The Washington herald., 1908-01-12

+. Augustus Heinze has crowded stir
ring events into his thirty-eight years Of
life. A strikingly handsome man. with all
the ability Of the trained actor and eX-
perienced orator. he would probably have
been a huge popular success as a minis
ter of the Gospel had he followed the call
ing marked out for him by his parents.
plain Germans, residents of Brooklyn
HeinZe, with a wonderfully keen mind.
daring ambitious. and possessed of bound
less confidence in his ability. had no
thought OF connning his career within the
narrow limits of the Lutheran ministry.
Heinze's father was an importer. the
head of a prosperous concern. The fam
ily lived on Pierrepont street, the aristo-
cratic section of Brooklyn a quarter Of a
century ago. Heinze was born there on
December 5. 1869. says the New York
World. As each of his sons became old
enough 10 g 10 school the elder Heinze
sent them to the Fatherland First went
Otto, then ArtfJr, and finally Augustus,
when he was nine years old, They attend
ed school in Hldesheim, and Augustus.
returning when he was fifteen. told his
mother.
I am going to call myself Augustus,
not Fritz, Before went to Germany the
boys here called me German Fritz, and in
Germany they called me Yankee Frank"
Ever since then he has been known as.
+. Augustus Heinze but by members OF
his family is still called Fritz.
On his return Augustus was sent to the
Brooklyn Polytechnic and then 10 COlum-
bia University, where he took the mining
engineering course. Graduating, he went
TO Butte. Mont. where he got a job as
inside engineer for the Boston and
Montana Company at S d day. Heinze
worked eleven hours a day for his s. and
worked hard. He always dressed well
when not at work. and by miners he was
called the dude. For five years Heinze
pegged away at his work, all the time
gathering practical knowledge about min
ing, ores and smelling Then his grand
mother died and left him s50.OC0 and it be-
came necessary for him to come East. His
brother Otto had entered his fathers firm
and Arthur was pracucing law. Augustus
tried to set them to return with him. but
Otto declined. Arthur went along and
proved the corner OF Augustus subse-
quent successes.
HeinZe's chief weapon was litigation.
With his lawyer brother, Arthur behind
him. he sued right and left Pet projects
Of his adversaries he tied up in an almost
hopeless tangle with litigation devised by
his brother It was these methods that
made many persons call Heinze an un-
ScrupulOus adyenturer.
Heinze leased the Estrella claim in
Butte from James y. Murray and built a
small smelter. The arrangement with
Murray was that Heinze should pay him
. per cent royalty on all ore running over
y per cent copper to the ton. Very little
ore exceeded the L per cent limit, and
Murray claimed that Heinze evaded pay
ments By mixing Iow-grade ore and rock
with the good ore, The dispute got into
the courts Eeinze won That was his
first taste Of mining litigation, and within
year he had more lawsuits under way
than any other man in the State
He used his profits in the EstreHa to
buy control of the Rarus mine for SO, 900.
Then he got hold of the Glengarry and
built a big snelter. Next he went into
British Columbia, built a smelter at Trail
City, and narrow gauge railroad to
Rossland, where there were producing
mines. Heinze got control OF the Leroy
mine, added branches TO his harrow
gauge road and finally was doing so Well
with il that the Canadian Pacific paid him
sL2J0,o00 for the property, chiefly to get
rid OF such an energetic rival.