Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1909-09-17
death OF E. 4. HARTMAN
Railroad Magnate Had Been a
Very Sick Man.
The END OF A REMARKABLE CAREER
Announcement Came Within an
Hour After the Close of the
Market, Where he had Been
Ruling Spirit.

l1di IiiHdu, Iue grim, silent utIlo
man whose tireless brain carried
him from the humble place of Of
fee boy for a Wall street broker to
the most dazzling heights of wealth
and power the president of sixteen
huge corporations, the directing
genius of twenty-seven more great
companies, the master of $4,000
miles of railroads, the controller of
more than $4,000 100000 of other
peoples money, the arbiter OF pro-
perties earning $500.OO0,0 900 yearly
and employing 250,000 wage earn
ers, died Friday afternoon at 1:40
o'clock in the half-completed castle
he was building on the top of Tow
er Hill.
For two hours and FIVE minutes
the death of the man whose illness
had kept the financiers of America
and Europe on the alert for weeks.
was kept hidden from all the world.
Had the fact of his death become
known on the floor of the Stock Ex-
change Immediately after it occurred
there would unquestionably have
been something in the nature of a
panic-short and swift, but disas-
trous to many innocent holders OF
securities.
By Withholding the news of the
death until after the market closed
it gave the captains of Wall street
nearly nineteen hours in which to
adopt whatever protective measures
they may deem necessary to deal
with the situation.
Overwork killed Mr.. Hartman.
He had malady of some sort, the
precise nature of which his doctors
never knew, and which never will be
known, unless the family, in the in
terest of medical science, should
consent to an autopsy. But over
work was the Fundamental cause
of his death.
Into the sixty-one years of his
Life, he had crowded more industry,
nerve-racking application, tireless
calculating and scheming than doz-
en- ordinary, hard-working, success
full men achieve.
Mr.. Hartman died peacefully and
almost to the end his brilliant mind
retained It's integrity. After a re-
lapse on Sunday he sank steadily,
and soon, there came a relapse which
marked the approach of the end.
DR.. Lyle, who has been Mr.. Harri-
mans physician throughout his last
illness, has issued no statement con-
corning his illness or the cause OF
death, but the general understand
ing is that there was no operation.
Mrs. Simons discussed her broth
er's death with more freedom than
any one else, but even she professed
not to know the exact nature Of his
ailment She said emphatically that
there had been no operation.
Earlier in the day, however, before
the crisis was at hand, Mr.. Harri-
man talked with Thomas B. Price
his personal secretary in the New
York Office of the Union Pacific. This
was one of the strongest evidences
that the railroad mans master mind
was alert to the end, for 1t is be-
lieved Mr.. Price was summoned by
the dying financial to give some In
structions concerning his vast ar.
fairs.
Recent estimates of Mr.. Harri-
mans personal wealth have varied
all the way from $50,000,000 tc
$10G000,000 He was a large hol.
dier of securities Of the various cor.
porations with which he was identi.
fed, including in addition to the
Union Pacific and Southern Pacific
systeras, over a score of smaller oI
tributary properties. not only In thii
country but in Mexico. He was re.
ported to have been the largest In
dividual stockholdcr in the Wells
Fargo Express Company, which only
recently acquired a virtual mono
poly of the express business in Mexi'
CO.
Harriamn's Life at . Glance.
Born Feb. 25, 1S4S, one, of 81,
children Of a country clergyman
whose salary was onI5 $500 year
or 81 a week.
Poverty cut short his school days
after two years spent in church
school.
At fourteen he became an errant
boy in a Wall Street brokers' Office
At eighteen he was the clerk, will
q share in the profits.
At twenty-five he bought a seat II
the New York Stock Exchange will
money he made in speculating will
his savings.
At forty he became Vice-Presiden
of the Illinois Central.
At sixty he realizes his dream o
an ocean to ocean railroad system