Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-11-29
Jesse |. livermore,
The Boy P|unger,'
Takes Own Life
Tired Of Fighting,' Says
Note indicative Of
Emotional Stress

BY the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, Nov. 29-Jesse L
Livermore won and lost four for.
tunes, any of them beyond the reach
OF better-than-average men; hi.
! wizardry was Wall Street legend
but yesterday he wrote IT am q
failure" and ended his own life.
II am tired of fighting. can't &c
on" Thus a weary, 62-year old mar
penned his own epitaph in a little
leather-bound notebook, sought Out
quiet corner in an ante-room al
the fashionable Sherry Netherland
Hotel, and fired pistol bullet into
his head.
Mr.. Livermore was known as the
"boy plunger" ever since his first
stock market exploit won him So 900, :
900 back in 1907. He had other
grandiose cognomens too-"Wizard
OF Wall Street" The Cotton King.
But at the end, it was simply
Laurie" writing in farewell to
Nina"
Laurie" is a contraction of his
middle name, Lauriston. Nina" Is
his own name for his third wife, the
former Harriet Metz Noble.
Text Not Disclosed.
Police did not disclose the text of
the note, scrubbed over eight pages
of the little memorandum book as
he sat at table in the hotel bar.
But they did say that he avowed
his love for his wife and told her
I'm sorry I have to do it."
The note was described as repeti-
tious but coherent, and indicative
of a mind under emotional stress.
There was other evidence that Mr..
Livermore had been bordering his
action for some time. Only the
previous night, he posed for night
club photographer with the words,
This is the last picture you'll ever
take of me-"
Police gave an immediate verdict
of suicide and Assistant Medical
Examiner Raymond Miles corrobo-
rated the finding after investiga-
ton.
Mr.. Livermmore, the son of a
Yankee farmer in West Acton, Mass,
came out of New England to startle
Wall Street early in the century.
He first dipped into finance while
working for a Boston brokerage
house-prodting 1912 on $40 mar
gin speculation-and found the
taste so savory he quit his job rather
than quit playing the market.
Worked in Bucket Shops.
Working in bucket shops, where
men bet on stocks as they bet on
horses, he ran up his stake to 81, 500
and came to New York in 1908. He
made $3.50 900 on his first operation,
played Anaconda Copper with
everything he had, and came out of
the 1907 rich mems panic" with So
900, 900.
Dealing in cotton, wheat, steel,
anything that promised profit,
Mr.. Livermore went broke three
times in the next Is years. Each
time he merely borrowed more
money and went back into the mar
ket for exploits that made his black
derby hat, his stub of cigar, his
malacca cane and his swagger a
familiar figure wherever men of
finance gathered.
In 1925 he announced he was
quitting Wall Street, but the game
had too strong a grip upon him.
And in 1884, he was bankrupt for
the fourth time.
Once again he tried a comeback,
but never quite attained the heights
Of his previous ventures. He turned
to the role of market advisor in
recent years and wrote a book last
spring, How to Trade in Stocks"
In it he denied that blind chance"
ever guided his operations and laid
his success to "the Livermore mar
ket-key" which he said took specu-
lation out of specializing" Every
move he made, he wrote, was but
tressed by research, patience and a
singular genius"
The only way know for any one
to succeed in stocks" he said once,
lis to investigate before investing,
to look before he leaps; to stick to
the fundamentals"
Married Three Times.
Mr.. Livermore was married three
times. His first marriage, to Netit
Jordan of Indianapolis, ended in
divorce in 1917. He next married
Dorothea Wendt, Brooklyn beauty
specialist, the mother of his two
sons, Jesse, Jr., and Paul. That
marriage ended in the Reno divorce
court in 1882
One year later he married Mrs.
Noble.
Although in later years Mr.. Liver
more lived in comparative obscurity
and turned away from the Shoot
fireworks" policy which marked his
earlier coups, in his lush days he
spent as handsomely as he earned.
One hundred-dollar tips to board.
boys in the exchanges were fire.
quent; once he hired a special train
to travel from Palm Beach, Fla, to
Jacksonville, just because he was
unable to get lower berth on q