The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-05-14

the man who ran a stake of $2,072,00O up to $680 100000 from 1912 to 1929; as the man who owns or influences" 20 per cent of United States public utilities operation today.
 Began Business -..-.- -.------ Careen When 19
 Il MT. Williams told about those early days when he was acquiring that original two million which was to put him into the very big money in 1912. Out of the conversation emerged the picture of youth who seemed to have begun life with an uncanny sense of where to be and what Hto produce on a big Amer ican scale, how to make and sell what America happened to want very badly, from the time when at the age of 19 he took over management of the little Fay Manufacturing Co. in Elyria, O.
 Considering the progress of a mere 2 millions into $40 times that amount of capital in 27 years, the question rises: How came the first mere 2 millions? This is the answer as MT. Will Hams told it in the first newspa- per interview he has kranted:
 Son of the vice-president' of the First National Bank of Elyria, Williams was the best tennis play CT the high school team ever had Cat sixteen he and 8 partner de- feated the Oberlin College team in doubles), but didn't go to col lege. Instead he attracted the eye of two local business men as a lad of promise. The little Fay company was mooching along, as- sembling parts of velocipedes and tricycles. The bicycle craze was teetering to its height. At 19, Will Hams became manager of the con- cern. His pay was a drawing ac- count and half the profits, when and if. The second year, Williams started the Fay company manu- featuring bicycles. Presently he formed the Lorain Wheel Co. in the town of that name miles away. Original capital by that time had moved from $20,000 to $100,0O0.
 Nobody had ever built kid-size wheels. Williams sta:ted doing so. It was 8 good move. Exhibited at the Chicago Worlds Fair, the Fay boys bike got enough orders to run the plant year.
 One thing Harrison Williams seems to have known most al- ways, by some special intuition: When to unload. In '99, he sold out to the American Bicycle Co. and brought his profits to New York.
 Rubber was next. A nucleus of three or four factories in New England, another in New Jersey. Making tires. Horselcss carriages were coming in. Williams became general manager.
 In 1904 his sell-sense worked for him again. This time, he dis posed of his rubber factory inter ests to Michelin. Again he was a young man with executive abil- ity, a stake of his own-and free dom.
 Chance Acquaintance
 Turned Him to Utilities
 "When I came to New York;" MT. Williams said, "I lived at the En- gineers Club. The General Electric engineers made that club their club headquarters and it was there that I got to know Charlie Coffin's son. It was Charlie Coffin who built up the G. E., and he advised me to go into utilities. He put Sid- ney z. Mitchell and H. L. Doherty into the situation, and the three of us were the original syndicate that formed the American Gas and Elec- tric Company"
 The trio was to make American utilities history, Doherty with Ci- ties Service, Mitchell with Elec- tric Bond and Share, Williams with Central States and North American. Out of that original investment in American Gas was to grow the fortune which sud- denly has loomed so big in the public mind. For Williams, few years after his commencement with the American Gas and Elec- trio, expanded into those other companies with the famous $2,- 2,00O which became the crux of the SECS recent Washington in quiry.
 The grandiose multiplication of the Williams fortunes in the booming Teens and Twenties is a mater of record. Tart of 1t was due to the nations natural expan- sion, keyed to increasing power usage. Part was due to the spe- cial financial technic of the boom era, technic which nobody, from various Great White Fathers in the White House down, then criti- cized except cluster of econo- mists, moralists, and radicals, who turned out, later, to be right
 "A fortune is what is can be liquidated for" said Harrison Will Hams to this correspondent, "and that is often very problematical." Sees Vast Ere
 Of Utilities Growth
 Turning from the past, Mir. Will Hams Sketched a picture of the CO., loSsal possibilities of the future of public utility development in the United States. Easing his estimate on past records of development, he lforesaw total gross revenue for the