The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-16
TIE WEEKS TALK
 IN NEW YORK CITY
More About I. F, Ryan the
 Most NoiSeIeSS" Man
HIS REMARKABLE CAREER
Do the Military Courts Justify the Re. cent Criticism of Them7-ls Hos- ptality Lost Virtue In
 the Metropolis?
BY sEWElL HAGeARD.

BY SEWELL HAGGARD.
 New York. June 15.-(Speeia1.) )-There are few more interesting figures in Wall street than Thomas Fortune Ryan, who as told in this correspondence last week, is to be much less active in the financial world. Of him the late William c. Whit ney said
 He is the most adroit, suave and noise less man that American finance has ever known"
 It is these qualifications that have made Ryan the reputation of the most myster- ious man in the street" His one object has always been to keep his goings and comin5s from the public eye and he has succeeded as few other Wall street men have. In his case the Biblical njunction He does not let his right hand know what his left hand doeth," may be quoted with truth. What makes this all the mora remarkable is the fact that his interests are so widely distributed. Thomas F. Ryan has a voice in the management of perhaps a billion and a half dollars, the larger enterprises in which he is inter ested being estimated as follows:
 The Equitable Life Assurance society, with S434 ,O0O 000 of assets; the Washington Life Insurance company, with about $20. oOo'0o0 of assets; the National Bank of Commerce, with s35, GOO, 900 capital and sur plus and nearly $2O0, ,0O0OO of deposits; the Morton Trust company, with $6,5O0000 cap 1tal and $S0,00O,00O of deposits; the Mercan- TTnSt wi and surplus and $70, eco of deposits; the Equitable Trust company, with $12, 00,O10 capital and surplus and S50,M0,0OO of de- posits; the American Tobacco company, with $300,000000 capital and bonded indebt- edness and annual net earnings of $25,0O0.- GOO or more; the Interborough- Metropol- tan Street Railroad system, with S225, 0O0 0oo capital stock and bonded debt issued and authorized; the Seaboard Air Line railroad, with $125,O0O,OOO capitalization. These do not include MT. Ryan's coal and other investments in his native state of Virginia or his Congo Free State in- dustrial scheme which is in it's Incip- iency. His Congo plans involve the de- velopment under American control of the forest and mineral wealth in an area whose navigable waterways if laid over the map of Europe would extend from Finland to the toe of Italy and from Portugal to the western border of Asiatlc Russia.
 Thomas F. Ryan who became an orphan at the age of }, was brought up by his grandmother, When the civil war came along and deprived him of the means of working his home farm he went to work for a dry goods merchant in Baltimore. At the end of two years the merchant retired from business and obtained for young Ryan a place in bank in New York Three years later Ryan formed a partnership with q mem Der of the New York stock exchange. About the same .ime the man who was destined to become his chief financial enemy. Edward II. Hartman, was get ting his start.
 For ten years MT. Ryan was a success ful broker and then he tried to retire. from business, but his restless energy got the best of him and he was soon back in the fray and in the thick of 1t. With William C. Whitney he started in to reorganize the street railway proper ties of the city which was the forerunner of his activities in this line ending in the merger of all the citys transportation lines into the Interborough company some time ago.
 At almost the same time that MT. Ryan entered the traction situation in New York he undertook his first task CA 1887 that the Richmond Terminal com pany had bought Into the East Tennes- see, Virginia and Georgia railroad under the management of Alfred Sully, and en- tered upon a career of trouble. A year later a syndicate headed by H. B. Rollins and Isaac l.. Rice, planned the elimina- ton of Suly and the substitution of Gen. E. B. Alexander the president of the Georgia Central railroad. It was a size able undertaking for the day. It put Richmond in control of the largest rail road system between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, beside an ocean service.
 Public attention was attracted. In the terminal deal were J. H. Inman and Calvin S Brice of the democratic na- tional committee. as well as Gen. Samuel Thomas. Suit was begun in 1890 against the last three named. alleging conspiracy, and it was proposed to take away the charter of the Richmond terminal. By another year the tight money time was on. The company lost Its power to bor- row debts piled up and all sorts of re- adjustments were in the air, Then ap- peared a new committee, with General Thomas in its membership and some one undisclosed behind it. Thomas F. Ryan was the some one. The result was the organization of the Southern railroad, in which, by 1893, Drexel Morgan & Co. be- came interested The work was done quietly but effectively. and the Morgan" plan of reorganization of the Southern was announced in 1893.
 The bitterest fight of Ryan's career was the struggle over the Seaboard Air Line railway which he finally won. Away back in 1886 Seaboard affairs began to boil. One General Gill of Baltimore bid s00 d share for it's control when the market quota ton was 45, and the fiercest of battles started between him and k. Curzon Hoff- man, the president of the road. In the fall of that year il was announced all Of a sudden that MT. Ryan had bought con trol at $l25 d share, and would join the road with the Georgia Central. But the Hoffman pooling committee wouldn't de- liver the stock and MT. Ryan brought suit to compel them to turn over to him the majority holdings. That was one occa- sion of record on which he spoke his mind in public
 "Only one of two conclusions is possi ble," he said. Either they deliberately misrepresented the facts at the time they said they could deliver me the stock, or they deliberately broke contract which they were in fact able to perform. l own new more stock in the Seaboard Air Line railroad than all the officers and directors put together, and expect to have some thing to say regarding it's future
 MT Ryan prophesied truly. but it was far in the future before he saw the re- alization.
 While he was fighting President Fion- man in the courts a new figure appeared in the person of John Skelton Williams of Richmond, who. with J. William Mid dendorf. organized a new syndicate and offered S2O0 a share The Williams party planned a connection with the Baltimore and Ohio The courts of Baltimore re-