Chapter LXVIII
WILLIE COLLIER
What a quaint, clever, original comedian is Willie Collier!
He is as companionable with those he likes as are flowers in a meadow. His meadow is very limited, however, as he likes but few. He believes, as I do, that the environment of friends should be narrow.
Willie insists upon being addressed as William by the majority. Only the few, among whom I am a privileged member, may call him Willie!
His wit scintillates like forked lightning and he possesses sarcasm equal to that of a Douglas Jerrold. Many authors can attribute "their" success to Willie's wit. His personality off the stage is rather stern for a comedian – in the opinion of the majority. But his acting has conquered three countries – America, Australia and England!
I could fill pages with his wit, but the one first to come to my mind must suffice.
For some reason Willie dislikes the Players Club. (Perhaps it is because one sees so few actors there!) It was during the first all-star gambol of the Lambs Club that Willie sprang a joke at the Players' expense – a joke that has since come to be a classic.
We travelled palatially on this Lambs tour, in fine, private cars, magnificently fitted, and with our every comfort catered to. As we were pulling out of Syracuse in our train de luxe, a dingy engine pulling a dirty caboose passed us on the other track. We were at dinner. Willie wiped his lips with his napkin and remarked quietly:
"Boys, there goes the Players Club back to New York."
I have known him for more than twenty years. His late partner, Charlie Reed, was as dear to me as Willie is. We three had many good times. Poor Charlie passed away years ago and Willie, left alone, has struggled bravely to earn his now well-merited success.
I have known him to produce three successive failures in as many weeks – and come forth smiling!
After the second failure I suggested that he come down to the footlights the night of his third première and salute his audience with, "Well, here I am again."
Willie Collier asked the volatile Hopper why he had failed to invite him to one of his weddings. Hopper promised him that he would – to his next!
A few of those who pose as my critics might do worse than to marry – once in a while. It would at least save expense!
The world is better with such men as Charlie Reed and Willie Collier as occupants. I hope that Willie will come dancing down the sun, casting his wit and humor to all the pessimistic censors of the drama for years to come.
Chapter LXIX
HENRY MILLER
A wholesome and natural actor is Henry Miller with all the technique of our art at his finger tips, he is a splendid stage manager. Had he the facilities at his command I am sure he would rank equally with David Belasco and the late Henry Irving – as a master producer.
What I like about Miller's acting is his exquisite touch and splendid repose. I have known him for more than twenty years and have followed his career steadily – from the days of the old Empire Stock Company (where he was surrounded by such artists as Billy Thompson, Viola Allen and William Faversham) down to his most recent vehicle, "The Rainbow." And always he has proved equal to his task.
I may be prejudiced in his favor because I am so fond of him personally. He has exquisite charm off the stage as well as on. I always anticipate joyfully meeting him and indulging in our little dressing-room chats.
Miller is an artist and a gentleman and an ornament to the American stage.
Chapter LXX
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
My memory was never my strong point. As I approach maturity (!) I find to my surprise that it is growing better rather than worse. But perhaps it couldn't grow worse!
Nevertheless the time I won the world's championship as the prize forgetter I really didn't deserve it. It happened early in the divorce proceedings I had instituted at Reno against Maxine Elliott.
Pardon an interjection; but I must express my surprise here that so many men and women I meet are all laboring under the delusion that I have always been on the receiving end of divorce actions! No less recently than June, 1913, I had the pleasure of reading in the New York "Evening World" a very clever article concerning my kinship with Bluebeard, and Solomon, and Henry the Eighth in the course of which the young woman who wrote the article declared I was "more divorced against than divorcing!" The truth is quite the reverse of this and it seems to me should be so easy of confirmation as to admit of no uncertainty in anyone's mind, however much my reputation makes it seem as if I should be the "divorced against" half of any match! Three divorces have marked my matrimonial experiences. I obtained two and by dint of hard work and much skirmishing (and for purely business reasons) managed to help my fourth wife obtain her freedom from me!
Before the thought of divorcing Maxine had entered my head, in fact while we were still living at Jackwood, I had become interested in the mining game and after the dénouement at Trouville I headed straight for Reno. Even then I think it was rather my purpose to get into the mining gamble head over heels than to make the divorce center of America my "legal residence" that led me to Nevada. I'll admit that my establishing my business headquarters at Reno proved a great convenience!
The proceedings were well under way and I was on the stand as a witness when the judge asked me the name of my wife before I married her. I told him it was Hall.
"That's not what she says," replied the judge severely.
And then it developed that when her answer to my complaint had been returned to the court she signed herself McDermott.
"But that is the name of her first husband," I explained. "Her maiden name is Hall."
"She swears her maiden name is McDermott," quoth the judge.
"Well, her brother's name is Hall," I insisted. "I always supposed it was her name too."
"Great Scott!" thundered the judge. "Don't you know your own wife's name?"
"No, not if it isn't Hall," I responded.
Then it developed that Maxine's maiden name was McDermott, sure enough. The McDermott she married was no relation. Her brother had assumed the name of Hall.
But after all – what's in a name?
Chapter LXXI
I TRY BEING A BUSINESS MAN
While spending a holiday at Glenwood Springs, Colorado, I met a man from Goldfield, Nevada. He was fresh from the mining camp then just blossoming into great public notice and he knew in detail all the stories of its vast mineral products. His name was Brewer, not that it matters, and he had all the swagger and bluster of a mining magnate. In no time at all he had convinced everyone in the hotel, including me, that he was one of the lucky ones who had struck it rich in that land of gold!
He literally threw money broadcast. Bell boys sprinted in a continuous marathon to and from the telegraph office with voluminous messages Brewer sent and received. The guests spent most of their time admiring and envying this Croesus. For my part I found my gambling blood becoming aroused at his wondrous recitals of the possibilities of this strange country. When he invited me to attend the Gans-Nelson prize fight at Goldfield I accepted with alacrity.
At Reno we found a private car awaiting us and we were conveyed the remaining two hundred miles to the scene of the fistic encounter in royal state. What an exciting two hundred miles they were! Brewer, who had proved a most hospitable gentleman, planned our having the car for our exclusive use, but before we had journeyed half the distance from Reno to Goldfield that car was crowded to suffocation! His impromptu guests included gamblers, fighters, thieves, soubrettes, merchants, miners, lawyers! It was a conclave as interesting as it was motley.
Thus, sans sleep, we rolled into Goldfield.
What an exciting place it was! It reminded me of another primitive community in Nevada, Virginia City, which I had visited twenty years earlier. Here were the same lack of civilization, utter abandon, tent houses by the hundreds, a few straggling brick and adobe buildings and the inevitable long street running from end to end of the town. On this occasion the street was filled with a howling mob of men and women – rabid fight fans.
Scores of derricks and piles and piles of ore dumped on the sides of operating mines, not to mention hundreds of prospects and claims, told the veriest stranger that here was a mining town. Every other door led into a gambling house or a saloon.
As you contemplated the arid desert utterly devoid of vegetation, hemmed in by huge mountains themselves great uplifts of barren rock, you marvelled at the courage of the first man who made bold to enter that land of devastation and dust. To see that transplanted Brocken scene trodden by people from every part of the globe made me stop and ponder. What will man not do for gold? To be sure a greater part of this mob was attracted to Goldfield by the fight; but the aftermath was horrible to contemplate, the time when only those remained who gambled on what they hoped to find under the crust called earth. I realized that truly this was the country of the survival of the fittest.
A mining camp is a cesspool in which the unfortunate ones wish for death and a mecca for a certain type of speculators, the latter almost as numerous as the former. A poor man has a better chance on Broadway! The desert is no place for him. A practical miner can earn a fair living, but invariably he squanders it all on the green cloth. The wanderer has an ephemeral existence living upon the bounty of the workman who never refuses him a drink or a stack of white chips – if he is winning. As he seldom wins the wanderer (under this caption I include all those outcasts who form a veritable scum in mining camps) finds little chance to recoup his fortunes at the gambling table. The desert for such as these is a prison difficult to escape from.
After the fight Brewer persuaded me to remain as his guest for a few days. He had a pretentious dwelling, as dwellings in Goldfield went, and continued to fill the rôle of host admirably. I was already seized with a spirit of speculation and shortly had become launched with Brewer and an Englishman named Kennedy on a big deal which ended in our securing an option on a prospect known as the Triangle. It was situated about a mile from town at Diamond Fields (why the diamond no one seemed to know!).
Everybody was most courteous to me. (I can't imagine why!)
One night, in Casey's Hotel, I almost made a fortune. One always "almost" makes a fortune in a mining camp. On this occasion I was playing roulette when a Chicago capitalist approached me and suggested that I join a syndicate which was about to lease a property of great potential value. To get in would cost me $5,000. Just as I was about to pay down the money Brewer arrived on the scene and dragged me away unceremoniously. He told me more than $40,000 had already been sunk in the property and although they had gone down to a depth of nearly one thousand feet they had not discovered even a tomato can.
"Do you expect to find tomato cans as far down in the bowels of the earth as that?" I am afraid Brewer doubted the ingenuousness of my credulity as I asked this question – blandly.
Brewer persuaded me to keep out of the syndicate. The Chicago capitalist and his few associates in the succeeding nine months each took $1,250,000 out of this property and the price of the stock rose from $2 to $20 a share!
I put my all into Triangle. We bought a controlling interest for fifteen cents a share and then bulled the stock on the Goldfield exchange until it sold at more than one dollar a share. This was making money fairly fast. The whole thing was accomplished in about four months! I journeyed back to New York and quickly told all my friends to get aboard. Expert engineers had told me that at the one-hundred-foot level they had struck ore averaging $40 a ton. When the public received this illuminating bit of information the stock rose to $1.50.
I bought some at that price!
Previously I had bought more than 100,000 shares with my partners and as many more on my own account at varying prices from fifteen cents up.
The engineers were strictly truthful. They had found forty-dollar ore all right. But my partners neglected to inform me that they had carefully placed it where it was found! That was my introduction to the gentle art of "salting" a mine. Ever since, at the mere mention of the word mine there comes a brackish taste in my mouth.
They had taken their profits when the stock was selling at one dollar and had gone short 100,000 shares above this price; in fact they were the sellers of all the stock I purchased above the dollar price! Happily they were unable to control the upward trend of the market. As fast as they sold short I bought. Their stock got away from them. When they were called on to deliver what they had sold they had not one share and were forced to call upon me for help. Thinking they were in a hole merely because of innocent blunders I loaned them 100,000 shares for $4,000.
That block of stock they sent to my own brokers for my own account in Goldfield! My brokers confiscated all of it to satisfy a loan they had extended to this pair of partners of mine! Thus was I robbed of stock worth in the open market $150,000. When I was fully awake I sold the remainder of my holdings, realizing about 60 cents a share. In all I cleared about $20,000 in this first adventure into the mining game – although many of my friends still believe I made a half million out of Triangle.
Meantime I had endorsed Brewer's notes for $10,000 taking as security stock in another property he controlled. When the notes fell due I had to pay them as by that time everybody had discovered Brewer's specialty and was demanding liquidation. By threatening to send him to the penitentiary I succeeded in regaining part of the $10,000 and erased his name from my visiting list.
Brewer is now playing the tambourine in the Salvation Army. At the last reports he was trying to trade that instrument for a harp, with which to pick his way into heaven – undoubtedly. He was a failure with the pick in Nevada. Perhaps he will be more successful in heaven. If he succeeds in gaining admission (and I ever get there) I'll try to steal his harp!
Although I made but little money at Goldfield I was very greatly attracted by its life; the utter abandon, the manhood, the disregard of municipal laws, the semblance of honor which fooled so many, the codes of right and wrong, the tremendous chances that were taken with a dice box. It was as exciting as being a member of a suicide club!
Why do we court conflict with Fate when we know Fate is merciless?
I wonder.
Immediately after my unfortunate alliance with Brewer I formed an association with two men who, with me, believed in going at the mining game legitimately. By this I mean it is legitimate to buy options on prospects and properties which look good and place them on the market after they have been carefully examined by mining experts. Placing them on the market involves forming stock companies in each of which we must have the controlling interest. If the properties turn out well we continue to develop them and work them for all they're worth. This was the general idea of our new association.
I was the financial backer. One of my partners was a practical miner who knew nothing about publicity work nor the art of promotion. The other was a young man who had gone stranded in Reno and whom I had known slightly in Goldfield as one of the boldest operators in that roaring camp. He had failed for $3,000,000 in Goldfield (mentioned by way of corroboration of this young gentleman's boldness!), and then paid his creditors 100 cents on the dollar, quitting the camp broke.
In due time and with no little formality was launched the Nat C. Goodwin Company, mine operators with headquarters in Reno. Presently we secured control of a valuable property in the new mining town Rawhide. The stock was worth most in Rawhide itself. All the mining experts there knew the property. Thousands of shares were sold to the inhabitants of the new mining camp who were loudest in their boasts that we would soon prove that our property was the peer of the great Goldfield consolidated.
So confident were we that we had a really valuable property that we determined to go to New York and let the public in on the ground floor. With no difficulty at all we listed our stock on the New York Curb and with no manipulation that stock soared from 25 cents to $1.50 per share, almost over night. All we had to do with it was publishing the mining experts' reports.
The gentlemen who call themselves brokers on the Curb banded themselves together and conspired to work our ruin. In the end they succeeded.
But before they did we managed to mount fairly high in the business; our legitimate methods and the unflagging industry of my partners resulting in nine months in our acquiring the controlling interest in Rawhide Coalition, owning outright another property in Rawhide, one in Bovard, one in Fairview, one in Goldfield and the Ely Central. The purchase price of Rawhide Coalition was $700,000 and of Ely Central, $1,075,000. We had fine offices in New York in which we employed one hundred and twenty-five stenographers! There we edited and published a weekly newspaper, not to mention a daily and weekly market letter. Each had a circulation of 60,000 copies weekly.
This was the time that the big promoters of Wall Street decided we had been prosperous long enough. They "raided" our stocks – an interesting process for which there is not room here. Their raids were followed by the publication in two of the daily newspapers of the fact that one of my partners had a Past. It was a youthful past – the event happened back in 1894, just sixteen years before – but they dug it up to bludgeon the market with.
What of it? In Nevada it's what a man is – not what he was – that counts.
They said our "mines" and "prospects" were fakes, my partners impostors and I a willing tool. A burly police captain came to my apartments and threatened me with all sorts of punishments unless I agreed to pay for "protection." I was fearfully upset and insisted that my attorney examine the books of the company to assure me that everything was being conducted honestly. I knew the properties in Nevada were all we claimed for them. I had spent months there and had panned gold on every yard of these properties. My attorney made a rigid examination of the books and assured me that everything was strictly legitimate.
Then it was I determined to continue for I knew we had the goods and had been "on the level." But the market looters were inexorable and showed no mercy. They broke our stock in one day from $1.50 to 60 cents. My partner, the man with a youthful Past, stood by his guns. Instead of allowing the stock to tumble and against my advice, he bought every share as fast as it was offered with the result that we found ourselves owners of hundreds of thousands of shares of stock bought at prices ranging from $1.50 downwards which we could not readily dispose of again, because of the slanderous utterances of the destroyers.
This sportsmanlike act of my partner was repeated on another occasion, a few months later, during the marketing of Ely Central stock. The conspirators finally used a "pull" in Washington and succeeded in getting the Federal authorities to close-up the business. Rawhide Coalition, according to latest information, is earning $200,000 a year now (1913-14). Ely Central has been "grabbed" and will be merged with the Rockefeller-Cole-Ryan owned Giroux, its neighbor.
I had learned months previously that there was a plot on foot to put our firm out of business and the identity of the big interests behind this scheme thoroughly impressed me. The suggestion that I "get out" while the getting was good appealed to me strongly. But first I acquainted my partners with the facts. The man with the past was as stubborn as he was honest. He knew we were dealing honestly with the public and he was bent on standing by his guns and proving it. I knew the sword of Damocles was hanging by the slenderest of threads – and resigned.
Eighteen months later the offices were the scene of a sure-enough, wild-Western raid. All the staff was placed under arrest and indicted by the grand jury. It cost the government several hundred thousands of dollars to put that partner of mine in jail for six months, but they did it by main force and broke him first. The combat was an uneven one, and the "government" practically confessed before the trial was finished that they had been unwittingly used to do a "job" for Wall Street. The only crime my partner was guilty of was telling the truth and trying to protect his customers.
I have set this down, not so much as autobiography as a vindication for a man who insisted on being an honest man, no matter what the cost! Also I have wished to disabuse some of my friends of an impression that I made a fortune out of my adventure into the mining game. I didn't make a fortune. I lost one!