Omaha daily bee., 1909-11-14
@ORSE'S RISE and FALL
Fortune of 500, 600, 900 Quickly Won
and Quickly Lost.
ICE, BANKS AND STEAMSHIPS
Remarkable story of wall street
Example of Frenzied nan
and the Courts Of
Justice.

the richest prisoner that ever started to
serve a prison sentence. According to his
own estimate Of the fortune he had
builded, he was worth at that time nearly
s22,cOc,OO. lie had banks. steamships. tele-
phone companies and was still q leading
factor in American Ice. The entire coast
seemed about to pay tribute to Mr.. Morse
for It's steamship service. So also did the
Hudson. His life had been devoted to
fortune building from the time when he
sold candy as a boy on a Bath steamship.
The same financial storm which resulted
in his becoming enmeshed in the law also
took his fortune, swept It away as a tor
nado might a shanty on the plains of
Kansas. That was because his fortune
was largely made up Of securities which
he had created and which had great
powers Of shrinkage.
Instead of being worth S22. 900 OOO. as he
had told his friends he was only a few
months before the rumblings Of that storm
was heard, Mr.. Morse found himself facing
some 5000, 900 OF debts. He also found
himself facing a battle in the courts to
keep his liberty, and loss of liberty meant
loss OF power to get his fortune back.
With his fortune had passed the scepter
of power which Morse, as one OF Wall
streets successful men, had welded for
many years, surrounded most OF that time
by politicians and as curious an army of
followers as the financial district had ever
seen. For some Of them he made fortunes.
Career began in Maine.
The rise of Charles wyman Morse from
a boy who liked to peddle things to the
position he had in the market place of
stocks and bonds, the sudden flight Of his
fortune and the subsequent battle in the
courts TO Keen bfmanlf a. Itbarfr 81 -.
his debts, as well as build a second for
tune have made his career as interesting
as any that Wall street can remember. and
wal street is a place where quick for
tunes have almost become commonplace
and legal difficulties are not at all I'M
usual.
Strange as Morse's career has been in
the financial district, IL was even more
unusual in the courts. Never before had
they known Of a man who had gone down
TO disaster, with a fortune like his gone
ana $IOOOOO OF debts besides. pleading for
a chance to pay his obligations and then
while the judges we're debating his case
actually succeeding in wiping out at least
100000 of his indebtedness and appar-
emily starting up again toward the heights
OF financial power and influence which he
had held before. On the very day on which
the court decreed that nc must pay the
penalty for his violation Of the banking
laws and serve the sentence which he had
received after a Jury had found him guilty
Morse was elected president of one Of the
big steamship lines of the Atlantic coast.
1T is a good deal harder TO build up a
second fortune than a first, but Tn going
TO DO it, Morse said just after being re-
leased on ball when his appeal was pend
Ing. Apparently he was making good this
boast when his hopes were dashed by the
courts last decree.
Up in Bath, Me-. where Morse was born.
they had a way of calling him silent
Charlie" While other people were talking
Morse seemed to be figuring on how he
could get a dollar out of the other fellow.
His father, Captain Ben Morse, had be-
gun by owning tugboats and had branchcd
out into the Ice business, He was sharp
at money getting. too, so Morse came by 1t
naturally, only the father knew nothing Of
the game which the son tried later in New
York's financial center.
The tugboat captain and ice dealer sent
his son to Bowdoin college and then Morse
showed how strong the money getting
mania had been bred in him. He was will
ing and anxious to keep the books for his
fathers towboat company at a salary of
6 S25 a week while he was a student, even
though the college was nine miles away
from the bookkeeping job.
Dam Is 20 lull OF STORIES OF CndTleS w
Morse that It is hard to slft them all. One
OF the stories they tell is OF one Of the di-
~rectors In the towboat company kicking at
the idea OF the books being kept by a col
lege student.
III you keep on youm be a millionaire
before you die" said this director after
Morse had shown him that he could do II
all right.
; Morse as the Ice King.
"Oh, I won't stop there Morse is said
to have then replied. I'll have $4,000, Ot
or nothing"
When he was graduated from Bowdoir
I'm the class OF 1877 he looked about for q
way of starting up toward the S1O.OOo,O0
mark and turned toward the business OF
his father and his fathers neighbors-ice
He was going to become the ice king.
They had been doing business in ice W
that way along the same lines for year,
baels-cutting ice on the Penobscot and
selling II in friendly competition. Morse.
idea was TO cut ice, but not to cut toe
much, so that when summer came Their,
would be a chance TO get high prices for IL
First he leased a small pond and then
bay in the Penobscot. A lot OF the ic,
was sold up there to companies here. Mors,
took In the situation saw that the proper
place to carry out his idea Of not havini
too much ice was a big city like this an(
straightway left Maine for the metropolis
Morse was here a good many years be
fore he made anybody sit up and TAX,
notice. but all these years apparently n,
was perfeotlng the plans which finally lie,
to his being hailed as the ice king. Tha
was when he began gobbiing up one ic
company after another, merging them int,
the American Ice company, and then New
York found that IL IL wanted ice IL hat
TO buy 1t OF Charles W, Morse at his prici
or go without It.
Tn field before this had been covered
by a score OF smaller companies and a hos
OF Independent ice dealers. There were tw'
ice fields supplying New York-the Hudson
and the PenObscot Ice was brought dow
TO the docks here from both fields an,
sold freely to dealers who peddled Il il
competition with the companies tina.