Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1907-08-08
The simple life is decimating Wall

+ ~ = d .
The passion for playing the market,
for dealing in stocks and bonds, for
efecting financial deals on whose issue
hung millions, was thought to be a
lure SO powerful that once in its grasp
no man could ever withdraw.
But this must be fallacy, for with
in few weeks three of the most pow
erful operators on the street, Thomas
r. Ryan. John w. Gates and Charles
G. Gates, have quit finance, and are
now seeking the simple life.
Shades of Jay Gould. Russell Sage
and a hundred other giants who died
In harness. 1t is hard to credit!
Gates went first, and his son went
/ with him.
John w was admittedly the greatest
gambler in the country, if not in the
world. On game of chance, on any
stock deal that looked good, on horse
race, on even the turn of a coin, he
| would bet a million dollars as coolly
as the man in moderate circumstances
would risk a SIS note, and he knew how
to lose gracefully.
No one disputes Gates pre-eminence
as a gambler. His pet phrase, Bet
you a million" was famous from one
end of the land to the other, and none
ever took liberties with his habit of
using it. for they knew that John w.
was likely at any minute to make a
bluff good
Gates is still young man as mill
| ionaires go, and it is a matter of sur
prise that at fifty-two he is willing to
| get out Of Wall street and take himself
and his son to Europe merely to have
a good time, and forget the old battles
of millions that used to give him his
fay\"ite amusement.
AS start in life he sold barbed wire
long before this valuable check on the
straying habits of cattle had become
popular. In a few years Gates made
more money out of the business than
he could count
Then he came in contact with j.
Pierpont Morgan, from whom he Dor
rowed $3.50, 900 with which to buy steel.
He purchased SO much that the price
jumped to $40 a ton, and he made
100000 merely by letting Carnegie
have 10000 tons Of the steel he bought
with the money borrowed from Nor
gan.
This success convinced Gates that
he had too much ability for what is
now called called high finance to waste
his time in the detail of straight bust
ness. He organized a succession of
companies-The Consolidated Steel
and Wire company, The Illinois Steel
company, The American Steel and
Wire Company of New Jersey. He
became chairman of the board of di-
rectors that suggested the billion dol
lar steel trust to Morgan, and was so
successful in all he tried that soon he
was hated and admired in Wall street
above almost any man operating
there.
sensational turn of affairs that put
him in control Of the Louisville &
Nashville railroad added more to his
fame.
Luck came to him SO regularly on
Wall street that he decided to buck
harder game, and he Launched into
horse racing with prodigal hand, and
made killing after killing. So success
full were his horses that superstitious
gamblers got to the point where they
would bet anything on any animal that
came from the Gates stables, no mat
ter what it's name or by whom OPP
posed.
Gates never knew what it was to
fear any man or set of men, and some
OF his extremes offended Wall street,
which is a place not noted for an ex-
cess of scruples. But his personal pop
ularity or unpopularity never moved
Gates an iota. He was content to go