How the Chinook Came to Wall Street
The loss of much money is commonly a subject to be managed with brevity
and aversion by one who sits down with the right reverence for sheets
of clean paper. To bewail is painful. To affect lightness, on the other
hand, would, in this age, savour of insincerity, if not of downright
blasphemy. More than a bare recital of the wretched facts, therefore,
is not seemly.
The Bines fortune disappeared much as a heavy fall of snow melts under
the Chinook wind.
That phenomenon is not uninteresting. We may picture a far-reaching
waste of snow, wind-furrowed until it resembles a billowy white sea
frozen motionless. The wind blows half a gale and the air is full of
fine ice-crystals that sting the face viciously. The sun, lying low on
the southern horizon, seems a mere frozen globe, with lustrous pink
crescents encircling it.
One day the wind backs and shifts. A change portends. Even the herds of
half-frozen range cattle sense it by some subtle beast-knowledge. They
are no longer afraid to lie down as they may have been for a week. The
danger of freezing has passed. The temperature has been at fifty
degrees below zero. Now, suddenly it begins to rise. The air is
scarcely in motion, but occasionally it descends as out of a
blast-furnace from overhead. To the southeast is a mass of dull black
clouds. Their face is unbroken. But the upper edges are ragged, torn by
a wind not yet felt below. Two hours later its warmth comes. In ten
minutes the mercury goes up thirty-five degrees. The wind comes at a
thirty-mile velocity. It increases in strength and warmth, blowing with
a mighty roar.
Twelve hours afterward the snow, three feet deep on a level, has
melted. There are bald, brown hills everywhere to the horizon, and the
plains are flooded with water. The Chinook has come and gone. In this
manner suddenly went the Bines fortune.
April 30th, Consolidated Copper closed at 91. Two days later, May 2d,
the same ill-fated stock closed at 5l--a drop of forty points. Roughly
the decline meant the loss of a hundred million dollars to the fifteen
thousand share-holders. From every city of importance in the country
came tales more or less tragic of holdings wiped out, of ruined
families, of defalcations and suicides. The losses in New York City
alone were said to be fifty millions. A few large holders, reputed to
enjoy inside information, were said to have put their stock aside and
"sold short" in the knowledge of what was coming. Such tales are always
popular in the Street.
Others not less popular had to do with the reasons for the slump. Many
were plausible. A deal with the Rothschilds for control of the Spanish
mines had fallen through. Or, again, the slaughter was due to the
Shepler group of Federal Oil operators, who were bent on forcing some
one to unload a great quantity of the stock so that they might absorb
it. The immediate causes were less recondite. The Consolidated Company,
so far from controlling the output, was suddenly shown to control
actually less than fifty per cent of it. Its efforts to amend or repeal
the hardy old law of Supply and Demand had simply met with the
indifferent success that has marked all such efforts since the first
attempted corner in stone hatchets, or mastodon tusks, or whatever it
may have been. In the language of one of its newspaper critics, the
"Trust" had been "founded on misconception and prompted along lines of
self-destruction. Its fundamental principles were the restriction of
product, the increase of price, and the throttling of competition, a
trinity that would wreck any combination, business, political, or
social."
With this generalisation we have no concern. As to the copper
situation, the comment was pat. It had been suddenly disclosed, not
only that no combination could be made to include the European mines,
but that the Consolidated Company had an unsold surplus of 150,000,000
pounds of copper; that it was producing 20,000,000 pounds a month more
than could be sold, and that it had made large secret sales abroad at
from two to three cents below the market price.
As if fearing that these adverse conditions did not sufficiently ensure
the stock's downfall, the Shepler group of Federal Oil operators beat
it down further with what was veritably a golden sledge. That is, they
exported gold at a loss. At a time when obligations could have been met
more cheaply with bought bills they sent out many golden cargoes at an
actual loss of three hundred dollars on the half million. As money was
already dear, and thus became dearer, the temptation and the means to
hold copper stock, in spite of all discouragements, were removed from
the paths of hundreds of the harried holders.
Incidentally, Western Trolley had gone into the hands of a receiver, a
failure involving another hundred million dollars, and Union Cordage
had fallen thirty-five points through sensational disclosures as to
its overcapitalisation.
Into this maelstrom of a panic market the Bines fortune had been sucked
with a swiftness so terrible that the family's chief advising member
was left dazed and incredulous.
For two days he clung to the ticker tape as to a life line. He had
committed the millions of the family as lightly as ever he had staked a
hundred dollars on the turn of a card or left ten on the change-tray
for his waiter.
Then he had seen his cunningly built foundations, rested upon with
hopes so high for three months, melt away like snow when the blistering
Chinook comes.
It has been thought wise to adopt two somewhat differing similes in the
foregoing, in order that the direness of the tragedy may be
sufficiently apprehended.
The morning of the first of the two last awful days, he was called to
the office of Fouts and Hendricks by telephone.
"Something going to happen in Consolidated to-day."
He had hurried down-town, flushed with confidence. He knew there was
but one thing _could_ happen. He had reached the office at ten and
heard the first vicious little click of the ticker--that beating heart
of the Stock Exchange--as it began the unemotional story of what men
bought and sold over on the floor. Its inventor died in the poorhouse,
but Capital would fare badly without his machine. Consolidated was down
three points. The crowd about the ticker grew absorbed at once. Reports
came in over the telephone. The bears had made a set for the stock. It
began to slump rapidly. As the stock was goaded down, point by point,
the crowd of traders waxed more excited.
As the stock fell, the banks requested the brokers to margin up their
loans, and the brokers, in turn, requested Percival to margin up his
trades. The shares he had bought outright went to cover the shortage in
those he had bought on a twenty per cent margin. Loans were called
later, and marginal accounts wiped out with appalling informality.
Yet when Consolidated suddenly rallied three points just at the close
of the day's trading, he took much comfort in it as an omen of the
morrow. That night, however, he took but little satisfaction in Uncle
Peter's renewed assurances of trust in his acumen. Uncle Peter, he
decided all at once, was a fatuous, doddering old man, unable to
realise that the whole fortune was gravely endangered. And with the
gambler's inveterate hope that luck must change he forbore to undeceive
the old man.
Uncle Peter went with him to the office next morning, serenely
interested in the prospects.
"You got your pa's way of taking hold of big propositions. That's all I
need to know," he reassured the young man, cheerfully.
Consolidated Copper opened that day at 78, and went by two o'clock to
51.
Percival watched the decline with a conviction that he was dreaming. He
laughed to think of his relief when he should awaken. The crowd surged
about the ticker, and their voices came as from afar. Their acts all
had the weird inconsequence of the people we see in dreams. Yet
presently it had gone too far to be amusing. He must arouse himself and
turn over on his side. In five minutes, according to the dream, he had
lost five million dollars as nearly as he could calculate. Losing a
million a minute, even in sleep, he thought, was disquieting.
Then upon the tape he read another chapter of disaster. Western Trolley
had gone into the hands of a receiver,--a fine, fat, promising stock
ruined without a word of warning; and while he tried to master this
news the horrible clicking thing declared that Union Cordage was
selling down to 58,--a drop of exactly 35 points since morning.
Fouts, with a slip of paper in his hand, beckoned him from the door of
his private office. He went dazedly in to him,--and was awakened from
the dream that he had been losing a fortune in his sleep.
Coming out after a few moments, he went up to Uncle Peter, who had been
sitting, watchful but unconcerned, in one of the armchairs along the
wall. The old man looked up inquiringly.
"Come inside, Uncle Peter!"
They went into the private office of Fouts. Percival shut the door, and
they were alone.
"Uncle Peter, Burman's been suspended on the Board of Trade; Fouts just
had this over his private wire. Corn broke to-day."
"That so? Oh, well, maybe it was worth a couple of million to find out
Burman plays corn like he plays poker; 'twas if you couldn't get it fur
any less."
"Uncle Peter, we're wiped out."
"How, wiped out? What do you mean, son?"
"We're done, I tell you. We needn't care a damn now where copper goes
to. We're out of it--and--Uncle Peter, we're broke."
"Out of copper? Broke? But you said--" He seemed to be making an effort
to comprehend. His lack of grasp was pitiful.
"Out of copper, but there's Western Trolley and that Cordage stock--"
"Everything wiped out, I tell you--Union Cordage gone down thirty-five
points, somebody let out the inside secrets--and God only knows how far
Western Trolley's gone down."
"Are you all in?"
"Every dollar--you knew that. But say," he brightened out of his
despair, "there's the One Girl--a good producer--Shepler knows the
property--Shepler's in this block--" and he was gone.
The old man strolled out into the trading-room again. A curious grim
smile softened his square jaw for a moment. He resumed his comfortable
chair and took up a newspaper, glancing incidentally at the crowd of
excited men about the tickers. He had about him that air of repose
which comes to big men who have stayed much in big out-of-door
solitudes.
"Ain't he a nervy old guy?" said a crisp little money-broker to Fouts.
"They're wiped out, but you wouldn't think he cared any more about it
than Mike the porter with his brass polish out there."
The old man held his paper up, but did not read.
Percival rushed in by him, beckoning him to the inner room.
"Shepler's all right about the One Girl. He'll take a mortgage on it
for two hundred thousand if you'll recommend it--only he can't get the
money before to-morrow. There's bound to be a rally in this stock, and
we'll go right back for some of the hair of the--why,--what's the
matter--Uncle Peter!"
The old man had reeled, and then weakly caught at the top of the desk
with both hands for support.
"Ruined!" he cried, hoarsely, as if the extent of the calamity had just
borne in upon him. "My God! Ruined, and at my time of life!" He seemed
about to collapse. Percival quickly helped him into a chair, where he
became limp.
"There, I'm all right. Oh, it's terrible! and we all trusted you so. I
thought you had your pa's brains. I'd 'a' trusted you soon's I would
Shepler, and now look what you led us into--fortune gone--broke--and
all your fault!"
"Don't, Uncle Peter--don't, for God's sake--not when I'm down! I can't
stand it!"
"Gamble away your own money--no, that wa'n't enough--take your poor
ma's share and your sister's, and take what little I had to keep me in
my old age--robbed us all--that's what comes of thinkin' a damned
tea-drinkin' fop could have a thimble-full of brains!"
"Don't, please,--not just now--give it to me good later--to-morrow--all
you want to!"
"And here I'm come to want in my last days when I'm too feeble to work.
I'll die in bitter privation because I was an old fool, and trusted a
young one."
"Please don't, Uncle Peter!"
"You led us in--robbed your poor ma and your sister. I told you I
didn't know anything about it and you talked me into trusting you--I
might 'a' known better."
"Can't you stop awhile--just a moment?"
"Of course I don't matter. Maybe I can hold a drill, or tram ore, or
something, but I can't support your ma and Pishy like they ought to be,
with my rheumatiz comin' on again, too. And your ma'll have to take in
boarders, and do washin' like as not, and think of poor Pishy--prob'ly
she'll have to teach school or clerk in a store--poor Pish--she'll be
lucky now if she can marry some common scrub American out in them
hills--like as not one of them shoe-clerks in the Boston Cash Store at
Montana City! And jest when I was lookin' forward to luxury and palaces
in England, and everything so grand! How much you lost?" "That's right,
no use whining! Nearly as I can get the round figures of it, about
twelve million."
"Awful--awful! By Cripes! that man Blythe that done himself up the
other night had the right of it. What's the use of living if you got to
go to the poorhouse?"
"Come, come!" said Percival, alarm over Uncle Peter crowding out his
other emotions. "Be a game loser, just as you said pa would be. Sit up
straight and make 'em bring on another deck."
He slapped the old man on the back with simulated cheerfulness; but the
despairing one only cowered weakly under the blow.
"We can't--we ain't got the stake for a new deck. Oh, dear! think of
your ma and me not knowin' where to turn fur a meal of victuals at our
time of life."
Percival was being forced to cheerfulness in spite of himself.
"Come, it isn't as bad as that, Uncle Peter. We've got properties left,
and good ones, too."
Uncle Peter weakly waved the hand of finished discouragement. "Hush,
don't speak of that. Them properties need a manager to make 'em pay--a
plain business man--a man to stay on the ground and watch 'em and develop
'em with his brains--a young man with his health! What good am I--a poor,
broken-down old cuss, bent double with rheumatiz--almost--I'm ashamed of
you fur suggesting such a thing!"
"I'll do it myself--I never thought of asking you."
Uncle Peter emitted a nasal gasp of disgust.
"You--you--you'd make a purty manager of anything, wouldn't you! As if
you could be trusted with anything again that needs a schoolboy's
intelligence. Even if you had the brains, you ain't got the taste nor
the sperrit in you. You're too lazy--too triflin'. _You_, a-goin' back
there, developin' mines, and gettin' out ties, and lumber, and breeding
shorthorns, and improvin' some of the finest land God ever made--_you_
bein' sober and industrious, and smart, like a business man has got to
be out there nowadays. That ain't any bonanza country any more; 1901
ain't like 1870; don't figure on that. You got to work the low-grade
ore now for a few dollars a ton, and you got to work it with brains.
No, sir, that country ain't what it used to be. There might 'a' been a
time when you'd made your board and clothes out there when things come
easier. Now it's full of men that hustle and keep their mind on their
work, and ain't runnin' off to pink teas in New York. It takes a man
with some of the brains your pa had to make the game pay now. But
_you_--don't let me hear any more of _that_ nonsense!"
Percival had entered the room pale. He was now red. The old man's
bitter contempt had flushed him into momentary forgetfulness of the
disaster.
"Look here, Uncle Peter, you've been telling me right along I _did_
have my father's head and my father's ways and his nerve, and God knows
what I _didn't_ have that he had!"
"I was fooled,--I can't deny it. What's the use of tryin' to crawl out
of it? You did fool me, and I own up to it; I thought you had some
sense, some capacity; but you was only like him on the surface; you
jest got one or two little ways like his, that's all--Dan'l J. now was
good stuff all the way through. He might 'a' guessed wrong on copper,
but he'd 'a' saved a get-away stake or borrowed one, and he'd 'a' piked
back fur Montana to make his pile right over--and he'd 'a' _made_ it,
too--that was the kind of man your pa was--he'd 'a' made it!"
"I _have_ saved a get-away stake."
"Your pa had the head, I tell you--and the spirit--"
"And, by God, I'll show you I've got the head. You think because I wanted
to live here, and because I made this wrong play that I'm like all these
pinheads you've seen around here. I'll show you different!--I'll fool
you."
"Now don't explode!" said the old man, wearily. "You meant well, poor
fellow--I'll say that fur you; you got a good heart. But there's lots
of good men that ain't good fur anything in particular. You've got a
good heart--yes--you're all right from the neck down."
"See here," said Percival, more calmly, "listen: I've got you all into
this thing, and played you broke against copper; and I'm going to get
you out--understand that?"
The old man looked at him pityingly.
"I tell you I'm going to get you out. I'm going back there, and get
things in action, and I'm going to stay by them. I've got a good idea
of these properties--and you hear me, now--I'll finish with a
bank-roll that'll choke Red Bank Canyon."
Fouts knocked and came in.
"Now you go along up-town, Uncle Peter. I want a few minutes with Mr.
Fouts, and I'll come to your place at seven."
The old man arose dejectedly.
"Don't let me interfere a minute with your financial operations. I'm
too old a man to be around in folks' way."
He slouched out with his head bent.
A moment later Percival remembered his last words, also his reference
to Blythe. He was seized with fear for what he might do in his despair.
Uncle Peter would act quickly if his mind had been made up.
He ran out into Wall Street, and hurried up to Broadway. A block off on
that crowded thoroughfare he saw the tall figure of Uncle Peter turning
into the door of a saloon. He might have bought poison. He ran the
length of the block and turned in.
Uncle Peter stood at one end of the bar with a glass of creamy beer in
front of him. At the moment Percival entered he was enclosing a large
slab of Swiss cheese between two slices of rye bread.
He turned and faced Percival, looking from him to his sandwich with
vacant eyes.
"I'm that wrought up and distressed, son, I hardly know what I'm doin'!
Look at me now with this stuff in my hands."
"I just wanted to be sure you were all right," said Percival, greatly
relieved.
"All right," the old man repeated. "All right? My God,--ruined! There's
nothin' left to do now."
He looked absently at the sandwich, and bit a generous semicircle into
it.
"I don't see how you can eat, Uncle Peter. It's so horrible!"
"I don't myself; it ain't a healthy appetite--can't be--must be some kind
of a fever inside of me--I s'pose--from all this trouble. And now I've
come to poverty and want in my old age. Say, son, I believe there's jest
one thing you can do to keep me from goin' crazy."
"Name it, Uncle Peter. You bet I'll do it!"
"Well, it ain't much--of course I wouldn't expect you to do all them
things you was jest braggin' about back there--about goin' to work the
properties and all that--you would do it if you could, I know--but it
ain't that. All I ask is, don't play this Wall Street game any more. If
we can save out enough by good luck to keep us decently, so your ma
won't have to take boarders, why, don't you go and lose that, too.
Don't mortgage the One Girl. I may be sort of superstitious, but
somehow, I don't believe Wall Street is your game. Course, I don't say
you ain't got a game--of some kind--but I got one of them presentiments
that it ain't Wall Street." "I don't believe it is, Uncle Peter--I
won't touch another share, and I won't go near Shepler again. We'll
keep the One Girl."
He called a cab for the old man, and saw him started safely off
up-town.
At the hotel Uncle Peter met Billy Brue flourishing an evening paper
that flared with exclamatory headlines.
"It's all in the papers, Uncle Peter!"
"Dead broke! Ain't it awful, Billy!"
"Say, Uncle Peter, you said you'd raise hell, and you done it. You done
it good, didn't you?"