Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-07-24
THE OF A


SPECULAIOR
THE Associated Press dispatches
1 last Saturday brought our read
ers the story of the failure Of AL
Ian A. Ryan, son of Thomas For
tune Ryan. His debts aggregate
the enormous sum of $~32,433,477.
His assets are placed at the modest
sum of S643.533. He has long been
estranged from his father, who has
highly disapprovcd Of the sons
conduct. so the fact that he has a
rich father is no asset to the young
man that can be realized on by the
creditors. Allen A. Fortune was a
! plunger. He worked a corner in
the stock of a motor company in
which he was interested, and
squeezed the shorts in the old
fashioned piratical style, making
them pay such fancy prices for it
, that he cleared up a profit of ST.
$50, 900 over night as it were. But
there were features in this trans
action that were not considered
fair trading" by the directors of
the stock exchange. and SO they ex-
PEELED him, selling his seal for
nearly $1,000 AS they did not
pay the money over to Ryan, it
forms a part of the assets of his
estate available to his creditors
perhaps. Young Ryan went up in
the market like a skyrocket and
came down like a stick. At n
time he was reputed to be worth
a good many millions Of dollars,
ON put it as high as thirty mil
lions, but that was no doubt greatly
exaggerated. Some said he was
worth as much as his father. who is
a nulti-millionaire banker and rail-
road magnate. He did not start
life like his father, however. He
was born with a silver spoon in
his mouth. His father faced ex-
IRENE poverty in his youth. He
trarnped the streets of Baltimore
when he was II years of age, broke
and hungry, looking for a job. He
finally landed a job with a mighty
slow salary in the drygoods com
mission house of John S. Barry of
Baltimore. From that on, it was
the old, old story. Ryan was told
to come to work next morning, out
asked to be allowed to take off his
coat and begin at once. He was
afraid the boss might change his
mind over night. In time he mar
ried his employers daughter, as
the story books usually tell it. His
father-in-law got into the banking
business in New York and Thomas
Fortune Ryan went with him. He
attracted the attention of the big
men in New York. went into part
nership with w. c. Whitney, once
secretary of the navy in Grover
C~leveland's cabinet, and made a few
millions in steel car consultations.
BY the way. it is a coincidence that
Colonel Harvey, ambassador at
London. also got his start IN the
same way and through the friend
ship of the same man, w. c. Whit
ney. Thomas Fortune Ryan, the
father of this bankrupt youth, was
the man that Colonel Harvey got to
promise to finance the p%re-conven,
ton campaign of Woodrow Wilson
and so was the cause of the bitter
quarrel of Colonel Harvey with
Governor Wilson.
The history of the father is quite
as interesting and spectacular as
that of the son, Allan A. Ryan, who
has just gone bankrupt. But the
old man was not SO much OF
plunger. He was of north OF Ire
land stock and he liked a safe thing
better than a long chance. Well
it is some failure sure. and the
young man must have had some
good qualities to get people to trus'
him for SO much.