Show hoff GOT THE BEST OF KEENE wall street operator who fears the central pacific will be segregated and transferred to the union pacific special to the standard new york starch 18 the firm of tal boac J taylor co has issued a call for proxies to be voted at the annual meeting of the southern pacific on april 8 union pacific has also ant out a call for similar proxies the meaning of these two events is very plain it is that the speculative forces of wall streets graat cst speculator arc arrayed for battle against the corporate rs abc the command of wall streets greatest railroad king the origin of the struggle dates back more than a year at that time james II 11 acene began to ask various capitals sta in wall street certain relative to the possibility of getting up a pool in southern pacific stock As week followed week more and more of wall streets speculative fraternity professed a willingness to enlist under the banner of mr keen in a campaign to put this stock thirty or forty points higher than ruling quotations all last spring mr keane and his lieutenant talbot J taylor worked unceasingly in the completion of this pool they tried the market thoroughly they put the stock through its paces and discovered just how much it could be moved by the buying of a certain amount bow easily it broke under selling how strong a bear party had to be met and defeated on each move of the game how much capital it was necessary to have behind the ma tiou and in fact they gained in those months of skirmishing all the knowledge that it waa deemed a ry to possess if the undertaking of the pool was to be carried through to a successful termination on mr keenes return from europe list summer lie real campaign began the great lender told his friends that it would be short and sharp and that by the end of september southern pacific would be selling at pir the pool at the beginning orthis short campaign consisted of about shares odthe stock of anthem pacific and was corn coed of about eighty members it was the biggest speculative pool and jhc thc richest that wall street ha ever seen it had behind it an aggregate capital of nearly the members of it were strong and confident amongst them were numbered some of wall streets ft oldest and wisest brokers at least two railroad presidents two chairmen of railroad boards and five ande wealthy capitalists hardly man in it but was a director of one or more corporations whose stock is list cd on the stock exchange the wall street public knew vaguely of the pool and to a man believed that it would he carried through to a successful conclusion the name of keane worked wonders they knew him ail a man who had lastes l of both victory and defeat in the war of wall street the older ones remembered how once lie had sono down in failure and with what wonderful resource he had risen again to power and wealth tiro younger onca knew him as the great bear the man choso whoso onslaughts on the market had many a time put to route the strongest bull forces of the street of more recent years they knew him as a man who had scattered to farthest comers of the earth the stocks of the united states steel corporation for two years lie had been the most consistent bull lie biad been alio right hand man of J P moi gw lie had accomplished in two searf what no syndicate biad dared to undertake namely the distribution of the billion dollar capital of united states steel ho had accomplished this distribution at high prices by the most remarkable bull campaign in all the varied history of the street what difficulty then they argued would this man have in distributing to the public shares of suck stock as southern pa cefic at the outset mr assured the members of the pool that sir E IL harriman would not in any way oppose the pool operation they scattered literature across the continent to tell the public that the southern pacific pool ana going to put the stock up partly in order that the shares bield by union pacific and mr imarri inan might be of greater value to those two interests they stated flatly that alio union pacific and mr harriman would in no wise object to this increase in the of their assets at a cost of they issued a magnificent clothbound cloth bound circular telling of the greatness of the southern pacific railroad its marvelous resources its wonderful territory its growing industries its thriving towns its rich mineral prospects its splendid record of earnings they staled in this circular that before the end of 1902 mr harrigian and the union pacific would decide to pay a dividend of 4 per cent on southern pacific stock they crave to taft world the impression that mr harrinan Harrin wn and union pacific had pledged lo 10 the declaration of this dividend they left to the world not a doubt ai to the fact that southern bv the end of 1002 would be u dividend stock paying its stockholders a rich return on their investment southern pacific went up it went crofit 60 to 10 in a week it went from 70 in three weeks there it checked was market sharps in the office nudged one another a they watched the ticker and confided to one another the secret acene is sell gnp the pool fetock that waa the crucial momena in ilic history of this great pool it it had been true that keene was doing what hi admirers thought he hiis doine all would have been well it is true that mr keane denied flatly at aliat time that ie was southern pacie but of coi ir no one believed him no one ever believes the leader of n pool in vaal street 0 o the public winked and made remarks complimentary to the continued on page 3 HOW COT THE BEST OF KEENE continued from pago one genius but not to the veracity of james K kcena meantime the belling continued southern pacific was traded in to a tremendous extent some days us anch as shares crowed tho board koplo began to wonder who was doing the buying the clock seemed to be pegged around 80 then asi suddenly as it became active tho stock became dull people said that had got out of southern pacific meantime sir acene was having trouble of am own it can bo elated now in the light of subsequent events that mr keblic had sold no stock ot the southern pacific on tho contrary to keep the stock from dropping back to where it was when tho pool began ho bad been obliged to buy an immense amount of additional stock for the great leader was beaten he did not know where the stock was coming from he thought that somo person was selling short and he thought that it would be interesting to squeeze that person it wag the mistake of mr keens lifetime the person in question was mr E II 11 a man who had in his treasury more southern pacific stock taran even mr keene and his powerful pool would care to buy and a person moreover who if control of southern Sou thenn pacific once passed out of his bands could turn around and make southern pacific worth less than 25 per share it was never a part of mr harrl mana plan to let the southern pacific pass out of his bands lie knew what mr keene did not know namely that there was coming on the street a period of money stringency he knew that dur ing such a period thousands of shares of southern pacific would be thrown into tho street and the buyers for this stock would be few and far between he knew be could stay short of the market until this time came and buy at bargain prices the block that be hail sold to mr keene and his friends therefore he sold an d sold heavily mr keene did not lake the members of the pool fully into his conf dence they had surrendered all discretion in the matter of the pool stock into mr keenes hands they were absolutely guided by his word ho told them to wait and they waited and arc waiting tight money came it swept upon the street suddenly prices crumbled stock values dwindled rapidly all the work of mr gates six months campaign was undone in three short weeks thousands of men and women all over england germany united stacee and canada lost in those three weeks every benl that they bad been indeed to put into the wall street market southern pacific was as bad as any other stock on the list it tumbled rapidly from 81 it dropped below 60 there it steadied mr E H harriman covered his shorts he took bia time about it he knew perfectly well that the pool stock cost mr acne and his friends about 70 ter share and eliat they would not sell it below that price he was careful to fee f ee that his buying did not bring it up 0 o that price it is believed that ho covered his below 63 when tiel them covered the stock still looked BO cheap that be considered it a bargain and he kept on buying so that before the stock reached 63 be had ad ilca L to the stock already in the treasury of union Pacific and had made the control of the road afe beyond ii doubt i mr harriman then announced through bia bankers that ho had made this purchase of southern pacific stock and that any ono who wanted control of r pacific would have to buy it from B H harriman it was a bad for the pool wall street began 0 o realize that harriman had sold acene 0 o a standstill the stock went down gain began to spread that the southern pacific pool had gone to ww mr kcena vigorously deni edit alic street took thia as a good for believing that it was so and kept fon believing that it was so until a of weeks ago since then have crowded on line another in the history of southern pacific pool on march B it leaked out that edward bad served papers on alexander miller secretary of anion pacific and ihen immediately withdrawn the papers thos tho s papers were an injunction to restrain union pacific from voting the shares of southern pacific stock which w held in the treasury at alie annual meeting on april ath rumors flew chick and fast it was slated and it haa been eliat keen and harriman had figuratively nw aking come to blows mr ke eno had accused mr harriman of bad faith in selling stock to the pool and in refusing to help the pool out by declaring the dividend mr harriman promptly told mr keene that southern ta td fic belonged to union pacific and to mr harriman and that two in herbsts would do with it v they fit on march lelh mr keene sent out his call for proxies in it he declared that mr harriman and the union pacific management were practically rob bing the stockholders of southern pacific he declared that union pacific n tended to use the earnings of the other road to build up the central pacific branch from san francisco to ogdan and then finally to take over central pacific and make it 9 part of the un son pacific leaving the rest of be southern pacific system out in the cold the call for proxies was a mass of figures and it ii true that figures never lie un on pacific M a convicted thief the meguel of this remarkable flohl f will be found in the report ot the an 1 l meeting of april ath and w in the records of the law courts tr that date the southern pacific till et and together they do not nope even m heir wildest moments f 0 arol of southern pacific I 1 01 c in anian graap they do not jakc a protest that mr harriman avill be i c wyat ot a n southam pacific if all else fail ah ur undoubtedly willing to carry I 1 11 ito ihn on ha pM carifi elal jhc thc aning of southern of S diverted to ihal benefit fi iea road namely union pd ant ime mr harriman jl cool u he aside ill tr to southern jl eay the matter i a joke r and union pacific can afford to jaby on the aming short of loo shares at 80 and the co W mr harriman cleared 2 afoo he t charm for ftfe fim which IP cain maat worn Sl by simply call 1 T la 10 aal 4 I 1 m to ire a dividend it a t a ake everyone in wall street wv n pt owr 1 wr alio r paw I 1 i s 1 |