The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-09

believed however. that he has yet one ambitoin that he means to gratify. That is, to be United States senator.
 MT. Ryan's rise to power in the finan- cial world was remarkable. He Is now 55 years old. He started his business career In a Baltimore dry goods house in 1S6S He soon tired of that, and in 1870 came to New York, where he got a position with a Wall street brokerage , firm. It was not long before he had made a successful venture in the stock market. With the money he made he started in business for himself. In 1874 he bought a seat on the Stock Exchange. From that time he has been a power with which Wall street has had to reckon.
 There Is Wall street tradition that MT. Ryans ambition, after he had be- come an important factor in the finan- cial world, was to accumulate $100, ,O00. eco. This he has accomplished. His fortune Is estimated by those In a position to know at considerably over that figure
 His retirement from Wall street activ- ities has been expected for some time. The first inkling of 1t came when the financier began to unload his huge holdings of stock in the Interborough-Met Railway company. This was something over a year ago.. Since that time he has grad ually sold out his stock until he holds practically no Interborough- Metropolitan shares.
 Substantiation of the rumor that he had got rid of his extensive holdings In the Consolidated Gas company was given by MT. Ryan himself before he sailed.
 As he stood on the deck of the Celtic he said
 'I don't own a dollars worth of gas"
 MT. Ryan was the man who placed the American Tobacco company in the position 1t occupies today. Exactly when he unloaded this stock Is not known Wall street found some time ago large blocks of American Tobacco securities on the market and they were literally "eaten up."l It is no secret that MT. Ryan has been selling his stock in the St. Paul and Union Pacific rail roads. He held thousands of shares in both of these corporations, but now, 1t Is said, holds comparatively few of them.
 The only interests that he has not either sold or transferred are these in the larger trust companies and banks.
 Mir Ryan holds the controlling inter- set in the Equitable Life Assurance so- ciety. He obtained this control at the the time of the company's reorganization. His Equitable stock is held in trust for five years by Grover Cleveland, Morgan J. O'Brien and George Westinghouse, and at the expiration of that time they may renew the trusteeship. The Equitable s the only large corporation, therefore, in which MT. Ryan will be obliged to keep his interest. As the trustees have com plete charge of it., MT. Ryan will not be forced to bother much about it.
 Low that Rear Admiral Coghlan has been retired they are again telling the story of how he recited the poem "Hoch der Kaiser' at dinner at the Union League club In this city and came near causing International complications. The real story of how 1t came about Is worth retelling. Admiral Coghlan was one of Dewey's advisers at Manila and figured in the friction with the German fleet there. A few days after the big battle he and Admiral Dewey were standing on the hurricane deck of the Olympia when an officer of Admiral von Diedrich came aboard to complain because one of the German ships had been stopped
 Tell your admiral those ships of his must stop when say so," said Dewey.
 But we fly the German flag an. swered the officer.
 Those flags can be bought for dollar a yard anywhere" the American Admiral retorted "A whole Spanish fleet might come at me with those colors. Tell your admiral and be explicit in saying that 1t comes from me that the slightest in- fraction of my rules will mean only one thing and that will be war. If your people are ready for war with the United States they can have it at any time"
 A few days later Coghlan was sitting on deck when some one handed him an Austrian paper of ancient date. He found in 1t the poem 'Hoch der Kaiser" and thought It so good that he memorized 1t and recited 1t at dinner of the off, cers not long afterward. The officers who were present say that the way Ad- mirai Dewey laughed is something they will never forget.
 Monrhs later at a dinner given to Coghian at the Union League club he was persuaded to recite the verses and the affair got into the newspapers and then followed the talk of international complications. But the truth of the mat.