The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 27, 1898, Page 17

When L, uchy Baldwin Saw #s 53,000,000 So Up in Smotke Eventful Life of a Man Who Began With Nothing, Blundered on to a Small Fortune, Ran It Up to Million ® ® (OJONOROJONOXO] ® [ORCXCIOXORCROROICRORONONOROXOROROROROJOROFOXOXOROROROROROROROROROJONOXOXONOROXOROROROROJORONOROXORORORORONOXOXORONOROJO} ,., o) ® [0} ® ® ® ® ® ® ® ® (OXO) ® @ On the night of the big Baldwin Hotel fire ¢Lucky” Baldwin was unable to save even his pride, the great hotel and theater to which he had gi most valuable private papers. s and Saw His Life Work Vanish in an Hour. «N old man wandered disconsolate on the edge of the throng. Fire cast a glow upon thousands of up- turned faces. All were eagerly, fearfully watching “the great building robed in flame. A shudder swept across the multitude when at some lofty window would appear a form, framed with smoke. There would be a shout as brave men went to the rescue. A hero was seen to save three women, helpless but for him. Then he sought to save himself, and death reached out of the pyre and clutched him. There were screams and sobs. From adjacent bulldings, horrified vet entranced, people gazed upon a scene so terrible that ever the memory of it shall be with them. The old man stood for a moment as About him rained the ashes of his hopes. A flery shower pattered and hissed in the puddles at his feet. Deeper wrinkles came into his face. He seemed to grow visibly aged as the awful moments passed. Was it that his mil- 1¥ns were flying on wings of flame? Was it at the thought that when he had reared himself a towering monument of lath and plaster he had made a trap and a tomb? At last the trap had been sprung.: After many vears the tomb had been seared of its paint and gilding and yawned, heated, horrible and wide, for its victims. With shriek and prayer they vainly resisted. People looked at the old man and sald: if fascinated. “That’s Bald- win - It was Baldwin. ‘“Lucky” he had been called in the days when all he touched seemed to turn to gold, when mines and stocks rolled wealth into his lap, when his realty doubled and trebled in value, when his horses could not lose; and now, when his fortune has shrunk, a great mort- gage covers his possessions, the pettv tradesman brings cuit, when there is no ready money and no credit and tne Baldwin Hotel, his pride, is a blackened wreck, he will still be known as “Lucky.” The old significance is gone. The term is one merely of identification. The history of E. J. Baldwin is strange, as individual histories go, yet it is familiar to this coast, where he has been an important figure in the financial world. He came here without money, worked at what he could find to do, hoarded, speculated in modest fashion and returned from a trip to Australia to find that he was a magnate. Cer- tain stocks had been left with a broker to be disposed of if they reached a certain price. These had been locked in a safe, or Baldwin had forgotten to sign the order, or at least the broker was unable to carry out the directions of the principal. So the stoeks, remaining unsold, rose by leaps and bounds. By the time Baldwin had them fn his hands again they were good on the market for many times more than the amount an avarice-tinted dream had led him to think they might realize. Soon he was engaged with all the fervor of an enthusiasm newly awakened in adding to his store. He did not hesitate at risks from which the prudent would have held back, and they all resulted as he planned and wished. He became mighty enough to fisht Flood and O'Brien, and after one of his notable turns could have retired with $18,000,000. This was the top-notch in his monetary triumph. In his mining speculations Baldwin was never ham- pered by conscience. With a given object in view noth- ing could swerve him. There were ugly stories of the way in which he and his associates manipulated the stocks into which eager imitators, Inspired by his glittering suc- cess, had poured their meager savings. Perhaps these storfes were true. Similar tales have been true in every great excjtement which has brought riches to the few and penury to the many. A climax had to be reached. Baldwin'got out of the Comstock in time, and the accumulations were invested in various channels, all remunerative. He bought the ground where until a few days ago the Baldwin Hotel reared itself, a huge tinder box built on graceful lines. The site was far from the center of the city then. Friends told Baldwin he was crazy, but he was shrewd; he seemed to have read the future, and he laughed at their counsel. The city came to the hotel, then went far beyond, until to-day the site is practically the center of San Francisco, and by all odds the most valuable piece of realty within its bounds. The owner took much satisfaction in the hotel and the theater it contained. He was vain enough to give his name to both. He had an almost childish fancy for bedecking their interiors with gaudy ornamentation. The rotunda of the hotel was bright with color, and swinging lamps of censor shape lighted it through strangely tinted glass. There was an abundance of variegated marble. The doors were heavily panecled so as to give the aspect of being weighted with jewels. The entire codt to Baldwin was $3,000,000. But even at so recent a date as 1873 archi- tecture was far from its present state of advancement. The stately structure was shoddy. From basement to the topmost rafter it was an invitation to fire. All this defect was covered, but it was known. The Baldwin Hotel was as dangerously inflammable as a Chinese laundry, which is considered so great a risk that no company will insure it. A It was two days after the fire. Some of the dead had been removed. The tottering walls still stood, a menace, the gigantic plaything of .any chance breeze. Curious crowds gazed, regardless of their peril, and the police had to drive them back. From the chaos inside, the riot of broken and blackened timber, the twisted pipes, the piles of brick, nothing had been taken. The secrets held in the depths of this unspeakable confusion were well held. Now and then a sullen haze of smoke would curl upward from the chasm into which one could look through breached masonry, or with resounding clatter a loosened pillar would be hurled from the swaying heights. Murky water was being drawn from the Grotto where the merriment had been wont to reign. Mr. Baldwin had gone home. California street is comfortable and luxurious. There he was found 4n the. evening withr his daughters. Was he downcast? Not in the least. The past he ignored, and the future he faced as determined and unflinching as years ago he had faced the directors of a bank and at the point of a pistol compelled them to his will. “I am tired,” he said, “not disheartened. It was a shock, of course, and I have been around trying to find some personal property. I feel all right to-night and only need a little rest.” “Yes, dad,” said the younger daughter, “you must be tired,” and he answered her with a caress. “You know,” he went on, “that we had a narrow es- cape ourselves. Familiar as we were with the place and #0 near the ground, we could hardly find our way. That was the fault of.the firemen. So far as everything else was concerned they did noble work, but they m=ade a mis- take in turning off the electric lights. If this Had not been done I do not belleve there would have been a fatality. People were naturally confused, and in the darkness they were helpless.” On this phase of the subject Mr. Baldwin was positive, nor would he assent to the suggestion that some exigency of the fire itself had extinguished the lights. “They say,” continued he, “that this fire has ruined me financially, but they are entirely mistaken. I have already had offers of all the backing necessary. That cor- ner is not only the best piece of property in the city, but His ample house on the best in the world. This Philippine annexation will cause it to double in value. I could sell the corner for enough to clear off every mortgage on anything I own. Then I could go to my ranch and take life eas He paused a moment and thought. “But I do not care to take life easy,” he resumed. “I want to see go up at that corner a splendid hotel. It shall be the finest that money can build.” His eye kindled at the idea. “It shall be eight stories high, all steel and iron, no wood except the doors and window frames. There will be .a great arcade running from Market to Ellis, with a magnificent rotunda. The cafe will seat 1500 people and the profit from that alone would be $100,000 a year. The lease on the hotel that burned had two years longer to run and then I had expected to’ clear from the hotel at least $175,000 a year." Here were vast plans, in the mind of 2 man who had lived of years three score and ten, whose life had been marked by struggle and by triumph, and upon whose whitened locks adversity had fallen, yet who was not dis- mayed. He struck the observer as a wonderful old man, one who stood in the twilight and still felt the impulses born of the morning sun. Ambition is keen as of y« hope seems as radiant. Without a tremor he faces the future as though it stretched before him an indefinite vista, each season certain to be crowned with the fruits of endeavor. He had no word of repining for the loss, in- deed refused to regard it'as a aiscouragement. And if deep in his heart there was a pang that the house he had erected to be his monument should have caused the deatn of the innocent, he made no sign; no, the turning out <f the light had been the cause, and the firemen had done this. No word of the tortuous passages in which ‘the de- spairing had groped, the lath and piaster which environed them until it burst into blazing. s . As to the financial standiug of E. J. Baldwin now 1" ere are few who know and they are not of a communi- cative sort. For years he has been hard pressed, !f one could judge by the suits filed against him, the mortgages held by moneyed institutions, the pledging of chattels. There is a mortgage on the Baldwin site, on the great Santa “Anita ranch. There are judgments unsatisfied, liens, actions pending and threatened. Either Baldwin has been withcut money, or with the obstinacy which is characteristic of him, he enjoys litigation more than he does- the paying of debts. As to the personal reputation of the man, charity might pass it by. He has not been used to respond to the call of need. He has never been regarded as generous. When he has spent coin freely it has been in some scheme of gain or aggrandizement. The gain has dwindled, the ag- grandizement never became more than notoriety. The association of Baldwin with women has been a series of shameful scandals. This more than any other one thing has made him virtually friendless. He was shot at in open court by the sister of one girl he had wronged, and the only comment was in the form of expressions of regret that the bullet missed. He has sworn that his own reputation was so unholy and so well understood that none led astray by his blandishments had a right to set up the plea of deception, because he had lost power to deceive. His pride has not extended.to the safeguarding of his own name. According to the ethics of society he is an outlaw whom none of the other sex may meet without reproach. The doors of respectability have long been closed to him. He has never cared. Thus he may account, if the matter occur to him, for the ab- sence of sympathy. If aid be extended it will be solely on a business basis. . e e There is the crash of falling beams. The smoked and blistered remnant of the Baldwin is coming to earth. Upon the stage where tragedy and comedy thrilled and amused the debris is piling high. From the pitiful wreck will come scarcely enough plunder to tempt the junkman. And to another, a man not equipped with the dauntless nerve which has marked Baldwin's career, the wreck of the owner would be as complete as the ruin of the property. YororcrcIcIercrcrcoocioozolofololofofokoyololofofoYoRoko¥ooloYokoRoooXoYoFoyoyoyooYofofofolooRoYoRORORORCRORORONOJOJCCROIOJOJOfOfCROlC OO o oY o) i 7 %47 Baldwin and his daughter were awakened and dragged from Afterward he stood opposite the doomed building and, ven his name, vanish into the air. the flaming rooms just in time ,to save their lives. with the tears starting in his eyes, he saw his life’s