The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-05
JOHN W. GATES IS OUT OF ONE GAMBLE Declares That He Quits Wall.
 Street Same Happy HE IS NEVER GOING BACK Advised His Customers to Get Out and Did It Himself-one Hundred to One That Roosevelt is Re-
 nominated.
HE IS NEVER GOING BACK

New York, May 4.-(speeial) )-The New York Sun says:
 Though John W. Gates, financier oil town boomer, steel maker, Wall street manipulator, railroad hustler and wor- shiper of the goddess of chance, is going away from here, his departure is not for good. He goes, but he returns. He said so last evening in his apartments at the Waldorf-Astoria. All the same, he has abandoned the Wall street game for keeps.
 'I am through with Wall street." he said I've been busy down there off and on for quite a few years, and I am | done with it. Hereafter, when 1 return to this country, I shall devote myself to the management of the business interests with which I am connected entirely apart from the stock market. I'll have enough to do to keep me busy al that, I think
 In Fine Health.
 MT. Gates smiled blandly when he was reminded that various reports had it that the savage slump that hit the market last March had put a crimp in his for tunes and those of his son.
 Nothing in that" he replied. q only hope that when other operators quit the | market they'll be able to do it with no more regret than I.''
 As heretofore related, MT. Gates and his son, Charles G., have leased hunt | ing preserve about forty miles from Paris f It contains about TOGO acres MT. and Mrs. John w. Gates will sail from New York about the middle of July and will not return until some time in October. xtfin | French hunting preserve. MT. Gates wouldn't say from whom he had leased | 1t, but he stated that 1t was from a member of the French nobility. While there he will shoot birds in drives" ac- cording to the English fashion.
 Mir Gates is now busy with the prelim- inaries attendant upon the dissolution of there lie will shoot birds in drives" ac- the stock market firm of Charles G. Gates x Co.,, which goes out of business on June l. In this firm he and John Lambert are special partners. When the firm was or ganized, about three years ago, MT. Gates put in $1,0O0,00O and MT. Lambert $1,500, | GOO.
 Mr. Gates says he is in fine health, and he looks it. He is only 52 years old and has been a resident of New York about two years and a half though his actiVi- ties have been felt here much longer than 1 that.
 ''The dissolution of the firm of Charles | G. Gates & Go. has been under consid- | eration for some time," said MT. Gates last evening, ''and we have been house. cleaning for months with that end in view. At one time we carried over mil | lion and quarter shares of stock in the active market. I don't thrz there are many firms in Wall street or anywhere else that carry anything like that amount, | But as long as last December customers grnf Ilo 1ott q ictp pcr them to get out. Most of them did so. and 1t is safe to say that very few of the | firms customers got hit in the recent slump to any considerable extent.
 "As for myself, if I had been in the mar ket heavily at that time l would have got pretty badly mixed I have always oper- arted on the bull side of the market Never had anything to do with the bear deals in all my life. Never would. I'm a bull operator by nature and belief. But at no time since last January have I car ried any heavy amount of stocks. l don't think I was carrying over 10,000 shares. when the slump hit the street As have frequently been varying 200,000 or coo shares at a time, you can see that there wasn't any great chance of my get ting badly nipped in the March unpeas- antness. As a matter of fact l haven't been deeply interested il. the market since last June"
 MT. 0dleS LOOK a lew puiIS al one or the huge cigars that he is constantly smoking. Some of his friends call them 'the big sticks of finance" He gazed re- flectively at the Messonier that decorates the wall opposite where he was citing and continued:
 ''I am of the opinion that it will be good long time before the market gets strengthened out again after the March affair. It will not be simple thing to re- adjust all values properly and it will be many months before the market is wholly normal again. All the same, it will in the end be a good thing for everybody concerned
 Change is Taking Place.
 Financial affairs in this country are | undergoing a pronounced change. It will not be so long a time before New York ceases to be the whole thing financially to anything like the extent that 1t is now. The western cities are constantly growing in financial independence. Chicago, St. Louis, St. Paul. Omaha and other cities have got to be reclioned with more and more as the years go by
 q think few people realize the fact that the total deposits in Chicago banks are not so vastly inferior to those of the Nea York banks at the present time. The bankers who do business west of the Mississippi are even HOW preferring to keep their heaviest balances in the great cities of the middle west. It's easier for them to make personal visits there than to come to New York. The financial cen ter is visibly inclinng westward.
 "Our currency system, to, is anticipated. It has been neglected, it seems to me The administration attention has repeatedly been called to the fact that the currency of the country is far too small for the business that it has to do. Yet no ade- quate steps have been taken to meet the difficulty But we've got to come to it and the sooner the better
 President Roosevelt is an extraordinary man. Perhaps he is too prone to go to extremes. But he's done things And perhaps it takes one extreme to head off another Perhaps the railroads had been going it just a bit too strong.
 Personally I think President Roosevelt Is the most popular man in the country