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Show S i x t y - F i v e Years in W a 1 1 S t r e e t When James H. Whitehouse Entered the Exchange in 1857 He Paid $100 for His Seat He Describes Other Changes in Addition to the Prices of Seats .' be seemed to nutter more than when he ra In Baltimore. "Why -c-oertelnly." replied Travers. Tra-vers. "This Is a d -d-d-damned sight b-b-blgger city." A man tried to sen him a rat doff on on occasion, and Travsrs Insisted on a trial performance. They ad-Journed ad-Journed to Travers's stable, where the ratter mas set against three big rodents, on after the other. JThe doc whipped the first two, but the third rat put up such a fleht that the doc backed away, considerably . mussed. The owner thought that was a cood time to press the sale, but Trarers's cas was elsewhere. T rare re Makee a Choice). T-t-to h-h-hell with the d-d-doc." ho said. "B-b-but I-M-I1I -b-buy. the r-r-rat!" Wbea the limear twins .weco - - ' -shown la this country Travers was -. r amone the interested spectators. He " looked them rsr closely and thea n remarked affably: "B-B-Brothers, i I p-p-preeume?" 1 With his partner, Lsomard W. Je- - . ' rome. Travers was much Interested In Improvlne the turf, and It was duo to them that the social and - r moral ton of tho raos courses la ,,"" New Tor It war Uvatsd a work continued by William C. Whitney and the Vandrrbllts and August Belmont ' ;, ;,, In subsequent year. Ho was tha . greatest wit Wall Street over knew. " and probably Now Tork Itself, (or that matter, and even on his death. - - bed In Bermuda tho spark of wit burned brightly. A friend asked hlro If he had aom to Bermuda far . rest and chance, Travers said hv -atentlyt T-y-ys and N-n-ns. T-VCh waiters c-c-cot the ch-chang and , tha h-h-hotel k-k-keepers est tha r-rast." I can only wander '-"y evar th list of able and lntereetine mea that I earn Into contact with m tha treat In the last Starty-ov years. Jay Gould's story was strancsr than any I can recall la fiction. Ho rot ' his start by In von tine a mousetrap ' " and his wits carried him to th head I remember that 'a cood many people have asked mo how to make money In Wall Street, as if there wss soma mysterious formula. Ilka transmuting lead Into cold. There Isn't any. Th eld RothsehHd who answered such an Inquiry by sayinc, "I buys sheep snd sells dear," had It In a sentence. Patience, courses, a thorough knowl rdes of business, crop and political conditions and the beat expert and professions adrlo obtainable are the main requisites so far as I know. Men who CO sdventurlnc Into Wall Street on tips are foolish, almost as Henry H. Rogers, Jay' Sould, his son Oeorce; D. O. Mills. John W. Mackay, Roswell P. Flower, John A. Stewart. Samuel J. TUden, Aucust Belmont th elder snd Aucust Belmont Bel-mont th younger. J. pierpont Morgan. Mor-gan. Chaoncey M. Depew, Daniel Drew. Moees H. Taylor a kmc, lone list. The Career of Daniel Draw, I think that Daniel Drew's career was on of th most singular I ever observed. "Uncle Daniel." as they called him, probably had more ready and unloading a stock that was Intrinsically In-trinsically much too high. Poor "Unci Daniel" with hia Bible and hia hymn book. He tried to com back some years after hia great defeat in Erie, but when he essayed to do so he had lost his cunning. cun-ning. Hs even resorted to prayer, but It was no use. Hs who had had no mercy for others found none him-self.. him-self.. Hs used to attend St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, and ha Car large sums to religious and educational institutions, and his bouse at Seventeenth street and wss a bad storm, some big house eollapslnc alone with many banks, but tha country wsa so vigorous that recovery was rapid, and when w cot going again th day of tho old, conservative rulers of the Street hed passed and young men got their first great opportunity. In those days it was difficult without wealth and powerful connections to eet a footing foot-ing on th Stock Exchange because thoe who had ruled tha roost regarded re-garded th applications of us youngsters young-sters ss an impudent intrusion. We had to fight for our lights, I tell you, for th Old bulls snd bears jrled to hedge In every foot of th sacred enclosure. en-closure. In those days, sixty-five years ago, the Stock Exchange was In William street, between Beaver street snd Exchange Ex-change pise, a hlstorio spot In th financial and speculative history of New Tork. Hers wss ths stamping ground of ths old leaders, ths scene of th winnlnc and losing of fortunes glgantio for th time. Nine fortunes for-tunes were won snd lost there by Jacob Little and in a year Anthony ; -; . By EDWIN C HILL, . ', T ECKIN3 away at ths day to r" day news, w find our at- . tantloa caught now and then by a ehronlcl of th doings or say- 1 incs of soma Individual apparently impregnable to th assaults of tlm ... soma on whose mental and physical vigor have lone outlasted their contemporaries; a hardy perennial peren-nial such as Chaunoey M. Depew or John A. Stewart, ths financier, or Dr. Stephen Smith. "Father of Medicine Medi-cine in America." Ths interest In these Invincible snd others of their astonishing breed and th attractiveness of their truly marvelous resistanc to the wear and tear of existence Is such. Indeed, as might suggest that ths persistence of very old men In sctlv affairs Is common enough; that business and Wall Street are "sll supplied with them. Of courss mis Is not th fact. They are rather rare and are entitled to even more of th admiration than an occa- atonal mention evokes. Depwa are rare. Stewarts and Smiths are not found In every street. And suoh a brisk old gentleman as James H. Whitehouse, the hero. If en may put it so, of this article. Is as uncommon ss wild flowers in Broadway. Not that Mr. White-house White-house suggests a wild flower In the least, for his personality Is of th orchid family, ths cultivated orchid: tml let til si Hilts' vtajiil. It's stsiitill" enough. Th extraordinary old gentlemen whom we are accustomed to acclaim upon the reminiscent occasions of their birthdays are seldom "active" in th exact meaning of th word. Mr. Rockefeller at U plays golf, goes steadily to worship' and takes Infinite car of his health but he has lone since, w ara told, retired from the cares of business. Mr. Depew, it is true, is to b found about every day at th desk of th chairman of the board of th New Tork Central Railroad, pretty much occupied, but In a sheltered way, and Dr. Smith at ths century mark sppears only at times. Few of their treat age are to i be found In th toll and moll of bustling bus-tling business, still engaged In th Civ and take of moneymaklng. Mr. Whitehouse. however, la on of this unconquerable few. Th Sprysst Young Fellow. Behold him at th threshold of his glth birthday, a keen smart figure. most modern; not looking within twenty years of th nonogenarian; clothed In th most correct garments that a Fifth avenue tailor can turn out; always with a boutonnier at - th lspel of his coat. He moves spryly amone ths throne of brokers S upon th floor of th New Tork Stock Exchsnge, senses as perceptive and as alert as are owned by th youngest trader of that aggregation "th spryest young fellow amone us," says Major Harrison K. Bird of the Ble Board. Not an Important , movement or fluctuation of ths list of stocks escapes his mind, a mind . that has been swiftly disposing of such problems for sixty-five years In that rapid company. It Is quit comprehensible that a man might atand up for more than an ordinary lifetime in some moderately mod-erately active occupation, suoh as merchandising or on of th professions, profes-sions, but It Is pstently astonishing that anybody could go through six snd a half decades of the violent existence ex-istence of Wall Street, with all the panic stresses and worries and all the nerve strain of a thousand financial finan-cial combats, and still retain a notable nota-ble measure of youthful vitality both of mind and of body. But 'because 'be-cause he kpows how to play, because he has sn all absorbing "hobby" which' thoroughly refreshes weary body and mind, he moves about at -the age of M, and after sixty-five years of strenuous labor with ths springiness of a youth. This statement state-ment la made In absolute llteralness. As Wall Street looked when Mr. Whitehouse entered upon his career. Cornelius Vanderbilt -4 Morse, strangely gifted mentally, a mental arithmetician of such powers that hs could give you the total of a long column of four figures by simply sim-ply running his eye over it, made millions and lost them In a single twelve months. In this old exchsnge the money wss mads which made possible the construction of thousands thou-sands of miles of railroads to open Op the West. Hers it was that Dan-lei Dan-lei Drew, a curious and quaint personality, per-sonality, built up the speculative fortune for-tune he was to surrender sealnst as-saults as-saults cleverer then tils wiles. There must be rhoete that haunt the old site, wraiths that plot and plan and mumble furtively over mysterious calculations. It was in this ancient market under un-der ths domination of the old timers of my time that young fellows often paid $56 to $100 for the privilege of listening at the keyhole while calls were being made, so stern wss the secrecy enforced. It wss In 1865 that the exchange moved to Its present pres-ent site, and it was In !, after a hammer and tongs war with an independent in-dependent board which used to meet in a William street basement, thst ws called the "Coal Hole" that a consolidation put ths present ex- . change upon Its feet. The Road to Riches. Most of my recollections turn upon ths affairs of the exchangs after this removsl. for upon this site I have seen all of the financial upheavals up-heavals of more than half a century and have taken part In a good many, looking back over ths half century. Daniel Drew. '..'" of the greatest telegraph mono-.' la th world, H was bitterly as ' "Vh sailed for many of hit operstlons, ' yet he must be credited with some ''-'h,,, great achievements, and hia eoarag - ' r-r -la standlne fast against th railroad ' ' ' ' strikers of his day was splendid. Tk Vaaserbilt Fee-tea. One of the most amaxlng stories - ' , of Wall Street la the story of th ' ;.".",'. great confldeaos) gam that was " , .. played upoa Gen. Orant by FardJ- - " sand Ward, arch swindler. This man Ward had a wonderfully magnatie presence and the cut of perfect dissimulation. dis-simulation. I have ortaa thought ,' " that k moat have been a mind . . reader, for It Is hard to explain his T '-operations '-operations otherwise. He knew e-s- . actly whan to fore tare sum of i . cash upon customer he Intended to -defraud, knowing that they would - in-brine in-brine It back to ban greatly increased in-creased In amount. Grant waa a child la Jils hands, , -'. Probably the greatest flg-ure la aom ways that Well Street ever , produced waa Commodor Vanderbilt. Vander-bilt. who started with a rowboat and ended with $l.000,00. a fortune which hi son William U. trebled. He wss one of the first to tee that railroads would be th crest trans- ' " portal km mediums instead of the waterways, and hs started by buy-. fnc up control In tha Harlem Rail-. ' ' road stock. Of the twe Vandarbllta, . ', ' William H. waa really th mors Interesting. In-teresting. Hs was not much of a speculator and very much of a builder. - . ., -foolish as ths deluded on., who risk" their money In bucket shops. Ever so often stocks fall below tftelr Intrinsic In-trinsic value, due to panicky feelings that arise from time to time because of business depression or polltlcsl ' conditions. Now, It Is not difficult for tbs painstaking man to get a pretty eloee approximation of Intrinsic Intrin-sic values. When he has obtained such knowledge snd has checked It up so far as is possible by the Judgment Judg-ment of honest and experienced men, then. If hs believes the stocks are' selling too low, is ths tuns to buy. The trouble Is thst most people are carried along In a kind of enthusiasm when stocks era rising, and ifet car-rled car-rled out of their depth and away beyond be-yond Intrinsic values which few taks the trouble to study. But I'm not lecturing on how to mske money in Wsll Street, merely recalling some of the episodes snd personalities of the times. It 4s an Inspiring list of men that have fig- . ured in my time Henry Clews, Just my own sge, and whom I myself introduced in-troduced upon the exchange; Commodore Com-modore Vsnderbllt snd William H. Vanderbilt, Henry Vlllard. Cyrus W. Field, Levi P. Morton, Anthony N. Brady, the RockefelU-rs, Russell Sage, Leonard W. Jerome and his friend, Wllliant R. Travess, ons of th cleverest men I ever knew; "cash at, his disposal in his heyday than any man in America, some 116.. 000,000, most of It made out of speculations spec-ulations In Erie Railroad. He was poorly educated and a man of one Idea, stubbornly following set no-tlotti. no-tlotti. Until he encountered Jay Gould snd Jim Flak hs was never beaten, but in the battles they forced he was ruined, his fortune melting away. He was a csttle drover in his younger days snd hs never changed his style of dress. Although Illiterate, Illiter-ate, hs was very cunning and shrewd snd he knew how to take his revenge. re-venge. A group of young men bested him In a stock operation and were foolish enough to make fun of him to his face. "Uncle Daniel" merely grinned, and bided hi time. Weeks later, while In the company of tome of his former tormentors, he pulled out his bandanna handkerchief handker-chief and apparently did not observe ob-serve that a piece of paper came out with the handkerchief and fluttered to the floor. When he left the group the paper was eagerly scrutinized, and there was a rush to buy a certain cer-tain stock, for Drew had noted an order to his broker to buy It In Immense Im-mense quantities. Tha young men Jumped Into the market and took all In sight. Then they were swamped. Drew hsd been the seller, tricking them by .the handkerchief episode Union Square was always open to Methodist ministers for any stay ' they wanted to make. Mental Bookkeeping. ; He kept all hi accounts In his hesd and thought that bookkeeping was a davit for fraud. His bankruptcy bank-ruptcy schedule showed these curiously curi-ously contrasting items, sealskin coat valued at $160 and Bible and hymn books valued at $110. Shortly before be-fore his death he said It had never occurred to him that he could loee money heavily, and that hs hsd been ambitious to roll up a great and solid fortuns Uks Vanderbilt. He saw In his Isst years thst he should have left the Street years before ha wss caught But he couldn't tear himself him-self away, and they got him at lsst. How many Nsw Yorkers recall what a brilliant aad charming fellow fel-low William R, Travers was He sum into the Street from Baltimore and became one of the great operators opera-tors of the times, usually on the bsar side. It Is not his stunning schlevements In the market that are remembered, but his witticisms, all ' ths more effective because of ths quality of dramatic suspense In his habit of stuttering. Shortly after hs Joined us somebody remarked , 4 hat On another occasion, as Henry Clews tells the story in his enter- ' talnlng- "Fifty Tears in Wall Street," Clews wss invited to a dinner party at the Union Club. He had been writing a series of letters, published , Mi Tat Nsw TK Sum en national financial matters, letters widely read-and read-and talked about. Late In arrivlnc at the dinner, he waa disinclined to make a speech at once and Travers, helping him out, got up snd said: "Oantlemen, I hav t-t-talked wifti Mr, Clews, snd hs d-d-deelree ms ' t-t-to" say that h w-w-would Ilk t-t-to be excused f-f-from maklnc a s-s-s-speech on t-t-thls occasion and that If youwlll d-d-do so hs will writs yon a l-l-letter." At another time when Clews entered en-tered a room at the Union Club, Travers Tra-vers hailed him with "Hers e-e-come the self-msds man, Henry Clews. I ssy, Clews, ss you are a s-s-self- ' msds m-m-man, why the d-d-devtl d-d-dldn't you p-t-put more hair on the t-t-top of your h-h-headr" He want to a regatta off New-'v port one summer and promptly observed ob-served that most of th yachts In ths ble squadron belonged to bankers bank-ers and brokers. Hs seemed' to fall Into a revsrle from which hs emerged to put ths entertainlnc query: "I a-s-say, where are the c-o-cus torn-era torn-era yachtsT" He was a man of broad and cultivated cul-tivated tastes, with a much truer appreciation of art that was realised real-ised In' his own tlmey He was a great lover of horse and talked better bet-ter on the subject of horse than upon almost anythlnc else. He owned Maud 8. and drove her. finally eelling "the great mare to Robert Bonner on condition that she should never be trotted for money. It waa he who brought Cleopatra's Needle to Central Park at a cost of $100,000. "The Public Bs Daaa.ed." It was William H. who' waa charged with the famous expression. "Ths publlo be damned." but It wasn't altogether In a lordly spirit that hs said it. It seems that he found It necessary to cancel a fast train between New Tork and Chicago Chi-cago because the public wasn't supporting sup-porting It. and when a newspaper reporter asked him why he wasn't considering the eonx-lnlenee of the public, he said he was directing his roads In ths Interest of his stockholders. stock-holders. "Are you working for the publlo , or your stockholders?" asked the In- ' tcrvlewcr. "The public be damned." retorted Vanderbilt "I am working for my stockholder Why don't ths p units ;' support ths train If they want Ri " These are only a few of the mea of great affairs that I have knowa ' In my Wall Street career. There hae ' -bean a side of life to me that ha been ss Interesting as Wan Street, ' the transformation of oar city. I hare seen that change marvel eu sly since I was a boy around the old City Han, almost eighty years ago. The concluding chapter of fast rticlt Kill paMUhed at as early date. There Is none of the camouflage of old age masquerading as youth about James H. Whitehouse. Introducing him with a little necessary nec-essary biography before we Invite him to tell ue a little about what , the old New Tork was like, the New Tork of the sixties and seventies, Wsll Street and ths Stock Exchangs and ths vital figures of that period, tha elder Vanderbllts, Dsnlel Drew, William H. Travsrs. the wit; Henry Clews. James R. Keens, the "Western "West-ern millionaire." and many, more; the transformation of Fifth avenus and ths passing of ths Knickerbockers, Knickerbock-ers, and the great changes that have come over all In one man's lifetime, we find that Mr. Whitehouse Is not merely one of those uncommon persons, per-sons, a born New Yorker. But hs waa born almost within ths shVdow of the City Hall, this on October 2 J. 18 it. m the same house. Indeed, where his father. Edward W. White-house, White-house, came into life In 1104. Five years before James H. White-house White-house appeared, his father founded the present broken e firm of White-house White-house A Co. unicr the name Cam-mann Cam-mann A Whitehouse, and this concern con-cern Is to-day the oldest brokerage house in New Tork, Just ss James H. Whitehouse Is ths dean of theNew . York Stock Exchange. He Is No. 1 on tbs roster. Here la Mr. White-house's White-house's story: Bought Hie Seat fee- flOO. It was on November J. 1S5T. that I waa admitted to membership. I bought my seat for $10. The price now Is Just one thousand times aa great I came In Just after the panic . of that year, which fa known as "th Western Bilzxard." a panic due largely to th too rapid build! ne of railroads on borrowed capital. It |
