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"Made sixty thousand dollars?"
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
"Sure! Don't you remember? You told me to sell Reading; so I bought it! I've always
made money coppering your tips, Westlake," said John W. Gates pleasantly. "Always!"
Old Westlake looked at the bluff Westerner and presently remarked admiringly, "Gates,
what a rich man I'd be if I had your brains!"
The other day I met Mr. W. A. Rogers, the famous cartoonist, whose Wall Street
drawings brokers so greatly admire. His daily cartoons in the New York Herald for years
gave pleasure to thousands. Well, he told me a story. It was just before we went to war
with Spain. He was spending an evening with a broker friend. When he left he picked up
his derby hat from the rack, at least he thought it was his hat, for it was the same shape
and fitted him perfectly.
The Street at that time was thinking and talking of nothing but war with Spain. Was
there to be one or not? If it was to be war the market would go down; not so much on
our own selling as on pressure from European holders of our securities. If peace, it
would be a cinch to buy stocks, as there had been considerable declines prompted by the
sensational clamorings of the yellow papers. Mr. Rogers told me the rest of the story as
follows:
"My friend, the broker, at whose house I had been the night before, stood in the
Exchange the next day anxiously debating in his mind which side of the market to play.
He went over the pros and cons, but it was impossible to distinguish which were
rumours and which were facts. There was no authentic news to guide him. At one
moment he thought war was inevitable, and on the next he almost convinced himself
that it was utterly unlikely. His perplexity must have caused a rise in his temperature, for
he took off his derby to wipe his fevered brow. He couldn't tell whether he should buy or
sell.
"He happened to look inside of his hat. There in gold letters was the word WAR. That
was all the hunch he needed. Was it not a tip from Providence via my hat? So he sold a
raft of stock, war was duly declared, he covered on the break and made a killing." And
then W. A. Rogers finished, "I never got back that hat!"
But the prize tip story of my collection concerns one of the most popular members of the
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