.
 "IIow do you think of Thomas F. Ryan as q philanthropist?" was asked today of John Skelton Williams of Rich mond, a member of the house of John L. Williams & Sons. and founder and for mer president the Seaboard Air Line system. Mir Williams sentiments toward MT. Ryan are well known. He laughed and said:
 Really, l like to talk that subject It is very serious, of course, both in it's general aspects and some of it's results, but there Is no reason why we should overlook its humorous elements. l can not hope to do justice to these. The genius of Mark Twain or Dickens could not do that. 1 have, however, the quali- iication of some personal experience. Mr. Hartman is likewise blest. Maybe as his experience is more recent than mine his feelings are more acute and his descrip- tive powers are in better working order By frequent use in this matter mine are slightly faugued; yet my sense of the ridiculous is invariably aroused when read of professions of virtue and public spirit and protestations of philanthropy by MT. Ryan. When l first saw that he had purchased the Equitable stock to save the company and protect the policy holders, my lungs, liks those to Jacques in As You Like It, began to crow like chanticleer. When 1 was told by the newspapers what Mir. Harrimans experi- ence had been with the philanthropist, 1 think l laughed long half hour by the church clock.
 l Am Not Only Victim. 'I don't rejoice over the misfortunes or mistakes of any other man. To tell the truth, 1 was rather laughing at myself. l don't give up fights easily when l feel that l have been wronged, and am not yet sure that MT. Ryan has won the ob- ject of his transactions with me- which was the control of the Seaboard Air Line Railway system. However that may be, did hope that l might serve as a hor- i1be example, solemn warming, an omi- nous bone at the mouth of the wolf S den, or something of that kind Yet here comes MT Harrimon, justly esteemed as one of the shrewdest, sharpest and most thoroughly sophisticated masters of finance in the world, and walks into the same trap. l do not say or suppose that he believed any more than l do you do, or anybody else on earth does that MT. Ryan was purely dlsinterested and working for our fine old friend, Pro bono Publico. Like me, however, he did ac- cept MT. Ryan's solemn and repeated
 
 faith. Doubtless MT. Hartman realized that with men of MT. Ryan's kind cer- tain playing to the public, some solemn pretenses and posturing, are natural. That is the tribute, Addison l believe it is, says of hypocrisy in general, that vice pays to virtue almost inyoluntarily. No doubt 1t was outside of Mr. Harr- mans experience, as 1t was of mine, that business man supposed to be req sonably reputable should deliberately yio- late a solemn and personal promise de- liberately given.
 There are degrees of moral depravity and social recklessness so far down that they escape the conceptions of men ac- customed to be decent and to deal with decency, whatever inward rottenness and falsehood it may be used to mask.
 MT. Ryan, in overcoming my original reluctance to giving him control of the voting trust, assured me that he would make no attempt to diminish my status or influence the value of which he en- larged upon, in the management of the Seaboard affairs, and that his purpose was to hold up my arms. The hold-up part was right enough: but 1t was | and my honest and well meaning associates, trying to establish a great independent railway system and to develop the great south, who were held up,' and 1t was our hands we held up, instead of hay ing our arms sustained.
 Says Hartman Bought Gold Brick.
 ''Mr. Ryan secured NIT. Hartman help in electing Paul Mortion president Of the Equitable, rFonsising to stand by him and allow him to participate in the future management of the society. He forced MT. Hartman to stand by and permitted him to participate in the pleas ures of the occasion as d spectator. Evi-