The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 12, 1906, Page 7

THE S RUSSELL S8G AT THRE TVCHER no children, together, in they seemed a sort of to dry up money-lined leatheriness of atmosphere that you uld cut with & knife when you en- a ked d the tomb-like portals of that L most impres- | brownstone mansion, where a negro S * him—the trait | Kept constant watch to see that you sive BRI S ¥ did not steal anything. noticed first on meeting him— | . I have been to Mrs. Sage's house when she was giving an afternoon tea, and felt sorry that the biscuits and cake and tea perhaps cost so much. In some inscrutable way you felt that it | was & pity to spend money on any- 1g for comfort or sociability or things. 1 would not have dared help myself to a second plece of cake. or a large slice of toast, or | gulped down a coplous swig of tea, for fear+of .appearing extrevagant or to f he had been o e AR But, in fact, t wasteful or Sybaritish—the cardlinal | wnus, for exampie < ” sins in the decalogue of that house. regularity with which he always made After a short session of that kind, | . with every one he met at the out- | wherein I usually managed to get the g 2 report of some charity enterprise in eet rendered I he most deppised | '\ Mrs. Sage was (RtereseN a and hated of m - Thh. OhS - withls always secure something in the nearly all persons who had of news from her, as she was on fortuné ome fn contact W the committees for charitable hemes), 1 have gane farther uptown | to some up-to-date hostess and fairly | ed In the contrast. | stiff-necked gloom relgned | the neighborhood of the Bris- | 1 a negro stared at you to see| at you did not eat too much, farther up the avenue you could find a gath- ering of epse, where one might per- haps get a cup of tea with a “stick” in | it—and the others, noting my sigh of | relief, would exclaim that they knew where T had been. Mr. Sage wanted Mrs. Sage to take charge of all thelr interests in char- itable enterprises, and she did. When applications were made to him tributions he was wont usually to refer | all comers to Mrs. Sage. She was| more of a worker than a giver, al-| though she gave a great deal. She be- | lieved in organized charity and was prominent alwavs in the best kmown | cha work that went on in New | York. In the evening Mr. and Mrs. | Sage would talk over matters and thus | the old gentleman controlled the affair and he was relieved of all seeming re- sponsibility. He had genius in arrang- ing every circumstances of his life in a similar ranner. He did not care for the limelight, but could perceive the | 1tco of things—could peer to the| oceurrences | end the result and you seldom found | 1 ire better him In a weak position where results han many other per-| werc concerned. He managed every- e interviewed and met | Where to reap some sort of harvest In anything that he mixed up in. This method of hendling charities led to the famous episode wherein a com- migiee of ladies called upon him at lis| Rector-street office one beautiful day to | r con- | that eaf’ lessons so intense nce in- to the and you cannot under- € of these lessons i1a n, unvarnished written in un something P stand rectly s the be perhaps ties ves ¢ be excused for en- 1 when rinent jot down to sons whom 1 in ate life him for years in a business New York, as | was a news- n, handling many stories with hed to do, and Mrs. Sage 1s k relative onm my father's side, Thers- | 8ecure his subscription to a worthy | re 1 could, and d4id, often see Mr. | charity. They informed him as they| Sage downtown talked . with him|handed him the subscription papar that| | Mrs. Sage had put her namé down for $25 and they expected something hand- | some from him. He was affable and | y exciting happenings in the or to his house on Fifth avenue, § above the old | Bristol Hotel, 1 think it wes, when I (complacent and listenéd approvingly to could not readily get out of going | their explanation of the merits of their there | charity. He looked over the subscrip- | Mrs ge was a valued source of |tlon paper and wrote upon it. “There, 1 think that will be about right,” said he, as he folded up the pa- per, and they went out delighted that news to me, and & gracious lady withal, | when sbe was not too much under the | eful influence of Mr. Sage's peculiar nets with regard to cverything and | he had subscribed. Let her alone, and she | When they got out on Broadway they made a genial, whole- | thought that they would like to just fine-minded, broad- |take @ peep and see whether he had But she grew to be | put his name down for $500 or $1000 or what. They looked and found that he had | ave generous, auged woman s like Russell Sage as two peas can alike—mentally. And, as they had ' | importunate ladie | than the other | were inbred and part of his bone and The Pawnbroker of Wall Street Ready Cash for People in Need, Was His Motto inserted the words “Mr. and” in front| of Mrs. Sage's signature for her orig nal $25, thus participating in her sub- scription and having got rid of the| Such an idea t almost uekled! him to the point of distraction. It was | not that he was particularly afraid that | people were after his money. It was his sense of outwitting some one. That was in line with his supreme satisfaction in making money in the street by judging and guessing better tellows. Making or saving a few dollars would give him just as keen delight as the favorable [ turning of a large amount. In fact, I! believe that he took a more intense | pleasure in the successful outcome of a small dicker or plece of smooth cun- ning than he did in the successful com- pletion of some gigantic transaction. His parsimony and thrifty habits flesh. No man knew him better than Mr. Whiting, the financial editor of the Evening Post, and Mr. Whiting liked him in certain ways and for certain| traite. He amused Whiting. Whiting liked to study him. And it was Mr. Whiting's positive and unshakable be- lief that If there were a barefoot race | from Harlem to the Battery in mid- | winter for $10 and Mr. Sage thought he| could win it he would surely enter. | 1 have heard Mr. Whiting say this| himself, and aiso that he would be| afrald to go out of the room and leave his valuable diamond ring on the table | alone with Mr. Sage. Of course Uncle | Russell would not theoretically ap- | prove of taking the ring, but the boys of the “street” knew that the tempta. tion would be too cruelly strong for Mr. Sage. Mr. Whiting thought, that under those * circumstances Uncle Russell would surely fall. He would see value right there in front of him and no one protecting it. He could not help an- nexing. the stuff. The liking for prop- erty was 100 strong in the blood. The funny part of all this is that Mr. Sage was perfectly aware of the mation in which the boys of the “street” held him. He would laugh over it. And he would pinch them just as hard and as often as the market rates for money would allow him te do. I wa; an occasional emlssary from some of the boys to obtain “puts” and “calls” and “spreads” from Uncle Rus- sell. Very few times during these oper- ations do I remember of our getting much out of him. Nearly always he got our money. He sold these securities on the mar- ket for years and years. The boys tried 2!l the time to get Lhe better of him. But he netted himself a great deal in- stead of their getting his money. They were tempting baits. But he manipu- lated the sale of them and the figures were fixed by him, so that with his judgment on the probable turn of the market he was not ‘often caught heavily. The one t time that he shHowed his essent: cowardly nature was when Grant and Ward made their spec- tacular failure. He had a lot of securi- ties and loans out and lost millions that da He was so ratiled at the thought of Josirig this great sum of money that he tried to weich. He closed his office to stop payment of his losses, and fled up to the Western Union office, Whence the Goulds sent him back down to Rector street again to stick it out and show manhood. He went up to the Western Union building at noon every day during the time of his greatest activity in Wall street. He was interested in Western Unjon and a lot o{ other propertfes, elevated raiflroad stock, etc, with the Goulds, and it was necessary, in his opinion, for him to talk to the Goul each day. Another thing. Jay Gould and his son George had a fine lunch served each day in their affices In the ‘Western Union building. nele Russel] dropped in just at lunch time and bummed his lunch. This was laughable, but appreciated, AN FRANCISCO SUNDAY PTAS RUSSEL, /"Mflf‘i& P =] 7 EOTATE - strong sense of humor. If you missed Uncle Russell downtown, if he were too busy to see you for a few moments during the morning, you could always catch him at lunch with the Goulds. He must have saved as much as a dollar or two a week on what he might have otherwise bought for lunches in that way, and Gould could stand it. They had enough lunch brought in at any rate. Again, Mr. Sage would never go through the elevated railroad gate first. That would mean that he. would have to pull out some of the tickets he always carried and perhaps deposit one for you as well as himself, He habitually permitted you to go through the gate first, and the probabilities were that you would deposit a ticket for him and he would ride on it. He owned a great part of the stock of the elevated roads at the time and of cour the tlekets he carried in his pockets cost him nothing. But if you bought a tieket for him, that was so much more money for the earnings of the road. Thesé are fair samples of the in- grown and double-dyed habits that served to swell his coffers, Bit by bit, penny by penny. uninterruptedly, steadily, everlastingly. He never missed a chance for this sort of thing. It came as a natural reflex action in the regular events of his daily life, apd, just as the drops of water wears aw: the stone, these perennial, constant-flowing small ae- cretions to his wealth just as surely kept on building up his fortune. - He could no more help getting richer and richer as the days went by than he could help becoming thirsty on a hot day. Sage had the pawnbroker instinct and his early life and youth, steeped m sharp bargaining and the wiles of country ttading up In Troy, N. Y., help- ing him tp enjoyment wihen he saw the person with whom heé was trading handicapped by anything—even llquor —fostered and solidified that predomi- nant characteristic of his physical and mental equipment. His love was money-making. Tt con- sumed the bulk of his wakeful exist- ence. It guided every move he made and every thought that passea his mind. Similar to the habit of Cyrus ‘W. Field, he never carried any change in his poetket—a quarter would be a large find. Similar to the chronic par- simony and penuriousness of Lilovd Tevis, he would have an old umbrella repaired and hunt out a cheap shop Yor the job, instead of buying a new one. 1 never knew him to buy a cigar for a friend, but I have seen him accept the treats of acquaintances who accosted him in the Windsor Hotel, at the cigar stand and downtown. Whatever you expended on him availed you nothing, however, unless it was an opportunity to study some one who was % / CALL | who seemed to be pleased to have other | people spend their change, while he spent nothing. | In the matter of spending small| amounts, Mr. Sage was a joke among | the hilarfous, quick-witted, energetic, | l'entrancingly interesting crowd of stock brokers, market operators, financiers, sporting swells, merchants, dabblers and respectable, stald citizens, who| congregated nightly at the old Wind- sor, and where Sage always showed up i for at least a little while every even- ing during the '80s, for example, and | | down at the Hoffman House, where the crowd was a lit¢le more light and flip- | pant and transitory. | Yates, Bennett, Flower, Joslyn, Bel- den, Sage, Keene, Gould—such men were to be seen each evening on saun- tering around.the Windsor lobby, and| a host more. Sometimes private sales were ar- ranged right there and then that sent the figures of the market skying up- ward or tobogganing downward, ac- cording to what was doing. It was the solid aftermath of the 3 o'clock closing of the stock exchange. It was | the arena where Sage and Gould and | many of the powers of the street lollad around in the evening, said important things, and sometimes did astounding things. Down in the Hoffman House, where David B. Hill lived, where the .Bruns- wick and Delmonico’s were near by, and the swift horsy crowd, Harvey Durant, DeLancey Kane, A\ H. Hummel, Charley Bacon, the Rathbones, the smart set, and indiscriminate roister- ers hung out, there was often a sym- pathetic flutter as stocks were talked over. g But up at the Windsor was the spot where things nappened. If anything unusual was expected, the newspapers sent their trusted men of the “street” up to the Windsor. You might drop in at the Fifth-Avenue Hotel and inspect the Amen bench, where you would find half a dozen millionaires, inclyding Tom Platt, General Arthur, Andrew D. ‘White, Frank Hiscock, politicians, men of affairs, who were talking and could give you the gist of what was going to happen In finance or politics. You might look in at Delmonico’s, or the Brunswick, or the Hoffman House, but you'd find the news all ready for you up at the rellablé and substantial old | ‘Windsor. There was the real crowd that regulated the turning and the revolutions of the financial firmament. | But you never felt syre thgt you had| solved the problem until you had lo-| cated your Uncle Russell, and knew just what he was going to do or had done in the particular question that ab- ‘sorbed attention that particular even- ing. {! is amazing, when I look back 1pon the kaleidoscopic and fast chaonging panorama of events of that time. Spe: tacular event after cataclysms, stun when bdanded together, would catch bim. They did. | Kesene was a bdull, and they were bearing stocks to beat the band at this moment of which I speak. Finally, one evening after Keené had been faiels | caught, making deliveries all day and | losing more than he had, being called | upon for more and more margin on the | stocks he was carrying, he finally at the closing hour knew that he was rviped unless he could raise a lot of ‘n —a million beyond what he was in | any way able to raise. | _The heat of the Dbattle raged In the | Windsor that evening. All the princt- | pals were on hand. Jim Keene, who was never known to Be a coward, was |there to face his enemies. The men who had beaten him and with whom he had baen battling were so intimately | related in a business way with the Goulds that Sage,was not thought of as a possibie last resort in time of need | for Keene. | No one thought that Sage would help |him. No one knew that Keene could put up enough secusity to satisty Sage. and it was known that Sage was so | close to the Goulds that every one thought that Sige would ot bother with this particular fight Keene was around th and the re- riarks along the Windsor corridors were about at’ the stage when real sports opined that Keene had made a good fight against heavy odds. The fellows 'of the strest who had worsted him were crowing to a quistly exasperating extent when in walked your Uncle Russell, tart as a sycamors tree and calm as an onion. with the potential strefigth of the same vegeta- ble inherent im -his gait. his oily ap- proach, his air of imnecence and un- obtrusive interest in the world gen- | crally and the possidle toples of cur- rent conversation among the excited | threng in thét Bistoric hotel office. You would net have known from his demeanor that he had ever heard of stocks or the money market. Hs was asttounded -to hear that James R. Keene was driven to the wall and | would have, to, go under entirely at the opening gong at 10 o'clock the next morning. But of eourse the old fellow knew to the minutest detail how Keene stood. | what Keepe had, what Keene had los | what Keene had been doing all day and | how desperate Keene's position was at | that hour; Sage had made up his mind !what he would do before he had | stepped out of his own house at Fifth | avenue gnd Forty-second street to go | over to the Windsor. ning announcement after surprising de velopments, bull movement after bui movement, and bear raid after rald; campalgn after campalgn, start- ling rumor after disturbing report, roseate story after glorious dream, of | ominous hush soaring prices—all these would suc-| during those few moments. Just the ceed each other, and pass by now in iny | exchange of a few words, but % was: memeory, and still I see the steady spec- | enough for James R. Keene and Rus- ter of Russell Sage quietly and shrewd- | sell Sage to arrive at a bargain = -ure Iy gazing at it all, taking 1% all in, com- | by Sage agreed to advance Keeme a prehending every iota of the situation, | clean -$1,000.000 in cash the following standing ready always at a moment's morning and as much more as he notice with the ability to draw the| needed. if he did need it. at—at a rate largest individual check for money in| of interést no ome on this earth save Ny York; ready to step in whera| Keene will ever know. wanted, where he could get the largest Sage never told his wife what he rate of interest—saving men, cerpera- | made out of any given tramsactioe, T tions, stock firms, even bLittere: ene- | don't suppose he cared much to view mies, from dire disaster witn his ready | the rate, as such, himself The aggre- cash at the highest rate of interast he|gate amount that he galned as it could command. poured into his rtw!ilu\'l?‘l w'u enough Speak Uncle Russell's name, and you | foF him to know or think of. wnvfu See any one and every one ohe| Suddenly Keens walked quickly for- is wise stand still an: ponder. ward and confronted the men in the You could stop any broker en the | Windsor Hotel lobby. "yl:’l‘l‘ o 1 fleor of the exchange by beginning to 1, will meet all my obligations. tell him something about what Mr (Davé won over yeu. You thought you Suge was going to do or had done. | had me, but you haven't. You could secure-the undivided at-| That” was the only time I ""1’:' tention of any financier or big operator | Russell Sage excited to an unusual de- or wildest gambler on the curb by | STed. rae ntiont J' 's| “Yest He can have a million from :\:r;eel.y s e Ru!!ell!'ma Yes. two of them if he needs it. In truth, he was —a wizara. |TIL fet him have it—now, tomerrow wh;‘?“ Aeoosbaricia o morning. at any time he wants it. It was because his positively known That completely settled It After little while Keene sat down and talked a few moments to Sage. An came over averybody < ! absolute prineiples went. No one would uspecially by George Gould, who has a |and cleverer than his assoclates and]be so vapid and amateurish as to pre- |and safest rates” of interest for his stupendous sum of ready money, ever at his command, and the unbelievable | amount that he could raise at a mo- | ment's notice, could be thrown on one | side or the other of a fight for mil- liens, at the whim or will of Russell | Sage. ] So, at times of great excitement, when | something big was happening in the | market, when men were falling, when firms were going to the wall, when a | great bear or bull campaign was un- der way, that was Uncle Russell's op- portunity, and he ruled the day. It was a comparatively simple mat- ter to compute his position, to reckon on what he would do %o far as certain sume that sentiment would weigh an| ounce in Uncle Russell's movements. It | was simply and solely a question a: to where he could obtain the highest money when loaned and how best he| could secure a payment of the tithes he demanded. The greater the stress, the grester the impending calamity to others, the better he liked it. He was bothered never with any qualms of | sympathy or sorrow over the new ones| who” were losing money or strung up| | in 1880 It was as potent as the ukase of an Emperor. Every one there knew that Keene was saved. Every one knew that | Un¢le Russell had the cash and that he had agreed to let Keene borrow all he nnda; to pay all his obligations. What the transaction cost Keene no one could conjecture, but it is probable that Sage netted at least a half-milllon dollars for himself in those few moments of conversation with James R. Keene on the old leather sofa at the Windsor Hotel that evening. Keene has lost and won several for- tunes since that eventful night in 1880, but it is sure that he never went through any more trying moments and never came so near being completely done up by his antagonists than he did Sage saved him, and Sage was well paid for ft. That is the detracting element in every episode wherein you find your- 1f saying that Sage saved anybody or any interes! Look into it closely and you will find that he was well paid for saying it. That was his power. He had the cash. He was the pawnbroker for Wall street. His “puts,” his “calls,” his “spremds” on the market constituted only & convenient method for his mal ing & book”, on the market. But he would never help any one | turned gigantic battles into defeat or |18, it was inevitable that these fellows, between heaven and earth, their all| utright as a matter of genial brother- jeopardized, their property, their life ||y hymanitarianism. He positively had in the balance. He was a financlal| prought himself to consider it a orime wirrior, a calm general, furnishing the | to give a penny to a beggar. That wa: sinews of war as a commissary would, | encouraging poverty and destitution. | selling at the highest rates when the | His wife agreed with him, in so far as | goods were most needed and exacting| her spoken words went, but I believe the fullest payment for the supplies.|she will get over that even to absorbing the entire personal | Mr. Sage was not a nor estate of the belligerents if he could|gards the giving of money for any pur- manage it. His safety at such tre-| pose. Mrs. Sage grew to, be like hlm mendous times lay chiefly in the fact|from constant assoclation. She i Itke- that he dld not get excited whem he|ly tg resume a normal attitude in this was winning. He only got excited| respect as time goes on. To be identi- when he was losing—and T really be-| fied with charities and have Mm. Sag: Heve that the smaller the amount he|do plenty of executive work. in the lost the bigger fuss he kicked up in|conduct of organized charitias was his own mind about it. 1 know of one| theif approved rule. They liked to ses night that he did not sleep at all be- | the Sage name displayed in the daily cause he had a paltry $18,000 lying idle | newapapers in connection with any ap- that was not working for him. It | proged charity. positively went over night without be- | . In the lingering days of extreme ags ing out at interest soméwhere. He lay | it seems that Mr. Sage stretched his awake thinking about it, and his|jdegs and loosened up slightly in his household was treated to a lot of | apparent benefaetions to the extent of ghimpering and cross-grained talk in acthially parting with some real eash. Bonsequence. It was imagined that he| This, I consider, was & notewerthy might be ailing on account of too hard | doncession on his part, and a, remark- work and too close application to his|abls change of heart, in so far as he office and affairs. There was nothing | was concerned. the matter with him whatever. He| Hy temperament and nature he was was worrying that that $18,000 did not|a born ecoward. When he held his earn some interest over night. And I|clesk, Narcrosse, between himself sand know that the first thing he did the|a homb, and then refused to pay the next morning was to put it to work | widow, proved that. No one who was somewhere and relieve his mind. | capable of bullding up a vast forteme The best example of his unlversal on his power of cunaing, his Wheedling. potency, the way magnates of the | his-self-restraint and lack of generous “‘street” hung upon nis words and the | enthusiasm, could be agything bdut a ecomplete way in which his actions coward He knew all his life that his meney victory for this one or that, according | wag his power—that hat the moet to Uncle Russell’s own sweet will, was | cash ox hand m the “str was his the case of James R. Keene In 1380. | chief leverage. Keene had come on to New York | . His problem always was to Keep his from triumphs to the tume of a few | funds working and bringing hMm in milllcns in the stock market of the Cal- | a8 much interest he eould make ifornia metropolis. He had brought | them. He had quite an lent sys- bis money with him, and stopped to | tem in his office, guided by all sorts of make a little more in Chicago. When | moral suasion, although pis employes he arrived in New York he felt that | were not liberally paid, means of heve was a fleld worthy of his mettle. | which he could promptly be advised o any trouble that any firm was into—that is, any firm to which he leaned money. This kind of sharpness and watoh- He made some brags, undoubtedly, and | ‘he peculiarly pungent phrases express- ing confidence in his own ability ta cope with the best of them in Wall street certainly reached the ears of the quick- | fulness and industry, which prospered st and slickest of the room traders and |gifm when he was homse-trading in brokers generdlly. Forthwith they de- | Troy, kept the wolf ‘door termined to “lay” for the artful Jim. mc;-! -z:etu:.ny“:- N and Great master of manipulation that he | helped m ve & =il lions to his family. *