Omaha daily bee., 1909-11-14

TO the fact that Morse had quietly cor
nered the supply of Maine ice and that to
buy any they would have to pay him his
own price. They did buy e. but some Of
them couldn't pay for It and Morse took
stock instead That gave him control of
the companies. Before long he had con-
troll Of the National Ice company, the
Ridgewood Ice company and the Knicker-
booker. In 1900 he had completed his
plans and the American Ice company with
a capital Of S6O,O0O.OOO was formed.
Fortunes for His Tammany Friends.
Morse had planned to put the price of
ice up, and it did go up. II went up to
so cents per 100 pounds at the piers.
Naturally that invited competition, in
view of the fact that nature makes ice in
abundance. But when competitors looked
into things they found that Morse had
been a politician as well as an ice man.
There wasn't a dock along the water
front where they could discharge a cargo
of ice apparently. Tammany was in con-
troll then and Tammany was the friend
Of Charles w. Morse. Up went the stock
of his American Ice company to 80 and
over and up went the fortunes Of the
Tammany friends Of Charles w. Morse.
Morse's American Ice company had not
alone bought out the ice companies, 1t
had bought out the little dealers as well,
payingl them sometimes as little as 500
for their routes and threatening them
with dire things If they broke agreement
not to sell again.
The fuss that was made when the price
Of ice went soaring here made a lot OF
trouble for Mr.. Morse and brought his
name for the first time prominently be-
fore the public. His Ice company was
H - 49, a.a-anaIvr nn1 oil unTFt .
of proceedings were started. The same
fuss also brought trouble tor MT. Morse $
Tammany friends.
Mr.. Morse's American Ice company,
helped out by Tammany, had a few years
OF great prosperity, during which it paid
dividends Of G per cent ON its preferred
stock and 4 per cent on its common, and
its creator was hailed by friends and foes
alike as perhaps the most successful of
New York's new financlers. His own for
tune went up with leaps and bounds. From
a modest home IN Brooklyn he moved to
e. palatial residence on the West Side.
Chain of Banks.
Between his two coups in American Ice
Mr.. Morse had penetrated into another
field with even greater success. That was
the banking field. His exploits in this field
are still fresh in the minds Of a good many
members Of the banking community and
form a haDter almost unparalleled IN
New YOrk's banking history.
with that wonderful ~shrewdness which
he seemed TO have Inherited Mr.. Morse
had quickly seen that banks were essential
to the accumulation of a quick fortune
and to the promotion Of concerns such as
his ice companies. 1t had been hard to
get banks, for instance, to lend as much
money as he wished on some Of the secur-
tiles he had promoted. TO obviate this
difficulty he began organizing a chain Of
banks.
VI it'll the profits he had reaped in his
ice crop he began getting control of a
i..mLer of small state banks, such as
the Government and the Fourteenth Street
bank. Before long he reached out and
got the Bank of New Amsterdam, and
finally tho Bank Of North America. This
was IN 1907,
In that year the financial community
woke up to the fact that the ice king had
become the head of as formidable a chain
of banks as had ever been got together.
lie then controlled the Bank of the state
Of New York, the Broadway. the New
Amsterdam, the Bank OF North America,
the Garfield National, the Twelfth Ward,
the Varick, the Nineteenth Ward and sew
eral smaller institutions. Moreover he
went down to his old home at Bath and
took about every bank in sight there.
An investigation made in 1907 after the
panic laid bare the way Mr.. Morse had
succeeded i'm adding banks to his wonder
full chain. IT was very simple. He had
put up the stock of one bank as collateral
for a loan with which he had bought the
stock of another.
Master of Steamship Lines.
Master Of this chain Of banks which
could give him valuable assistance in
further promotions, Mr.. Morse put into
execution his most ambitious plan of all.
That was to become the master of the
American merchant marine.
The shipping business had been bred in
him down there in Bath along with the
ice business. F1nanciers fell in with his
latest plan and it's execution seemed easy.
In 1901 he bought the Peoples Line on
the Hudson, simply meeting the owner
of a majority of the stock one day, in
auiring his price and buying ii the next
He went down to Boston and bought all
the lines that ran north from there.
Next he bought the Metropolitan Line
and ordered the Yale and Harvard, the
two turbines. at a cost of 100000 apiece
Before long he had bought all the other
Hudson river lines and had begun going
down the Atlantic coast. He bought the
Clyde and the Mallory lines as easily as
If they had been bags Of peanuts.
All the time the banks which he con
trolled were being asked to lend vast
sums of money on the securities he was
buying and IN most cases he succeeded
/ In getting the loans. 1t was the same
; plan he had used in buying the banks
, using the first securities as the basis foI
, a chain.
Collapse of Morse.
But there were rumblings Just about thi.
time that conveyed the impression to some
Z wise ones that there was something the
matter with the Morse machine. It's Joint.
we're creaking, banks were grooming undel
! the weight of huge loans made by Morse
. the Heinzes and the Thomases. his associ.
ates, and the Consolidated Steamship com.
e pany did not seem TO take as we'll as som,
e OF the other enterprises.
] Had Morse and his friends won out il
their United Copper pool perhaps som,
e financial history might have been changed
The manipulation OF that pool was under
' taken IN the spring OF 1907 when Morse still
1 seemed to be one of Wall streets dominan.
. figures, the touch Of whose hand mad,
millions for himself and his friends.
II