Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1911-06-02

lTN-BI wave of dollars a hundred
- dred individuals who had
cIambered aboard the somewhat pi-
lauoaI CRATE OF the promoters.
The wave receding, his fellow voy
ageurs had been hurried back, one by
one into the obscurity whence they
issued, but Barr made land-and, in
cidentally, financial history.
in the old days as drummer for
hardware house" Joe" Barr had earn
ed the reputation Of the nerviest poker
player west of Chicago But he also
sold goods, and when friend of his
conceived the idea Of making a nail of
wire in place Of iron the two had COM
bined their slender resources and built
q plant for it's manufacture, which de-
veloped until it was finally promoted
into the wire nail trust. Barr found
himself in possession Of an even $780,
100000 and plenty of time to tilt with
fortune.
A brief survey of the field convinced
him that only in Wall street was the
limit sufficiently indefinite and the
stakes great enough to justify his I'M
divided attention. He promptly form
ed the brokerage house of Willis, Barr
e Co., with John Willis as stock eX-
change member and several of his
western friends as special partners,
and shuff1ed the pack preparatory to
making the bespectacled financiers in
cobwebbed banking parlors sit up"
as he tersely put it.
And sit up they did, even to his, if
not their, entire satisfaction. They
sat up nights trying to puzzle out
what this western gambler" as they
unanimously declared him to be, would
do next. In all things but one, Jo-
seph w. Barr walked with the hand
of fortune, and 1T was out of this one
unfulfilled desire that came one of the
Rnost amazing deals in the annals of the
street.
Ii you had looked in on the Wall
street Offices of Willis, Barr & Co.,
where a dozen tickers spun out their
miles of fraction-laden tape, each frac-
ton fortune lost orwon, and where
as many telegraph instruments flashed
messages to great cities afar, you would
have thought last of all that the short,
fat man, with so much double chin
that it scarcely yielded way to the silk
handkerchief stuffed beneath it, had
social ambitions. But he had.
Two months before he had been
hopelessly blackballed at the most ex-
elusive club in the city, and Bars
soul still burned hot with anger at
the banker whom he knew to be re-
sponsible. This man had stacked
the cards." he told his western friends,
and with this explanation went the as
surance that he would somehow get
even if he went broke" doing it.
And even as Barr watched the spin
ming tape it was telling him that his
chance had come. With the loose ends
of his handkerchief he mopped his
face, a perpetual occupation of the
man, and each click, click of the in
strument, translated, said to him:
I've got him, I've got him, I've got
him"
Through the subterranean channels
Of information with which the street is
honeycombed Barr had learned some
thing week before which led to a
long consultation with his partners
from the west. At it's end he had sent
FOR Sanford Pierce, the shrewdest ma
nipulator of stocks the street had ever
known.
The place of The stock manipulation
IN the economy of Wall street is so
CLEARLY Hnf hot x4-hi1 hn ha
tween his hands the fate Of vast
schemes, some reputable, many not,
there 10 30 known instance of breach
OF trust on his part-his loyalty to
his employers is his stock in trade
Moreover, in this instance Pierce was
man after Barrs own heart,
>2ozner of puny tradition and a hardy
aoldier OF fortune on many fields
Therefore in the privacy of his own
flee Barr went straight to his work
Fnd the other listened with something
Ike a fellow artists appreciation of
ne cunning of the thing-for it was
ne game of games--and brothers
sympathy for the genius of it all, the
lot wrath of a gambler thwarted
In the first place, Pierce" began
Carr, with smile that was far from
g.easant, II am going to tell you
3"ankly that I'm in this thing to salts
~ personal grudge. That will show
GU how much confidence / put in you
md to what lengths I'm ready to go
10 carry 1t through. 1t is neither q
question Of spending money nor max
l1g it, although I guess we'll do both
tatore it's over.
What I want is the control of the
81. Louis Southern railroad, and from
some things I've learned I think there
j good chance to get it. The capital
6 the road, as you know, is $4,000
SEQ; that's 100000 shares. In addition
/ that, know that it has just bought
smaller road, and to pay for it is con-
s.1ering the question of issuing $4,000