Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume], February 28, 1908, SECOND SECTION, Image 10

About Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury [Connecticut]) 1903-1917

Image provided by: Connecticut State Library, Hartford, CT

                
WATERXUKY EVENING DEMOCRAT, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1908.
: " ..
Wimim
CAFTAIH of IMDTOTMY'
15 he Ventures of Charles XV.
f Morse HaVe "Been of fuch
Magnitude That He Is "Re
garded as a Marvel by Con
servative "Business Men.
"Beginning In a .Small Way
In the Maine Ice Trade f He
'Developed Into One of the
Most Conspicuous Finan
ciers In Jlmerica.
Vvo years ago it was
Morse that in another
two years ha would be
the master of the
American marine, the
foremost figure in the
maritime world. The period for the
fulfillment of the prophecy has ar
rived, but it has not come to pass,
nor will it be realized in the imme
diate future.
The would be dictator of the Ameri
can commercial marine has met with
the . unexpected hindrances which at
the time were not even within the
realm of suggestion.
With the recent closing of the doors
of three financial institutions with
which he was identified prominently,
Jt is now predicted possibly by some
of those who were the self consti
tuted seers of two years ago that the
brilliant career of Charles W. Morse
as a captain of industry will end
speedily.
At the time of the first prediction
the situation was something like
this: Not content with the ice trust,
bank merger, telegraph, cable and
.telephone pre-eminence which he had
acquired, Mr. Morse embarked in an
undertaking which promised at the
time to be of far more consequence to
the commercial world than the fa
mous steamship trust engineered by
J. Pierpont Morgan.
In those days Morse had control of
a considerable per cent of all the ship
ping on the seas flying the American
flag. He made no secret of his am
bition' to control every , American
'steamship line in the coastwise trade.
He owned four lines out of Boston, a
line between New York and Boston,
two lines on the Hudson river and
, the Clyde and Mallory line between
' New Tork and southern ports. In all
Jie was the responsible proprietor of
no less than sixty-six vessels pro
. pelled by steam. These constituted a
fleet much larger than many of the
lesser European governments could
. command and larger than that of any
country on the western hemisphere
save the United States.
In his merging of the coastwise
.steamship lines Mr. Morse pursued
the same general plan employed by
Mr. Morgan in his creation of the
fizz?
Novelties Gathered From Every
Interesting Phases
DOWAGER EMPRESS OF
Tha picture shows a aummer house In the garden of the royal palace at
Peking which is fashioned in the form of a ship. It is built of white marble
and resemble an elaborate Chinese jvnk. It is a favorite resting place of tha
aged dowager empress.
A NARROW ESCAPE FROM SERIOUS ACCIDENT.
-er - - 4?y v-xc 3; vr .s 523 i
mmmmm zfsM Ma .
Tkm tryiag 5Blk ak.tBre4 kercwtlfe mccmrt4 nmll; a tb steea.
rtaaJeg im4 axtveca PL Merita aa4 OHertaa. fmans fwin keaitk raaorta ia
ta apper Cagaaia. A skiag party waa retaraiag fraea a arfra whea aad
b't ramnd tae bead af toe road a Batata1 caata tim di tfc dm
LsjckSy taa akaa drrrar asaaagat ta aoaga
I steel trust. When he took over the
Clyde line, which had a capital of
$7,000,000, he doubled the capitaliza
tion without further preliminary.
When he purchased the Mallory line,
which had been the property of the
family of that name for half a cen
tury, he expanded its $8,000,000 to
$14,000,000. There was one striking
difference, however, between his i
methods and those of Mr. Morgan i
while the latter in his ambition to
make his merger comprehensive paid
millions for goods fit only for the
junkshop, the former acquired only
high class, money making concerns.
The recent financial history of
Charles W. Morse is now public prop
erty. In the course of time his meth
ods were made the subject of criti
cism by the more conservative bank
ers, and men who had watched his
deals shook their heads ominously. It
was this feeling of insecurity of the
great structure he had reared in the
financial world that, ever widening
and deepening,, finally developed into
a determination to eliminate its
builder and his allies from the bank
ing situation of New Tork city, al
ready shaken to its foundations by
various adverse circumstances. Vir
tually every institution with which his
name had been connected suffered a
severe loss of public confidence, due
primarily to the more or less serious
impairment of the three banks con
nected most intimately with his finan
cial expansion.
Once a "Candy Butcher,"
The life history of this man who
succeeded eventually in putting himself
at the head of corporate wealth to the
value of at least $335,000,000 is as in
teresting as it is marvelous. His first
boyish attempt to make money was
as a "candy butcher" on an excursion
boat in his native state of Maine. Un
til recently he controlled twelve banks
and trust companies, three insurance
companies and seventeen steamship,
telegraph, realty and other corpora
tions. , Mr. Morse's career has been daring,
even spectacularly so, Down in Maine
they still call him "the red headed Na
poleon." He comes from a seafaring
family long established in the town of
Bath. His paternal grandfather was j
the . first man to run a towboat in I
CHINA'S MARBLE SHIP.
taa eaaatera. I
3
w mmj mm? mm n
CHARLES "W. MORSE, "ICE KING" AND "CAPTAIN
WILD WEATHER IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC.
The picture gives a vivid Idea of the appearance of an or van (learner bat
tling vith some of the havy seas which art experienced during tha winter
a"n. The rut is from a rnapehot
' when the decks were swept continually
FANTHEGN OF THE
beaatifal atrvctare abwa im
Saroy. It ia at Tiea rrtc. ia
MSHM
KXT Ckl af
resaisaac art bs tsa!y. It ia aaw atiptrdd fey tba giparga. Uk
m tba aaatbaaa at tba rami IjeHt af italv. I
aaa
kabl
Is mm
v..- v ' -r-
Quarter of the Known Earth;
ol Life Among: All Conditions of Mankind
'J7t
taken recently during a heavy tqosA
by tremendous waves
HOUSE OF SAVOY.
tke cat ia tb !i WrUl pUea af tba
PieaaMBt. asd U aoc af tae Caect X-
-
OP INDUSTRY."
THE KAISER'S NEPHEW,
Prince Slgismund of Prussia, ' a
nephew of the German kaiser, is about
to aerva an apprenticeship on a British
man-of-war. Afterward ha will make.
a tour of tha world accompanied by nis
Bngilsb tutnr He la tha aoa af Prince
Henry, the bt-ad of the vimt.an navy,
and ia aaw la bis twelfth year.
THE TALLEST AEROPLANE.
Tha distinction af aelng tba tallest
aeroptana la tba world be tons t tha
flying machine shewn tBa "
wa drsiraed by 1 W Rosbea af Har-
narg. Pa. and Is nude af alamtaiaav
stel tsbiag. aaasbaa, steal ir
aad caarraa. It hi craaaaad by ata-
tor af arrea bonaaawer, ad tta fatal
ttgtit ts f t aevsaa.
3 I'll:
v I r-ll Iff t
Maine waters. Morse's father planned
and organized the Knickerbocker Tow
boat company, and his son saw a great
deal of life on board ship In his early
days. When he was seventeen yeara of
age he made up his mind to go to coW
lege, and he entered Bowdoln in 1872.
The elder Morse was a man of con
siderable means, but he saw no espe
cial merit In a college education, and
he said so. True to his conviction on
the subject and with characteristic
Pint Tree State economy he declined
to contribute to his ambitious son's at
tempt to become wise, and young
Morse was obliged to resort to all sorts
of expedient? to pay his way at Bruns
wick. Even at this stage of his career
he exhibited a monopolistic tendency.
In the summer three or four boys used
to peddle candy and fruit on an ex-,
cursion . steamer which made daily
trips down the river to Boothbay har
bor. Morse managed to obtain the ex
clusive privilegs from the owner of the
boat. .
After Ws graduation he took up the
work of bookkeeping in his father's of
fice. The elder Morse speculated in
ice, lumber and other Maine products,
and his wide awake son gained a good
idea of the business in that way. Ha
wasn t content to let his father ap
propriate all the profit, and he soon
began to speculate a little on his own
account and with such excellent suc
cess that his father was glad to join
him In buying up large quantities of
ice and tripping it In chartered
schooners to southern porta This was
a phase of. the Ice business entirely
original with young Morse,
A Wider Field,
It wasn't long before Bath became
too small for Charles W.. Morse. He
sighed for wider fields, but he did not
sigh Jong. Instead he packed his trunk
and started for New York. At tha
close of his first year In that city he
was $50,000 "to' tho good," all made
fiom various profitable deals In the ice
business. That was in 188S. From tha
time he first , launched into the loe
business he began to acquire plants.
and ha continued this process until ha
obtained possession of practically all
the Ice resources of the Kennebec,
Penobscot and Hudson rivers. A bad
year in the nineties crippled many
small concerns, and these Morse
VERDI HOME FOR
. i ' " i3a.-ri;"''
The picture shows the bsndsome building which under the terms of Verdi'a
will la designed as a home for old and poverty stricken musicians. It la at
Milan, tha great composer's home, and la one of the moat attractive modern
Structures In tbat beautiful oity.
THE HIGHEST COLLARS IN THE WORLD.
Tba aollftra warn by tba ladies af Pa as nr. altewa te tba rat, are batlvrad
ta b tlm taDaat affaetad by baiaaa bctaga. Tbeae waeBca bagla ta pat aa
amaJ eeEars ata tty are ywreg. aaa rirr yr wm tiay are esarn,
TB tia aiiv,atJaa l fmiU4 ta rea.s 4 :;u-t u: .
promptly took over In payment ol
their Indebtedness to him.
He did not become a conspicuous
figure, however, until lie had cornered
the ice market. The first , important
development of the Ice trust idea, was
made manifest in 1897, when tha Con
solidated Ice company was formed.'
This master stroke put an end to most
and also put a great fortune in the
pockets of Charles W, Morse. Two
years later the American Ice company
was born, and its head gained the title
of Ice king, The price of ice doubled
in a week. Competitors were handled
with no mercy and soon ceased to ex
ist in appreciable numbers. ' ;
It was at this time that Mr, Mors
became actively Interested in politics
not national or even state, but plain
municipal politics. He became a mem
ber of Tammany Hall and soon wielded
a mighty Influence In the inner coun
cils of that organization. Some of tha
leading city officials became Interested
in his business projects, and a great
scandal resulted, Charges of corrup
tion were made on every hand, and
whether true or not it was a cold day
for Tammany when It went Into tha lea
business, Ita members who held promt
ncnt municipal offices were killed po
litically, but Morse made millions from
tho operation. . -
This brilliant ' financial coup would
hare satisfied soma men, but It was
merely a fresh stimulus to the expan
sive energies of the ' Ice king. Ho
reached out eagerly for a new field to
conquer, and ha began his campaign
by acquiring a leading influence In all
the New York banks tbat could be
controlled by a man of his business
power and capital. Almost before any
one realized it he blossomed forth as
a formidable competitor of Morgan,
Rockefeller and Morton. The possibili
ties of the combination of two line of
activity was .uppermost In his mind,
and as soon aa the proper moment ar
rived he proceeded to direct all bis
energies to that end. One was tha
consolidation of the Atlantic coastwise
lines and the other was the control of
a long string of banks.
It was in the effort to accomplish all
this that Charles W. Morse, amazing
manipulator that he was, overreached
himself. GEORGE H. PICARD.
MUSICIANS AT MILAN.