USA > New York > New York City > History of the city of New York, 1609-1909 > Part 77
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Mr. Dale enjoyed the best educational advantages, receiving his early training in Drisler's School in New York City, and his preparation for col- lege at the famous Hill School, of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where he re- mained for six years, and he completed his scholastic training in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, being a member of the Class of 1904.
His father had been for years an extensive investor in securities, and Mr. Dale had early determined upon a financial career. Therefore, upon leaving the university he sought to perfect himself in the study of market conditions and investment values, and he dealt in stocks and securities as an investor for several years until he had attained a practical knowledge of the stock market. In 1908 he bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and , engaged in a regular brokerage business in stocks and bonds, and since then has been identified with many important stock-market operations.
Mr. Dale has acquired numerous important interests, but is especially well known in the financial world as an organizer, in 1905, of The Precious Metals Corporation, the stocks of which have attained a place of prominence among the active securities in the New York market, attracting the attention of investors all over the country. Mr. Dale is the treasurer of the corpora- tion, and has devoted his personal attention to its financial welfare, making a market for its securities, and the success and vitality of the corporation is in a very large measure due to his organizing ability and his watchful care. Be- sides his connection with this company, Mr. Dale is identified to an influential degree with other enterprises, and has met with continuous success in his operations.
Mr. Dale has traveled extensively in Europe and in the eastern part of the United States. He is a Republican in political views, though not espe- cially active in partisan affairs. He is a director of the Riding and Driving Club of Brooklyn, and a member of the Crescent Athletic Club of that bor- ough. His other club affiliations include The Lambs, of New York City, and the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club.
Mr. Dale married, in Brooklyn, March 31, 1905, Miss Sadie Peters, and they have a town house at 992 Park Place, Brooklyn, and a delightful country residence, "Bonnie Braes," at Cold Spring on the Hudson, New York.
922
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL
923
WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL
W ILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL, an American lawyer of re- markable achievements and international fame, was born in New York in 1854. When the war began, in 1861, his father went to the front as colonel of the Forty-seventh Regiment of Illinois Volunteers under General Sherman, and was killed at the battle of Jackson, in 1863. After Colonel Cromwell's death, his widow returned to the East and made her home in Brooklyn.
His early education was under a private tutor. Later he was graduated from Columbia Law School and then entered the office of Sullivan, Kobbe & Fowler, which was one of the leading law firms of the metropolis, headed by Algernon Sidney Sullivan, who was one of the greatest lawyers of his time, and whose example was an inspiration to young Cromwell. A hard worker, and a careful student, of tireless energy and an undeviating determination to achieve mastery of the profession of the law, he was admitted to the bar in 1877, continuing with Mr. Sullivan and, advancing in his favor, was almost immediately admitted to partnership in the firm, which then took its present name of Sullivan & Cromwell, which name has since been continued, although Mr. Sullivan died in 1888; since then Mr. Cromwell has been at the head of the firm.
Throughout his practice Mr. Cromwell has shown especial talent for the larger tasks of corporation law, the forming of great industrial enterprises on a legal basis, the rehabilitation of firms involved in financial tangles, on a large scale, the carrying out and closing of difficult negotiations, and the orderly organization of gigantic enterprises into legal working order. When only at the bar a year or two, he won his first legal spurs by becoming the aggressive and leading counsel in the foreclosure of the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company against Mr. Huntington, practically managing the receivership as counsel until the mortgage debt he represented was paid in full. The first case in which his great abilities found scope for ample dem- onstration was that of Decker, Howell & Company, a brokerage firm which had failed for sixteen million dollars. Their affairs were placed in Mr. Cromwell's hands and he took hold of them with such energy and insight that in two months he had straightened out the firm's affairs and the creditors were paid in full, a consummation which no one had been sufficiently optimis- tic to expect. For his marvelous success in that case the court allowed a fee of $400,000, though Mr. Cromwell refused to take more than $250,000. Then the affairs of young Ives, "the Napoleon of Finance," involving administra- tion of railroads and banks, were placed in his hands and successfully adjusted with expedition. A similar result attended his efforts in the cases of Price, McCormick & Company, who failed for ten million dollars, and the Produce Exchange Trust Company, which he soon put in reorganized condition and
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
reestablished successfully under another name; the reorganization of the United States Ship Building Company, the Seventh National Bank, and the Metropolitan Fire Engine Company followed. He unraveled the complica- tions of the Penfield Companies, and has been the most successful adjuster of many Wall Street failures. He was general counsel for the receivers of the Northern Pacific and general counsel in the rehabilitation and reorganization of that company from 1893 to 1896, when it was put firmly on its feet. He was also chief counsel for the New York Life Insurance Company in the con- test for the control of that company against an opposition ticket, resulting in a complete victory for the interests represented by Mr. Cromwell.
During the panic of 1907, the large jewelry importing houses of Joseph Frankel & Sons and Joseph Frankel's Sons Company, E. M. Gattle & Com- pany and Gattle, Ettinger & Hammel, found themselves seriously embarrassed with enormous liabilities contracted chiefly for their stock on hand, with the price of precious stones greatly depreciated and sales absolutely at a standstill. In this situation these companies were at the mercy of any creditor who might desire bankruptcy or receivership, which would entail enormous expense and almost inevitable ruin to the business. Mr. Cromwell devised a wholly novel plan, whereby three well-known bankers were induced to act as "liquidating trustees." The companies placed the liquidating trustees in control of their business, and the creditors assigned to the trustees all of their claims, notes, judgments and accounts. These companies, after having been in liquidation for a little over a year, under Mr. Cromwell's directions, received back their property and are to-day prosperous, going concerns, while the creditors re- ceived their claims in full, with interest. This method of avoiding the enor- mous cost and waste of assets involved in bankruptcy, receiverships or assign- ments for benefit of creditors has since been widely used. No man in the country has to his credit more efficient work in the arresting or preventing of commercial disaster to firms or corporations. He approaches problems of that kind with a degree of analytic insight and skill in diagnosis which is so exact as to deserve to be called truly scientific, and which has, in actual prac- tice, certainly produced results of unique efficiency in the rehabilitation of crippled enterprises.
Mr. Cromwell has been a leading figure in the organization of many of the greatest corporations of the age. He was the originator of the reorgan- ization of the trusts into corporations, including the American Cotton Oil Company. He organized the $80,000,000 National Tube Company, and was one of the chief counsel and influences in organizing the United States Steel Corporation, and many other of the largest corporations.
His genius along the lines indicated attracted the attention of E. H. Har- riman, first by his success in fighting that gentleman. That astute financier
925
WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL
realized that Mr. Cromwell might be as valuable an ally as he was dangerous as an opponent, and Mr. Cromwell made and won for him the fight for control of the Wells-Fargo Express Company. He also represented the Harriman interests in the Illinois Central fight for control and won the contest which resulted in the ousting of Stuyvesant Fish from the presidency of that com- pany, and placing the Harriman interests in dominancy.
The most notable and best known of his achievements were those which culminated in the adoption, purchase and building by the United States of the Panama Canal. The French Company placed its affairs, without reserve, in the hands of Mr. Cromwell. At that time the probability that the Panama Canal route would ever be chosen for the canal was practically hopeless. The engineers' reports, the Congressional Committees, and a strong Nicaraguan organization had brought the Nicaragua route so prominently in favor that it had been virtually decided upon by Congress. To inaugurate and organize a campaign of education in favor of the Panama route; to present arguments against men who had for years been strenuously advocating the Nicaragua route and who had a large part of the press committed to and strongly fight- ing for their theories; and against international powers that were combating his efforts through diplomatic channels-this was the task that he took up simultaneously in Washington, Paris, Panama and Colombia. He succeeded in it, and finally was the chief instrument in adoption of the Panama Canal bill, and afterwards negotiated and completed the transfer of the French Panama Canal to the United States for forty million dollars. It has been given to few men to accomplish so important an international undertaking.
While his achievements have been so markedly individual, Mr. Cromwell's chief ambition has been to organize his law firm upon the highest plane of professional ethics and with such skilled and able assistants that the firm would become a permanent legal organization and survive his own activities. He thus has surrounded himself with a partnership organization comprising over a score in number, and an office force of twice that number, thus giving assurance of perpetuity next only to that of the corporate form which would be inapplicable to the legal profession.
Mr. Cromwell is a tireless worker and student, a master genius of nego- tiation and organization. Next to his work he loves music and art. His home on West Forty-ninth Street is adorned by many paintings of the best artists, notably canvasses by Bouguereau and other great artists of the mod- ern French school, and he has a large pipe organ installed in his home, and he finds his chief diversion in playing on that instrument.
He is a member of the Union League, New York and Metropolitan Clubs, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Lawyers' Club. He married Mrs. Jennie Osgood.
926 -
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
JAMES ROBERT KEENE
927
JAMES ROBERT KEENE
J AMES ROBERT KEENE has been, since 1877, one of the most prominent and masterful participants in the gigantic operations that centre in Wall Street, where he has sustained the position of a leader through many a hard-fought financial campaign. Before he came here he had estab- lished his reputation as by far the boldest and most successful financier of the Pacific Coast.
Mr. Keene was born in 1838 in London, England, where his father was a successful merchant, and his education was acquired in a private school in Lincolnshire, and afterward in Dublin, under the instruction of a friend of his father, an old master of Trinity College, continuing until his father, having determined to come to America, brought him, with his family, to this country.
James R. Keene was little more than fifteen years of age when his ambi- tious and adventurous spirit impelled him to seek a career for himself. The Golden West was then the goal of those who sought for Fortune's favors; so he made his way by the overland route to California, settling in one of the northern counties. There he followed various pursuits, prospected in the mountains and became interested in mining ventures. He edited a newspaper for two years, and during that period studied and practised law.
At that time the developments on the Comstock lode in Nevada had assumed such importance that the Washoe Country became the centre of in- terest in the mining world. From all parts of the country adventurers rushed in a continuous stream to the new Eldorado. Thither went Mr. Keene, than whom there was none more alert and enthusiastic in all that eager and ambi- tious throng. His genius for speculation soon asserted itself, and he acquired interests in many mining properties and made some advantageous deals in the local mining stocks of that region. After a time he had not only gained a moderate fortune, but with it had made the more valuable acquisition of a fund of knowledge of the mines of that region which proved a most useful asset in his later and larger operations.
Having definitely discovered his own genius for speculation he went to San Francisco and there was soon engaged in operations in Nevada mining stocks, which were the active feature of that market. He did well for a while, but the failure of one of the Comstock mines at the lower levels shattered con- fidence, sent prices down to the bottom, depressed business, and brought dis- aster to nearly all who dealt in stocks in that market.
Among others Mr. Keene found his fortune reduced to a deficit, and it was about two years before he and the market had so far recovered that he was able to actively resume his operations. He soon made a reputation as a sagacious speculator, and buying a seat in the San Francisco Stock Exchange, of which he became, in a remarkably short time, beyond all comparison the most skillful, successful and masterful member, and was elected its president.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
When the famous "bonanza" discovery was made in the Consolidated Virginia mine, Mr. Keene was one of the first to appreciate its importance, and bought heavily of the securities of that and other properties of that dis- trict, which he continued to hold until the following year, when, the stock having reached the sensational prices which marked the culmination of the rise, he realized on his investments with an immense profit.
With the terrible fall of values which shook the market many business dis- asters came, chief among which was the closing of the doors of the Bank of California, upon the soundness and solvency of which the stability of many of the leading enterprises of the State was founded. Its rehabilitation was an imperative necessity of the situation, and in the measures to that end Mr. Keene took a leading part.
He was one of the four leading California financiers who headed, with $1,000,000 each, the guaranty fund of $8,000,000 found necessary to secure depositors against loss and enable the bank to continue business. He also secured the passage of a resolution by which the Stock Exchange subscribed $250,000, and through his influence individual members of that institution also subscribed $500,000 more toward the amount, which proved sufficient to permit the bank to resume and start anew on a career which has been emi- nently successful ever since; and to avert the almost incalculable disaster which would have resulted had the institution failed.
Though the bank was saved, the stock market never recovered from the blow. Mr. Keene, in 1877, left with the intention of visiting Europe, but when he reached New York the Wall Street situation was so full of in- terest that he postponed his European trip and became active in the stock market. Railroad strikes and other disturbing influences had reduced prices of the entire list of stocks to the lowest level which had been reached for years. Mr. Keene, with large cash resources and a conviction that there would be a quick revival of values and a period of great prosperity, bought heavily of all the principal stocks in the market. The soundness of his judgment was fully justified when, as he had foreseen, prices steadily mounted, and by 1879 he found himself in possession of a fortune estimated at $15,000,000.
Mr. Keene, after a somewhat extended visit to Europe, returned to New York, and again engaged in the activities of the stock market, in which he has since continued to be one of the most successful and boldest operators, for his own account and as the manager of campaigns for others. No man who has ever appeared in this market has demonstrated a greater mastery of its tactics, a keener insight, a broader outlook or a sounder judgment than Mr. Keene. In the financial battles of Wall Street there has appeared no abler general. Many of the greatest movements in the financial history of New York have been entrusted to him.
929
JAMES ROBERT KEENE
When, in a campaign which extended from 1895 to 1897, Mr. Keene made the market for the sugar stocks, it was regarded as a masterful piece of work; and a task which even more strongly demonstrated his great ability was when, in 1901, he made the initial market for United States Steel with an efficiency of management which has never been surpassed. With like good generalship he managed, in its early stages, the upward movement in Amal- gamated Copper in 1905. Still more noteworthy was the later campaign which under his charge resulted in securing the control of the Northern Pacific Railway by a brilliant coup, the celerity, noiselessness and complete- ness of which evinced genius of a high order.
Mr. Keene has attained international distinction on the turf, and from his breeding farm have come many of the most distinguished thoroughbreds of the American turf: among them Sysonby, Voter, Ballot, Celt, Colin, Peter Pan, Conroy, Maskette, Sweep, and many others which have won him many triumphs. He has also taken a prominent part in the famous classic races of England and France, notably with his horse Foxhall, which, in 1881, carried off the Grand Prix at Paris, and the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire Stakes at Newmarket; his filly Cap and Bells, which won the English Oaks in 1901, and others. His stable represents the best blood of two continents, and its excellence is the result of an almost lifelong study by Mr. Keene of the thor- oughbred horse. He is one of the best informed of the world's horse owners, steadfast in his devotion to the best traditions of the turf, and possessing a thorough knowledge of turf rules and racing practices in America and Eu- rope. He has been a steward and vice chairman of the Jockey Club since its first organization. He is a member of The Brook and the Rockaway Hunt Clubs.
Mr. Keene has a beautifully situated home at Cedarhurst, Long Island. He married, in California, Sara Jay Daingerfield, of a most distinguished Virginia family, being the daughter of Colonel LeRoy and Juliet Octavia (Parker) Daingerfield, and a sister of Judge Daingerfield, of the United States Court in California, and of Major Foxhall A. Daingerfield, of Ken- tucky. Mrs. Keene's mother was a sister of Commodore Foxhall A. Parker, of the United States Navy, and of Senator Parker, of Virginia, whose son, Judge Richard Parker, presided at the trial of John Brown in connection with the Harper's Ferry raid; and was aunt of Commodore Foxhall A. Parker, 2d, who commanded the Potomac flotilla in the Civil War and was afterward superintendent of the United States Naval Academy.
Mr. Keene has a son, Foxhall Parker Keene, and a daughter, Jessie Har- war Keene. Foxhall P. Keene is prominent in the best society of this country and England; is famous as a horseman and a polo player, and has long been associated with his father in turf matters.
59
930
HISTORY OF NEW YORK
EDWARD WESTON
931
EDWARD WESTON
E DWARD WESTON, SC.D., LL.D., one of the world's most dis- tinguished electrical engineers and inventors, was born at Brinn Cas- tle, near Oswestry, Shropshire, England, May 9, 1850, the son of Edward and Margaret (Jones) Weston, but in early life removed with his parents to Wol- verhampton, a manufacturing city of Staffordshire.
He attended the National Schools and St. Peter's Collegiate Institute, and was an especially eager student along the lines of physical science and experiment. His father was a landed proprietor but was also a mechanical genius, and young Weston, inheriting like talents, delighted to experiment with tools, and to study the uses and construction of machines. He was only nine when he secured a copy of Smee's Elements of Electro-Metallurgy, of which he made a close and eager study. He fitted up a room in his parents' home, studied and experimented in chemistry and electro-metallurgy, and built in- duction coils, electric motors and galvanic batteries of various types, using great ingenuity and spending much labor in preparing and adapting the crude materials which were available. His first battery consisted of two cells, the copper plates of which were two old scale pans and the zinc plates such thin sheets of zinc as were readily obtainable in those days. The smallness of the spark obtained from these cells disappointed him; he wanted something more startling, and desired to obtain the most powerful combination of elements used in the Grove or Bunsen cell. Platinum he could not obtain, but he pro- cured rough blocks of carbon from the local gas works which he vainly tried to saw into shape, but could not because of the hardness and density of the material; so he spent days of persistent toil in the work of chipping out mate- rial of the required shape and size. Procuring porous cells from a nearby telegraph office and zinc plates from local zinc works he constructed a battery of much greater power than any he had before, and constructed electric bells and similar instruments, and even a small but perfectly workable telegraph line, the insulation of which was accomplished by use of the necks of glass vials. He made the acquaintance of several prominent engineers with whom he discussed various mechanical and electrical problems. One of his sugges- tions of that early period concerned the subject of steam propulsion upon ordi- nary roads, using rubber tires to avoid cutting up the roadway. He acquired such a knowledge of electrical science that at the age of sixteen he delivered a public lecture, which attracted much attention, upon the subject of electricity, illustrated by apparatus made by himself.
His parents, while tolerant of his devotion to these experiments, had no sympathy with his ambition to become a mechanical engineer, and endeavored with some anxiety to select a profession for him. On the suggestion of a prominent dentist named Owen, his parents induced him to try dental sur- gery, but he soon developed a repugnance to that pursuit which made them
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK
seek another for him, and they decided that he should take up the study of medicine. In England the candidate for a medical diploma must not only attend lectures, but must also spend at least three years in association with some duly qualified practitioner in regular practice. Young Weston was, therefore, placed by his parents under the care of Doctors Edward H. and J. M. Coleman, distinguished physicians, and men of scientific tastes, and with them he pursued medical studies for three years, but while he found much scientific incentive in connection with his studies, he early decided that he would never follow medicine as a profession, and continued to devote the time that was not taken up by his medical studies to his mechanical and electrical investigations.
His parents complained of his lack of stability, and, as he found himself out of sympathy with his surroundings, he concluded to leave England. He arrived in New York City in May, 1870, bringing with him his apparatus, a few books, a small amount of money and some letters of recommendation. After several months he secured employment with a small firm of manufac- turing chemists, where he remained a year and then became chemist and elec- trician to the American Nickel-Plating Company.
In that employ he invented processes in connection with nickel plating which are now in universal use and would, if he had protected himself by pat- ents, have brought him great returns. He studied dynamo-electric machines with the object of using them for electro-metallurgical purposes, and from December, 1872, engaged in the nickel-plating business on his own account until 1875. During that period he constructed and put into use a variety of dynamo-electric machines. In 1873 he prepared the first of the copper-coated carbons now in world-wide use in the arc form of electric lighting, and the same year invented the disc armature, which greatly simplified the problems of efficiency and economy in dynamo-electric machines. In 1875 he took out his first patent, which was for an improvement in nickel-plating processes, and the same year gave up the electroplating business which his inventions had so greatly improved both in processes and results.
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