Show written tor for this paper A FIFTY millionaire aw M by frrank a 0 caf ci penar tenter YORK january 3rd ard 1897 HAD an hours hour Is interview last saturday w with i t h russell sage in his private office in the old rat mt trap of a building known as 71 broadway everyone has heard of russell use sage he is said to be worth somewhere between fifty and one hundred million dollars he has more money on call than any other man in new york and le ike is ready to loan a million or so at any interest provided he momert on 10 low has good security there are few men have handled so much money an aaa ho starting life a poor boy he was a millionaire way back in the sixties and tor fw the past thirty years he has been turning turn inc his bis millions over like a snow ball gathering ira nore more and more at every coll sa ar r SAC is one of the remarkable characters of this century he is is now but he be does not look to be sixty ld hiring my talk with him he told me ise had been at steady work lor for more than sixty years yeam all of this time he lias Us been in the very thick ol of things he was a big money 12 handler during the war and he has been associated with nearly every great reat canita capitalist list of the past generation ae he and jay gould were hand band in M i glove clove I 1 in a great enterprises and he is ig a director in so many banks trust companies ompa comp nies and rai railroad broad companies that it is said his bis tees fees for attending directors make a good salary for keetin meetings in a would an ordinary orl ordinary inarY man I 1 have seen newspaper statements re representing presenting russell cage saceda as an illiterate M man an I 1 have not found him bim so no one can be with the ainest men of this country for sixty tears s and not become educated mr age started life with a public school education at the age of twenty five he was elected as one of the aldermen of troy and before he was forty he was one of the most prominent members of congress long before he was fifty he was worth a million and now at eighty he has as bright an eye and as quick a mind as any of the men of half his age who borrow money of him to play the great e at game which Is always going on r sere e r e amo among g the wall street gamblers I 1 met mr r sage in his office his new york establishment looks more like a prison than pho he workshop of a millionaire tt it is ti to a certain extent a tion you remember how a crank came within an ace of blowing him into eternity with a dynamite bomb a couple of years ago because mr sage would not write him out a check for a million odd dollars As it was he was very badly hurt now the average million are aire after such an attack would have given up business and retired from danger that however is not the kind of a man russell sage is As soon as he recovered from his injuries he went back to work but he put some guards about him to keep oft the cranks of the future today you cannot walk into his office without you are known you cannot see him unless you have good credentials my introduction was through a letter aletter from mr henry clews the famous wall street banker with this I 1 climbed to the second story of 71 broadway and entered an office upon the painted door of which were the words russell sage s passing through this I 1 found myself in a narrow hall or cell as it were walled with boards toa to a point high above my head above these boards there was a latticework of iron almost as heavy as that which surrounds the bullion in the vaults of the united states treasury there were two doors leading through the board wall but these I 1 understand shut with a spring lock in the wall there were two little holes guarded with brass bars standing before them you can look in and see the clerks who manage mr sages business through these holes is the only means of getting at mr sage you present yourself at theland them and mr sages cashier a gray mustached young man with a critical eye looks you over it he is very sure that you are all right and that your business is of importance you yott are presented to mr sage this was what was done with me the investigation seemed to be satisfactory and a few minutes later the door in the wall was unlocked I 1 was conducted through an an anteroom ante te room and shown into the plain but comfortable furnished private office of the millionaire As I 1 entered a straight well formed smooth shaven man turned about from a desk in one corner of the room he rose to his feet as though his joints were well oiled and a pleasant smile came over his grave features as he told me i that he could give me a few moments only and asked me to be seated he did not look at me at all critically and during the talk he chatted with me as freely as though there was not an anarchist in the world though he told me that he could see me for but a few moments I 1 remained with him for more than an hour while brokers and other business men were waiting outside he became interested in the conversation and then leaned over and tapped me on the knee as he laughed over some story of his career orbe or became Same especially interested te in some subject he w was disca discussing in aly my first question was as to his health and how he managed at eighty to keep so young and bright the old million aire laughed as he replied 1 I dont know how I 1 do it but I 1 am here six hours of the day six days of every week year in and year out my ity good health in old age is I 1 think largely due to temperance I 1 sleep from seven sen to eight hours every night and I 1 dont allow myself to be dragged about to dinners and clubs when I 1 first ameto came to new york I 1 was persuaded into joining the union league club and I 1 was a member of it for years I 1 never attended more than two or three dinners there diere however and I 1 seldom went to the club rooms then my friends wanted me to give up my membership to some one else I 1 was asked to sell it you see there were a number of men who wanted to get in and I 1 could have gotten as much as for it but I 1 told them that I 1 did not want to make money that tha t way and that I 1 would hold bold the me member aber ship until it ran out this I 1 did speaking of money making mr sagi sage how did you get your start how did you make your first thousand dollars there is no particular story in chak that replied mr sage when I 1 was sixteen I 1 went to clerk with my brother then I 1 had a store of my own I 1 never had a great deal of trouble in making money my first thousand probably came from saving and was made on much the same me principle that I 1 have followed through out life but are there any fixed principles by which a man can make money mr mi sage I 1 asked it depends a great deal on the man of course IV 10 was the reply but there are two wings which any and every man must hav have who makes any permanent success in this world in the first place a man must be honest in spirit and in deed and in the second he must be industrious ind usurious rious I 1 should also add he must be economical and invest his money so that it will work tor for him what do you think of new york as a field for money making should country boys come to the city the man who has it in inyim him of replied re red ue russell sage will succeed anywhere anywhere you cant keep the right country boy down and the city boy with the right stuff in him is bound to get up the Is chances in new york are perhaps great er than in the country but the tempha eions are also greater I 1 tell you I 1 dont don ft like what I 1 see about toe the clubs here in new york you may go to them any night and you will see young fedow who have less than a thousand dollars a year ar dressed in swallow tailed coats W they ei are eating expensive dinners they are drinking a little and playing cards a little such are not my ideas of a sue suc scheme of lite life for a young man and those are not hot the young men who succeed it is the young fellows who spend their evenings at home and save their imir money who keep a bright eye lot for the main chance and live so that they will have brains healthy enough to see it when it comes you have been interested in many enterprises in your life mr sage yes I 1 have was the millionaires reply 1 I early became interested in railroads I 1 traveled over some of the first built in this country and I 1 saw there was going to be a lot of money in them I 1 bought a lot of stock in the western railroads and I 1 was for a long time president and vice president oj oi the milwaukee and st paul I 1 had also interests in roads further west and for a long time have been connected with the union pacific what is going to be done with the union pacific mr sage 1 I think the government ought to have something to do with it was the reply A great deal of noise has been made about it but the union pacific has been of enormous profit to the united states government its profit has perhaps not come directly but indirectly that road has built up the great west it has created hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxable property and the great states of the west are due to it it would not seem to me out of the way that the government should guarantee its bonds if the united states would guarantee grantee its bonds at three per cent I 1 would be glad to take a lot of them what do you think about the times mr sage are they going to be better 41 1 I think so though we had bad a hard pull during the last campaign I 1 have faith in the sober sense of the american peo pie and I 1 believe with a moderate tariff we will soon be prosperous are you not afraid ot of the dissatisfaction of the poor no I 1 dont believe the best elements of the laboring classes are dissatisfied more than three fifths of the laboring men of this country realize that their success is dependent upon the success of the capitalists who are their employers the other two fifths are those who are trying to get along with out work and who dont want to work what are aie the causes of the hard times 1 I believe they are largely due to overproduction over production not only here but a I 1 over the world we have leave been making more goods than we could sell we have expensive establishments and we have kept them up notwithstanding the sales have stopped then we took off the tariff and let foreigners ship in cheap goods to compete with usand the result rodo is as you see it why things were never so cheap as they are now in the united states look at this coat which I 1 have on I 1 looked and I 1 felt the sack coat of the millionaire it wa was s a very respect able looking garment made of wa fairly good dark gray woolen cloth As I 1 fe felt t ft ft mr sage went on well how much do you think that cost coat cost I 1 paid just fa 6 for it it was a part of a suit that was selling for and I 1 bought it juat to show these fellows here bere how bow cheap things are you know there are things in the papers now and then about my wearing ii suits and buying my clothes ready made those stories are not true I 1 have always had my clothes made to order and I 1 dont donl think I 1 ever wore a ready made suit in my life I 1 merely put this on to illus the position I 1 hold on this subject russell sage is perhaps the biggest money lender in the united states he has millions out at interest and he is one of the few men who seem to always have a million to lend to the right party As I 1 looked at him I 1 thought of this and asked how is money in new york just now are not interest rates very low mr sage replied no they are not low today but they are in general lower than they have been for years this is so not only here but all over the world it seems to me that this shows that men have more faith in each other than ever before A respectable man can easily get trusted now but at the same time a man whose reputation is not good is more carefully watched than ever those fellows in the west have lost a great deal by their evident desire to repudiate their debts the silver movement has been a bad thing for the west do you think I 1 would lend any money to a western town for water works or public improvements prove ments knowing how they stand upon such matters I 1 think they will find it more difficult to borrow money here now than they did in the past the only ornaments on the walls of mr sages private office are two big railroad maps and one large photograph in an oak frame this photograph hangs right over his desk and the face within it is that of president elect mckinley I 1 pointed to it and said 1 I see mr sage you are a mckinley man yes said he 1 I am I 1 think he is a safe man and will make a good president my attention was first called to him aheu when he h e beat campbell for boyem gov eru or campbell ampbell had gone in with a large majority mckinley was elected over him the next term he was in for one term and was then reelected elected re by a majority of more than at that time I 1 saw I 1 thought that he be was a man ol of the future and I 1 told my friends that he would be the candidate of the republican party for president the conversation here drifted i to politics and mr sage told me some interesting stories about his career as a politician and how it was through him that millard fillmore became president of the united states in his younger days mr sage was a prominent man in new york state he was a great admirer of zach taylor but was above everything a trong strong henry clay man he was at the th head of the new york delegation at the convention which nominated taylor and held the votes of the delegates irom his bis state solid f for or clay new york had bad then I 1 think twenty eight votes and the throwing of these to taylor would mean that he would surely get the nomi nation after the convention met it was evident that clay could not be nominated at whereupon the taylor men asked mr sage to come to them for a confer ence as to whether new york could not go for taylor mr sage did so and eventually threw the vote of the state i for taylor bringing about his nomina tion in speaking of this he said 1 I was asked to go see colonel taylor the brother of the future president who was managing his canvass I 1 saw that it ww was impossible ble to nominate clay but I 1 wanted to know whether general taylor a southern man would treat the northern whigs fairly colonel T taylor aw told me that his brother was a sa whig through and through and as I 1 left him ahn said that we expected to stick to clay as long as there was the least hope for him we would come to taylor when ever it became evident that he could not be nominated I 1 then presented the case to our delegation they agreed and when the crisis came in the convention and it was evident that clays chances were gone I 1 threw our vote to taylor and thus brought about his nomination well the friends of taylor were so pleased that they came to me and said now mr sage you yop have helped us nominate the president and we will let you nominate the vice president 1 I had not thought of that at all and aad I 1 took some time to consider among other men I 1 thought of fillmore who was then a young lawyer lawyer of buffalo I 1 knew him well and thought he would make a good vice president I 1 suggested his name and it was brought bl be fore the convention he was nominated without trouble I 1 then notified him that he had been chosen as our vice presidential candidate he accepted the nomination and the ticket was elected zach taylor died before his bis term was half over and fillmore became president so you see upon what little things great reputations turn p you were quite young when you yen were in congress mr sage you might have made a great success there why did you leave politics 1 I did not think politics would pay replied mr sage 1 I was only four years in congress I 1 was there during the long canvass for the in which alter after five weeks of balloting we elected N P banks I 1 |