The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1932-10-07
Sam insult Was Biggest
POlUer in Mid-COnfinet1f

Combined Assets of All His
Companies Were Almost
100000, 900
3 editors Note: This is the first
i OF series Of six stories on the
.E rise and fall of financial giant
M Samuel insult, the worlds great
s est failure.)
Copyright, 1882, NEA Service. Inc.)
Chicago, Oct. 6.-At the peak of his
career, Samuel insult was master of
U the most gigantic chain of public
utilities ever controlled by one man.
- His hundreds of electric plants. gas
plants, water plants, ice plants, street
car lines, bus lines and electric rail-
\ roads dotted the map from Maine to
Texas and overflowed into Canada
Ind Mexico.
His varied enterprises operated in
81 states, served more than 5000 cit
les, towns and villages, had upwards
of 100000 customers and supplied
the public utility needs of approx
mately 100000 persons.
The combined assets of all his COM
panies was close to $4,OOO,OOO, 1000.
Six hundred thousand persons
owned stock in his companies, half
million more had bought his bonds.
Samuel insult, personally, was worth
$100000,000 Aside from his invest
ment income, he drew 100000 year
In salaries from his companies. He
was chairman of 65 companies. presi-
dent Of II, sat on the boards of IS
more.
1t is no eXaggeration to say that
he was the most powerful man in
Chicago. He held the worlds fourth
largest city in the hollow Of his hand.
Bankers courted his favors, politicians
cowed before him.
He was past 70 and an industrial
tyrant. He absolutely dominated
everything he had anything to do
with, ran all matters as he pleased.
There was nobody to tell him mo"
Nobody dared.
That was the Samuel insult of yes
terday-the mighty Samuel insult who
was swept, almost overnight, from
billions to pension in the gigantic
collapse Of the insult empire Of utili-
ties. 1t will go down in history as
!, the greatest failure in American bust
ness annals. 1t was 10 times bigger
than the Kreuger collapse in Europe
rs DETECTED MAN
The Samuel insult of today, VOL
untary exile in France, is a vastly
different man. In six months he has
aged dozen years, say those who
have seen him. The fire has faded
from his eyes. his once brisk manner
has yielded to an air which denotes
either detection or confused bewilder-
n1ent.
His sl0o,OOO,ooO personal fortune is
gone; he tossed it into his failing
companies in a futile effort to stem
the tide Of disaster. Lost also is his
magnificent 430O-acre estate at Lib
ertyville, ILL.,, with it's $125,00O man
sion of Italian Riviera architecture,
bird sanctuaries and sunken gardens.
His Chicago home, fashionable
apartment on Chicago's Gold Coast"
is for rent. So is his old English pent
house atop the 42-story Chicago Civic
Opera building, which he built to
crafty his love of music.
Not only is insult said to have lost
everything he had, but he is also
$l5,000,000 in debt. Five millions OF
this represents his pledges to charity,
which he never can pay.
He is living in Paris now with Mrs.
insult. They have two rooms at the
Prince DIES Gales Hotel, for which
they pay $40 day, with $2.75 added
for Mrs. insults maid. The former
master of billions is watching his pen
MES; the baggageman who carried up
his trunks says insult tipped him 60
cents.
insults only income at present, SO
far as known, is an annual pension OF
$4,000 from his three big Chicago
operating companies-the Common
wealth Edison, the Peoples Gas and
the Northern Illinois Public Service.
These three companies are not in
solved In the insult failure or string
of insult receiverships.
Also out of the country are insults
son and brother, his closest business
associates. The latter is Martin In
sull, former president Of the mighty
Middle West Utilities Co., greatest of
the insult holding companies. Mar
tin insult disappeared from Chicago
about the time Middle West went into
receivership last April. He was re-
Gently found living with his wife in
a $2O-a-week boarding house in the
little town of Orillia, Ont, 80 miles
north Of Toronto, stunning all COM
panions and seeking seclusion.
The most recent to depart was
Samuel insult. jr., 32-year-old presi-
dent of the two vast insult invest
ment trusts now in bankruptcy, who
sS'led for Paris unexpectedly a few
days before a federal court bank
ruptcy hearing was to begin. Friends
said young insult was called to Paris
by the illness of his mother.
LOSS TO THOUSANDS
When the insults did not heed
States Attorney John A. SwanSon's
request to return home voluntarily to
aid in the study of the utilities crash,
the prosecutor had Cook county
grand jury indict Samuel and Martin
on criminal charges-embezzlement
and larceny. The indictments charge
that $514,942.74 was taken from insult
financing companies to support a
xparginal stock brokerage account
maintained by Martin.
Bond was set at $4,000 for Martin
and at $4,000 for Samuel.
An investigation is being conducted
by Federal Judge Lindley in the gov
ernment's hunt for bankruptcy assets.
Another probe is being conducted by
United States District Attorney Dwight
Green, who Is trying to ascertain If
any federal criminal statutes have
been violated.
It is difficult to estimate what the
collapse of the intricate system OF
insult holding and investment COM
panies will mean In terms of money