A GAMBLER" IN MILLIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15234, 22 February 1913, Page 2 (Supplement)

A GAMBLER" IN MILLIONS.

ROMANTIC 'CAREER OF MR. JAMES ; £500,000 BY ONE DEAL. Oks of the most romantic careers of modern times has closed with the death of Mr, Jisies H. Keene. famous financier and sportsman/ r-' : -5.h is-reports*! from New York. ■. . ; Mr. Keene was bom in London in; ,(.838, but emigrated, with his parents, to the States in 1852.' Per sot-ins fcbie he worked with pick and shovel as : a i& California/ but evoniuaUy he became drib cf/tho financial magnates tf New York. In .;800-f)l be lost £2,500,000 in : wheat, but 'irctttr-gjoi to ).«gain die whole of the money ;in ether speculations. While .working aj J '&'■ gQldmhi'.r in California and Nevada | Keens savtd enough to embark in specui J<lion Oi\ the San Francisco Stock Exchange, and in time he firmly established hbafcelf and began to make money fast. Buying the '* bonanza" period of the early seventies he is said to have accumulated a fortune of over £1,000,000. Then ho turned to the east, and began, operations in Wall Street, where &o became famous as a maker and breaker of " corners, , ' the Standard Oil Company, the American Tobacco magnates, and the Whitney-Wide-nerElkjns syndicate entrusting their gigantic stock operations almost exclusively to him. V; One of Ms greatest financial • fcriumj>V;'> wis seem ed in <y>tuoetio.o. with' I th? tqh't id.'! the control o;? ; the NoMJiern I Pe.\6<> mihsay Company. Th'.- ktfaa had Bony,;*? 'ho Chicago and Burlington line, and ;«fused to let th« Union Pacific share ; «o the Union Pacific began to buy up con-" tTol of the Northern Pacific, and the 'joard of tJie latter/in self defence, begas to buy un : its own stock. Keene in England .when, news of the contest reached him, and he at one© returned to New York. There he discovered the influences which were at work, and quietly edging in between the contending syndicates of multimillionaires he secretly bought all the floating stock in sight. I, Jump from 160 to 1000. ■• Foreseeing a slump, and not knowing that the millionaires intended to lock up the stock, many speculators sold "short." When eventually they sought to cover their sales they discovered there was no stock to be had. It was ;" cornered the price jumped in an hour from 160 to 1000, and the results werea. panic on the Stock Exchange, £500,000' profit to James R. Keen©* and a million profit for his associates. Keene was concerned also in the American Sugar Refining "deal" of 1897, when in six months; the stock rose from 109£ to ,159 J. On that " deal" he mads £400,000.. Generally, however, ho was a "bear,*' and in 1896 he netted £600,000 by- working American tobacco stock from 117 to 51. Three years earlier than- that Ids operations in National Cordage stock caused a fall in the price in seven'months from 147 to 7, by winch he made £800,000. Of course, he suffered reverses. One of the greatest was bis failure to " corner*' wheat in \ 1880-81. • Mr. Keene was greatly interested in racing, and in 1881 he won the Cesarewitch and the - Cambridgeshire with the celebrated horse Foxhall. His ambition, was, to win the Derby, but thi<3 he never attained.: In "-. 1907 his aggregate winnings on the tuif , amounted to £75,588, this eclipsing the Duke of Portland's £73,857 record fo>; the season of 1889. During! some legal pro&eedingly riot long ago Mr.. Keene's telephone boy admitted that he {the boy)' had won £10,000 on the stock market.