The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-11
OPPORTUNITIES FOR
 BIG FORTUNES YET
By HOLLAND.

| New York, September 1o.-(Special) | When the late James Stillman decided to | retire from active business and to make
 his home for a part of if not all of the year in Paris, he explained his pur- | pose in so doing to a personal friend by | saying that he believed that the day of
 opportunity for making very great for tunes in the United States had passed. He therefore thought that he might with profit to himself take up a residence
 in Paris and be prepared to make heavy investments in European securities. 1 At that time. however, MT. Stillman, although closely associated with the Standard Oil company, did not realize l that the day might come when the op- portunity for maying great fortunes and
 making them rapidly would be furnished | by sudden and amazing development
 of the oil industry, both producing. re- l fning and marketing. After Mr. Still
 mans death some curiosity was mani-
 fested by friends respecting his possible ventures in the European securities
 market. But the inventory and probate | of his estate did not suggest that he | found the European market attractive although this may have been due to
 the fact that shortly after he took up his residence in Paris the earlier wars
 in the Balkans ragged and later the great European war began.
 l The report which was made day or two ago by President Doheny of the
 Mexican Petroleum company incidentally and probably unintentionally suggests
 that while great fortunes in the promo | ton of railroad properties or even in
 the development of American mines are not hereafter to be made as was the case 1 in the past, nevertheless the oil industry l is likely to take the place of the rail-
 roads, mining and of all other industries
 so far as opportunities of amassing great fortunes is concerned.
 PRESIDENT DOHENY'S REPORT 1 President Doheny speaks in his re- port of the new uses to which petroleum
 can be put. He says these are being developed so rapidly that there is likely | to be shortage of the supply of crude petroleum. These new uses are cer- tainly under very rapid development. The chemists and other men of science are
 TOW demonstrating that under proper | treatment, crude petroleum can be so handled as to furnish what is really very great variety of products all of which like gasolene or lubricating oil will be in very great demand Only | few years ago the late Jabez A. Bost- wick, who was of the Standard Oil party, confessed himself puzzled when he considered one of the waste products which followed the refining of petroleum.
 Refners were put to all sorts of shifts in order to get rid of this waste pro- duct for they found it an actual nuis- ance. Some of them dumped this pro duct into the rivers hoping that it would be speedily carried out to the sea as 1t twas. Nevertheless this product was gasoline and science at last taught the use to which it could be put in in. ternal combustion engines. Now the de- mand for gasoline is so rapidly increas- ing that it is subject of serious con- cern to refiners whether they are to be
 able to meet this demand in the future, Already considerable fortunes have
 since the European war begun to be
 accumulated by men who a few years
 ago had little or no capital. because they
 turned to the oil industry, both its pro-
 duction from new fields and also to the
 various products which modern science has taught could be obtained from oil
 President Doheny in his report asserts
 that the year 1919 will mark the banner
 year for opportunities developed and for
 associations completed for the very rapid
 future increase in volume and value Of
 the oil business. In the year 1920 1t
 is his view that the business will in crease more rapidly than at any time in previous years.
 The late John w. Sterling, a New York lawyer, was found at his death to have accumulated fortune little in excess of S2OOOO 600. The history of this accumulation tells one of the most inter- esting and suggestive of the records made in recent years by men who be- ginning with almost nothing at last numbered their millions in excess of twenty There has been good deal Of scrutiny of the detailed report of Mir. Sterlng's estate. It reveals that he was the possessor of bonds and stocks Tn large amounts, much greater in amount in fact than even his most intimate friends expected
 Some of those who have analysed the report made by the appraisers of the Sterling estate are confident that they have been able to trace the beginnings of his fortune to his association with very able men who with courage and with capital promoted railroad develop ment in Canada and the far northwest.
 Among these men was the late John B. Kennedy, James J. Hill as we'll as few of the great minds who were promoting railroad development in the Canadian northwest With these leaders MT. .Sterl- ing was called into association as coun- sel, and they early discovered his un- usual aptitude for giving wise counsel. Sometimes he disagreed with them re-