St. Louis Post-Dispatch
May 6, 1906

Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.

The text was read from the page scans by machine (OCR), so it has mistakes and its columns may run together. See the pages · About this title · At the Internet Archive

Page 1

Today’s Want Directory Contains: More Help and Employment Wanted Ads. Than the two’ other St Louis Sunday Newspapers 57. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Double Today's Want Directory Contains: For Sale and Want Ads.} eee hee ee ee papers combined. the Number of -om bined. 48 NO. 258 ‘ST. LOUIS, SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 6, 1906. 7 VOL. 58. al Pos ? PO as COUNTRY STORE ae i a Cima — . bus wt ; spa rat Se ta Pe AREAS coher hac a? ee gee PENN pres meee aang ‘a. Py OSES as Op de oe _ oS a wm pBRPS ites oa Vee ee wee ast e . . . * heer eene Fe e's Poneto cate wats peomasee aru wee or Tees - nh le > Oe o ee eS * > 7 CLERK INA —————— a —— er GOOD TO “YOU MUST MAKE OTAY IN,” SPENCER'S MOTTO A a 4 to — Opportunity No Corwin H. Spencer, man ever millionaire St. Hotel Thursday afternoon, after he collapsed in a broker's office. He never splurged, but he always wor good clothes. He was the best custom of McConnellsville, O. Far Ahead of Times. he came to St. course in a business college. sufficient savings to pay for his tuition then and ever afterward of his nature. Though he was only this time, he 23 low, tion though he was still an undergraduate. For bent over big ledgers. he was sent on the floor to trade in the pit. His skill in getting in at the bot- a revelation to his employers. He seemed to have the genius of being on “the right side. The firm at that time was doing a large cash business, and young Spencer was sent to the sample corner of the Pixchange as a salesman. There he was as successful as in the pit, and, when Mr. Gelson retired from the firm in the spring of 1874, A. T. Harlow spoke of the vacancy to young Spencer. The book- tkeeper and occasional saleman smiled and said: ‘“T have some money, Mr. Harlow. Perhaps, it isn’t enough to buy an in- terest, but I am sure I could work out the rest of it.’ Took a Half Interest. So the young man put up $4000 in cash, picked up here and there in grain specu- lation, as earnest money for a half in- terest in one of the largest grain com- mission gompanies on 'Change. It was stipulated that he would have to make good to stay in.’ He qualified. later (‘o. Two years the name of Harlow, Spencer & was known all over the West. The cream of the graip trade came to it, and it was wrecked on the rock of prosperity. In ‘those days the farmer was being rose more rapidly than Louis grain trader, who died at the Planters three hours at the stock ticker did not run at all to fuss:and feathers. He was far ahead of the times when Louis in 1874 to take a He had and he was so correct in his dress that there were many who thought him stilted and aloof because of the elegance which was part years old at attracted attention, and when the grain commission firm of Har- Gelson & Co. wanted a bookkeep- er the business college had no hesita- in recommending young Spencer, two years he sat at a desk and ecasionally when one of the pit men was ill or on vacation wre 7 eam of the Times When He Came to St. Louis, He Was Quick and Made Fortunes While His Associates Were Asleep, play against it and take advantage still in the growing stage. This idéa may not with Spencer, but, so far as St. Lo His advance in life was typically | ¥® concerned, he was the leader of American. He started as a farmer's | the propaganda. boy, working in the field. Being nat- The time was ripe. For six years the urally bright, be became a country farmers of the great Southwest had school teacher. After laboring for a made more money than they could few years trying to teach the young spend for their legitimate needs. Their idea to shoot, Spencer took the inevita- | chances for investment were few. ble next step upward. He became a/| Enough to eat, a few lightning rods clerk in a country store, one of those | 2nd an organ for the parlor met their general merchandise’ establishments, | requirements. The siren sung of stocks where a man must sell a little bit of | had not reached their ears, everything to make anything. Spencer was the originator of the As a clerk he made good. His em-j| daily commission’ house market letter ployer prospered and his neighbors took | to country customers. He was a past notice that there was a quality in the | master of the art of business letter young man which stamped him as a| writing. natural-born money-maker. And yet he Future trading in St. Louls was orig- e idea with all the zest inspired by brokers’ calls for margins. Eleven Firms Collapsed. Mleven firms on waill, pit was suspended while brokers checked up their accounts. Fath-Ewald and O. R. T. weathered the storm. some of them threatening, waited him at his office. thing,’ kept this promise to the letter. and became the local Gifford & Co grain brokerage concerns in Chicago. business for himself as the C. cer Grain and Elevator Co. In 1890 misfortune came again. and the market went against Spencer. His firm went into liquidation and for a time he was not active in the market. In two years he was back in his old office doing business as C. H. Spencer. Once more he retrieved his losses and was on the way to prosperity. In 1896 he was elected president of the Merchants’ Exchange. In the following year, worn out by a long bull campaign and angered by the failure of some of his opponents to meet their contracts, he announced that he would leave St. Louis forever and go to California tv raise oranges. He closed his office and went away. the magic mysteries of educated in He was being shown how speculation. — ulation. Then 1 young Joe Leiter oe his famous oo | he could not only raise his crop and sell it, but also how he could bank on it and the market fluctuations while it was have originated inated by Spericer and kingred spirits among the younger element on ’Change. -| Farmers all over the West took to the er of the only tailor in the little town new game ard a large proportion of the business found its way to Spencer's firm. Then came the disatsrous panic of 1882. Drouth one year was succeeded by floods the next and hundreds of farmers ‘had no money with which to meet the ‘Change went to the and for one day all trading in the the frantic Only three concerns, Francis Brothers, McCormick The profits of years were wiped out in the-slump which followed. Creditors of Spencer, many of them indignant and on ‘‘Give me time and a chance to make’ tom and getting out at the top proved/ more money and I will pay you every- he said. His friends say that he Made penniless by the panic, he en- tered the service of the W. T. Anderson Grain Co. as its representative in the pit correspondent of . then one.of the largest In five yeara he had made envugh money to pay off his creditors, to build an elevator at Madison and to start in H. Spen- The Madison elevator was destroyed by fire of uis a CYRICHT 1906 se ee “——_— —Copyright, 1906, by _J. C. Strauss. = es campaign to corner the wheat market. Fron some mysterious sourte the young specuiator was supplied with all .the wheat he wanted at fancy prices in the St. Louis market. Profit in Leiter Deal. The origin of these orders was a mys- tery until Spencer walked on the floor one day after he had been gone for lit- tle more than a month. For a time it was thought that he was in with Leiter on the deal, but in the end Leiter went to the wall and Spencer pulled out with profits said at the time to be nearly $3,000,000. | After this campaign he again retired pram. the. the grata rate. and _eeanioed a ee. CCC. a O-YEAR COURTSHIP eid Bridegroom Given Seat of Hon- or Behind Lean Mule for Moving Tableau. Special to the Post-Dispatch. CHESTER, Pa., ‘May 5.—Theodore Bell Jr.. a popuiar member of the Alpha Boat Club. was married to Miss Ella Maude Clarke. The wedding was in- tended to be a very quiet one, and, as far as the ceremony was concerned, the intention succeeded, but for the afterpart his friends owe him an apol- OBY The bridegroom was seized, carried from the house and strapped to an ele- vated seat on 4 sulky drawn by a lean and sorrowful mule. A procession was formed, headed by a flute and drum hand of 2% pieces, and over 100 young friends of the happy couple paraded the principal streets | in platoons of 15 abreast. A transparency ‘attached to the sulky informed the hundreds of spectators who lined the sidewalks that the man had just been married, after a courtship of nine years, while numerous colored lights and red fire illuminated the scene. It was one of the most novel varades seen in this city. Zanzibar Sultan's Tour. ZANZIBAR. Fastern Africa, May 5.— The Sultan of Zanzibar its making ar- PARADE AT END OF BIRD LOV ERS ASK LICENSE ON CATS “Tt Will Improve Quality, Ex- terminate Savage Strain,” Their Argument, WACO, Tex., May 5.—Capt. M. B. Davis, secretary of the Texas Audubon Society, gave a lantern lecture before the Boys’ 100 Club of the Young Men’s Christian Association. Sixty colored slides were used, and the big pictures of birds in their natural colors, just as they appear in their home haunts, de- lighted the youngsters. Present also were parents of the children, who greatly approved of the interesting method, which is one of the devices of the National Audubon So- clety of educating the youth of the country in the great value of birds, with a view to opposing destruction with or- ganized and universal protection. Capt, Davis stated that the Audubon Societies were applying for cat legisla- tion in this and other states, looking to a tax on cats in the interest both of the cats and the dirds, as it would bring on a superior race of well-bred tabbies in. stead of the multitude of bird-eaters now infeating ‘the municipalities. Large-Faced Clock. EDINBURGH, May 6.—The ‘argest clock in the United Kingdom, and the second largest in the world. is being completed at Kilbowle, near Glasgow. rangenents to Visit Europe. He intends to visit all the Luporttant countries and : tio remain in London abou; iwo months to study English life and institutions, The face {8 a) feet in diameter, the min- ute hand gs 1s feet, and the hour hand 9 ' Syndicate to purchase Electric Street Railway, came president. After the holding it at a big profit. dicate sold Co. In 1901 ness, he worked fortune more than $1,000,000. bull movement in wheat. The ‘contro- versies, defaults and litigation - which followed this deal caused him to an- nounce that he would never make an- other trade on the. Merchants’ Ex- change. He dissolved his grain firm and Southern of which he be- this property, less than three years the syn- to the United Railways Again Spencer entered the grain busi- a successful bull campaign in corn and increased his Two years ago’‘he was the leader of a _ since then he had On RESET. _main- i: ly.in the stock market, taken an occasional flyer in grain in Chi- cago. The St. Louis’ representative of one Chicago house says that his firm alone paid Spencer $1,000,000 in profits last year. These were on trades which a speculator of Spencer's caliber would consider comparatively small. Spencer had a way of compelling con- fidence. This was never more clearly shown than three years ago, when false rumors, said to have been circulated by a well-known stock manipulator, caused threats of a run on. two large St. Louls trust companies, of one of which Spen- cer was vice-president. How He Averted Runa. When a‘great crowd of men _ ang though he had women were clamoring for their 7 a ey, and it seemed that a run was ime ~ evitable, Spencer leaped to the base tn ture that commanded silence. oa “This bank has plenty of money te pay you all lf you want it,” he sa “But if you draw it out now, you wh lose your interest for a time. There ~ is no cause for alarm. I will Wee my privae fortune to the last. and the other officers and directors of this bank will do the same. Will you~ ~ {take our guarantee?” ae While Spencer was talking the guar antee was being drawn up in legal form. With the ink still wet it was handed to him ard hes red it the depositors, ath Tie The men and women who had becn | frantically trying to get thelr money 4 quietly left the bank and all cen ze of a run was over. Spencer. was one of the hard warts! ers for the success of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. He went with Gov. Francis to Washington to ald a obtaining the $6,000,000 appropriation: © from Congress, and his efforts were so highly appreciated that on his re- turn to St. Louls he was unanim ‘ chosen by the directors as first vice-. president of the Exposition company. “The secret of Spencer's success was that he was a deep student,” said om of his Hfeclong friends to a t-Die: patch reporter. “He studied conditions and market news Wh : Other brokers were asleep. Wes ther ¥ maps, forecasts and statistics were his hobby, and he could look f into the future than any man in 1 grain trade Weat of the In 1889 he predicted the drouth 1901. The corn crop was almost 4 stroyed and the options which cer had bought sold up to 90 j bushel, netting him a fortune as al j sult of his foresight.” Spencer's fortune has been at from $1,000,000 to 3$3,000000. A who was very close to him sald Satus day: children. There will be a each of them.’ DAUGHTER CLAIMS BACHELOR'S ESTATE . s Brothers Present Preferred Creditor Bills to Head Off Woman. WINONA,. Minn., May 5.—The contest over the disposition of the estate of the late Frank Johnston is growing interest- ing. Pwo creditors are now urging’ pref- ‘erence claims of $97,000 to come in ahead of the heirs. Mr. Johnston died last summer, following an operation at St. Mary's Hospital at Rochester. It had been commonly supposed in Winona he was a bachelor, as he had lived alone in Winona for upwards of % years, but, a short time after his death a young woman from Winnipeg ap- peared and, through an attorney, made Claim to the estate on the ground that she was his daughter. This claim has not yet been heard in the court, but it is said the woman possesses pretty strong evidence. Since the woman appeared, two broth- preferred creditors, which would bring them in ahead of Mr. Johnson's daugh- ter. The first of these claims filled was that of Archie Johnston of Waseca County. He bases his claim on 480 acres of land in Waseca County, held in Frank John- ston’s name, but really a partnership enterprise. Christopher J. Johnyton, another’ brother. is the second blood claimant before referred to, and he seeks to s¢- cure an allowance of $85,000 as a pre- ferred creditor. ers have filed claims, alleging they are }. ee ee Sireeieedtiiineenensntiee ees MOTHER OF 9 ASKS PRESIDENT'S ALD While Appeal Is Pending Hu- mane Society Cares - for Fatherless Family. Special to the Post-Dispatch. DES MOINBS, :Io.. May '5.—Because she was the mother of nine children and before the last one was. born .was de- Sserted by her husband, Mrs. Caby Mc- Connelly, 214 Southeast ‘Sixth street. Says she has written to President Roose- velt asking for aid. Mrs. Elizabeth Jones, secretary of the. Humane. Socie- ty, was called to the McConnelly home. The mother with her nine children were without food or fuel. “She had a baby just a day old,” said Mrs. Jones, “‘and the child wag almost frozen. The so- ciety at once made arrangements to take care of the family. The oldest son is only 14 years of age and’ is hardly able to support such a big family. Mrs. McConnelly told me that she had read about President Reosevelt's liking for big families and that she had written to him for aid,’ STEAL PRESSES FOR REVOLUTION WORK. Special Cable to the Post- JP yp aameeey and New York W BAKU, Russia. May ie revolu- tionists have found a new way of get- ting printing presses to print their literature. They go into a printing shop armed and at the point of the re- volver force the proprietor give what- Another claim of $1000 against the es- tate is made by Dre. Mayo, Stinechfield | feet jong. Ti iargest clock in the world is at Philadelphia, 7 b. Graham of Rechester for professional services. ‘ver they demand. The other d«y eiaht mp went into a local shop» and atter ering the employes, earried away 10 YEARS 10 LIVE, MARRIED i, WANT. BETTER PAY Structural Iron Workers Say Building Haste Has Add- ithe largest press, : ed to Dangers. CHICAGO, May 5.—8ix hundred struc-. tural tron workers have struck, declar- ing their contest is a question of human life versus present-day demands in the building line. -The men who. are striking for an in- in wages from 4.50 to % a day ten years is the average “work- ing life’ of the members of their craft. They say the dangvr of their toll on lofty steel beams is increasing with the enterprise of business men who want new structures put up at record-break- ing speed. Chicago's building boom, they say, is costing a heavy toll of human life, “If a structural-iron worker is going to live only ten years itn the trade he wants fair pay.” ts the way one of the strikers at headquarters today put it. Officers of local No. 1, of the Interna- tional Association of Bridge and Struc- tural Iron Workers bare crease declare and sald: “I lost this in a collapse o a structure and yet we said it was may fault. Many of. the boys either get in- aaa killed.”" oe u rry up, “yg it's your own fau bosse ot terms either.”’ sald John p Bhd another mem- ber of the union. ‘In the last ten yvare business men have pushed the bufldings harder and harder. and the hurry makes the work so risky thal we hate a say- ing, “A bridgeman never dies, he gata kijied, and by bridgemen we mean up, if you get h 4g a the way Bible TELLS Hh = j Louisville Girl Kept Until Husband Got Good Job. Special to the Post-Dispatch. LOUISVILLE, Ky., May &.—D the fact that their daughter, Misa T thy H. Bacon, and Roy Geoghegan married in Shelbyville. Ind. last | Mr. and Mrs, George L. Bacon were apprised of the fact until this week. The | news of the marriage was broken f¢ ~ them by their daughter. who will leave © within a few days to join her in Atlanta, Ga, “They had been sweethearts ant 3 most inseparable for years.” weld. Bacon, when seen at hie home &f Brook street, “but the concatenate | the part of my daughter took gg eis - a ae oe . $c) - . le Ay Bak She 3 “ + workers on buliding structures as welll i thowe building bridges,” :