DRAMAS IN GOLD
- P;/ Paul Neumann ■■
No. 26 —Charles W. Gates THE PLAYBOY WHOSE LUCK HELD.
It is no easy job to be the apple of a millionaire dad’s eye. Particularly is this true if that dad made his way up from the ranks to be a general of industry in less than a score of years, and looked forward to his sou and heir following in his footsteps. When John W. Gates Hashed upon an astonished steel world toward the end of the last century and calmly announced to the moguls of metal that he purposed having a big hand in the industry that was expanding at such gait it threatened to wreck itself, he had a son to whom he wished to bequeath an empire of achievement. That son was Charlie Gates, who was wont to describe himself as a “ dashing young hell-raiser from the west.” And ho was all of that. When Charlie Gates travelled abroad he would not hesitate to take a whole deck on an Atlantic liner for his party. In Europe he became a tradition of prodigality. In London he would take half the Savoy Hotel and count the cost as nothing, for Charlie Gates had a way with him, and he made friends where his dour father failed to interest. Of all the American colony of steel magnates who made London their headquarters from 1896 to 1902 Charlie Gates was the one who, without effort, crashed the gates of upper society. Places where John W. was barred Charlie broke into as a hail fellow well met. All this helped business. In the Far East he became a playboy famous from the Bund, in Shanghai, to Simla. And everywhere be was welcome. In short, Charlie Gatos knew how to spend money without offence—no small achievement in the Orient, where too much wealth insults, and too much display means ostracism.
Charlie declined firmly to be an active business man. Social contacts ho would maiko with enthusiasm. He could gain the goodwill of a German Kaiser, and entertain like Luculus, without for one moment letting it be imagined that he was not perfectly natural in all his actions. And indeed he was. Charlie Gates's real love was western United States. He had ranches in Wyoming and Montana, and whenever he could get away from being his father’s contact man and social representative it was there he lived. He rode with the best of them and drank with them all. When the great John W. died, still willing to bet a million dollars he would live another year, Charlie inherited ono of those bonanza estates that ran into the scores of millions. Ho enjoyed his wealth, but he enjoyed far more the good ho did with it among friends, who never found out how success attended them in little ventures that would have gone on the rocks for this apparent spendthrift to whom a million was only a word. Charlie Gatos had one wish. Ho wanted to quit life in the prime. Hie, as the cowboys he loved put it, “ with Ids hoots on.” He achieved his desire. An insidious ailment was beginning to take some of the vitality out of him when lie tried to ride a mustang that none could manage. Charlie Gates was flung, and broke his neck, dying almost instantly. In his own view, his luck had held to the end. He died “ with his hoots on,” leaving a dozen women who loved him and not one who would have missed her experiences with this favourite of fortune who lived ns lie would am] died as he wished.—(Copyright.) Next article.; Andrew jJlellon,
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Evening Star, Issue 23349, 19 August 1939, Page 12
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609DRAMAS IN GOLD Evening Star, Issue 23349, 19 August 1939, Page 12
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