Show DETHRONED COTTON KING SKETCH DRAWN FROM LIFE daniel J sully s sensational corn er in cotton to a sensational end march 18 when the suspension of his firm was announced sully was credited v th having made 0 o in the last year sully cl que s losses 10 sully s loss n four days H chest cotton price of day 1523 lowest cotton pr ce cf day 1265 loss on each bale about 20 sully beg ns speculate culat ng january 1903 corners world s market may 1903 collapse march 18 1904 daniel J sully the cotton king of the world failed to meet his marg ns on the new york cotton exchange march 18 and his firm announced a suspend on of bus ness it was esti cited sully had lost 5 in the last ten days on declines in the prices of cotton in a speculative marl et where he traded as a persistent bull despite his herculean efforts prices dropped still further and he was over whelmed with cotton offered for sale then bis firm announced its inabel ty to trade further after the excite ment was over sully announced that he would soon be on his feet again SULLY EXPLAINS HIS RISE makes M II 11 ons corner ng cotton after view ng poor fields daniel J sully in september 1902 was a buyer for the new england cotton mills at a salary of 75 a week in the following may he and hla associates cleared from 2 to 4 as the result of cornering the cotton market he raised the value of the year s cotton crop by his forcing of prices to a haeher level from that time to his failure he was a persistent bull often mal ing millions by a single day s trading his spectacular rise to the pos tion of cotton king of the world was explained by him in a graphic manner when he was at the height of power in may 1903 I 1 have been in the cotton business as a broker buying and selling cot ton for the mills tor the last nineteen years said mr sully at that time I 1 usually made two trips south each year going down in october and feb auary it was while I 1 was on one of these trips in february of 1899 that the idea came to me which led me to take the attitude I 1 assumed in the market during the recent movement in cotton I 1 was riding along the yazoo and mississippi railroad on my way to memphis there had been a very bad storm throughout the cotton belt that winter ana it had been followed by freezing weather As I 1 passed along the cotton plantations on the railroad journey I 1 saw great quaal ties of cotton seed lying out in the fields exposed to this freezing er the thought instantly ran through my mind what effect will this cold weather have on that seede it was just a pass ng thought at first but later I 1 gave i pretty serious consider aaion t knew that the outside layer of the seed must certainly be frozen and that the 1 fe in the heart of the seed could not but be affected by the frozen layer long experience taught me also that the farmers would not take the trouble to p ck out the frozen seed but that just as it lay on the fields and in the pens they would sow it this could not help but cause a deterioration in the crop to such an extent has the demand tor cotton seed increased that while fo ir years ago the manufacturers of cotton oil products paid 13 a ton for seed now lay 22 a ton this makes it an inducement for the farm er to take the seed from the first picking of his crop to the oil mill and sell it instead of replanting it the fart picking s always the best the 1 nt is the strongest anc the seed is the hobt virile where does this seed goa not into the pens of the farmer tor the next season s crop but into the crushers of the cot ton oil mills in their shortsighted ness the cotton farmers are practically selling the goose which las for them the golden egg the farmer will save the second picking for seed and reflect that he is sapping the strength of his cotton product in do ing this before the day of the cot ton oil mill there was no use for the seed the farmer would take the best of it for replanting and would put the rest on the ground for hz ng purposes the cotton farmer to day doean doesn t do that and kemem her this sort of thing has been going on for fifteen years in line with this reasoning was the pro babil ty that owing to a surplus production of cotton in 1899 there would be a reduced acreage the fol lowing year and there was in 1899 there were 25 acres planted to cotton in the south and in the fol lowing year the acreage was 20 a on of just one fifth now ou see what my conclusions were with a great reduction in acre age and a tremendous reduction in producing power because of the frozen seed and the consumption of the vital seed by the 1 mills it was easy to reason that the next crop would be light in its producing power and that the year following the 1 niage would be still 1 ahter and that during the fourth year we might expect a cotton famine returning from the south I 1 started to put my theory regarding the cot ton situation into operation last oc tober I 1 wrote to every cotton mill friend I 1 had and advised them to buy their cotton then it was the first and only letter that I 1 wrote advising the purchase of cotton soon after I 1 commenced buying cotton on a small scale the attention of the world was taken up with the campaign being engineered by price I 1 saw he was correct in his belief that higher prices would come b it I 1 do not th he drew his deduc alons from the same basis that I 1 did dikty belief was steadfast not withstand ing the opposition created when cot ton sold at ID ants a pound I 1 1 now there was a tremendous sentimental opposition formed against me but what did it amount to in the enda people old cotton which they did not have they sold wind in other words or contracts of wind luckily for me I 1 was able to take it all and then when the time to settle came they had to go into the markets and buy the stuff at higher prices some of it they bought from me other portions they bought from my |