Evening journal., 1913-01-04
NEW NEW NEWS OF YESTERDAY YESTERDAY
How aLuCky Chance Brought
a Million Dollars
By HOLLAND.

] was chatting with a few friends
one afternoon after business hours
in the Office Of the president of New
York bank when something that was
said reminded me OF an anecdote
told me by the late Senator Miller Of
California. He was speaking to me
at one time of his experience as a
business man and said that, after the
war. i'm which he served as general
Of volunteers, he could not command
any business success. Every venture
which he made no matter how care
fully considered and how apparently
well justified. turned out failure.
On the other hand, upon blind chance
and without giving any consideration
to the proposition, he took "A small
interest in a vessel that was fitted out
at San Francisco for seal hunting of
the coast Of Alaska He hardly gave
the venture a thought until after the
return Of the vessel and the demon
stration made by her captain that he
had a cargo OF sealsldns worth sew
eral hundred thousand dollars. Out
of that pure chance investment Cen
eral Miller gained a fortune IL was
the foundation OF what became af-
terward the enormously profitable
Alaska Seal Company
One of my friends who heard this
anecdotc said: 81 can match that.
suppose that there never was a man
more careful about his business in
vestmonts than Hamilton Mex. Twom
bly,. IL was his caution and his wise
Judgment that led to his very inti-
mate representative relations with
his brothcrs-in-law, Cornelius and
William X Vanderbilt.
yet some OF the most cautiously
handled ventures of Mr. TwOmbly
were not as successful as he expected
them to be. and in the latter years
of ihs life he was inclined to think
that chance or a quality of luck play
ed no unimportant part In winning
business Successes.
'The Justice of that view was prov
ed shortly after the death of Mr..
Twombly, I'm 1910 It was discovered
by those who had the management of
his estate that there was one item
I'm it which represented an income,
think, of three hundred thousand dol
lars a year, and which was based upon
the investment made by Mr. TwOmbly
four or five years earlier without any
serious consideration of the proposi-
ton. He simply made the investment
upon pure chance.
There came to him one day a man
who said that he knew a man of sci
ence who had invented a machine
which would make it possible to get
at the enormous beds of sulphur that
undcrlay a portion of Louisiana. This
man confessed that many men of cap
ital whom he had approached had
turned him down He said that he
only needed little capital. If Mr..
Twombly were willing TO invest from
forty thousand to fifty thousand dol
lars. the probabilities we're that he
would realize a thousandfold on the
investment
MIR. Twombly asked few ques-
tions about the machine, and was sat
isfied that It could do the work ex-
pected Of t. He did not know, how
ever. whether the deposits Of sulphur
forty or fifty feet below the surface
we're small or whether they were in
oxhaustihle 1t was a remote chance
and the risk of losing fifty thousand
dollars; but after a little considera
tion of the matter Mr.. Twombly de-
cided to take the risk.
With the money which he furnish
ed he secured a considerable block
of stock I'm the company. The money
was sufficient to put the machine in
operation. Within a year and a hall
that sulphur mine was pouring the
equivalent Of gold into the pockets
Of the few stockholders Of the ven-
ture. Mr. Twombly's profit, ] think
in the third year OF his investment
was somewhat in excess of three hun
dred thousand dollars A few weeks
after hfs death it was discovered that
his returns from an investment OF
about fifty thousand dollars were al
ready approximately a million dol
lars That was a fortune gained b,
luck-practically by pure chance.
Copyright. 1913. by e. j Edwards
All rights reservedl