THE DEATH OF GOVERNOR SPARKS
Feeling under a weight of obligation to Governor Sparks, who had headed nearly all of the Sullivan Trust Company promotions as president, I tried editorially in the Nevada Mining News to justify the Governor's action. But it was a wee voice drowned in an ocean of adverse opinion and was entirely without echo. It didn't even soothe the Governor.
The Governor, honest, simple old man, broken in purse, in health and in spirit, grieved over the President's denouncement, took to bed, and died of a broken heart.
At his imposing funeral pageant in Reno, which was attended by thousands of mourners, who had come from all parts of the State to pay homage to the grand old man and who followed the hearse to the cemetery, Senator Nixon and his partner, George Wingfield, were conspicuous by their absence.
Even at the moment when the grave closed over his remains the troops were leaving Goldfield.
"It's the 'Dead March,'" said one of the bereaved.
The bringing of Federal troops to Goldfield accomplished its purpose. The Miners' Union was destroyed and sufficient time was gained to enable the financial atmosphere to clarify. By the time the troops departed, Goldfield Consolidated had rallied to $5 per share. The panic was over. Money was comparatively easy again.
I ask the reader's indulgence for having devoted so much space to the facts bearing on the appearance in Nevada of United States troops at a time when there was no valid occasion for their presence. I feel that it is an important chapter of my experiences and is fraught with interest to the general reader, because it illustrates how easy it is to direct the powerful machinery of our great Government so as to carry out the machinations of evil-minded men.
You might think, after this demonstration of the lengths to which Senator Nixon went to accomplish a set purpose, and after witnessing the success which attended his efforts, that a poverty-stricken individual like myself, who had had the hardihood to conduct a newspaper campaign in the Senator's own home town against his financial and political activities, would judge it the better part of valor to emigrate from the State. Well, I didn't. I stayed right on the spot. That I would hear from Washington later I had no doubt, but I stuck, just the same, until my business interests called me away.
I wasn't wrong in my deductions. Within a few months thereafter there came a visit to my office in Reno by a postal inspector, who was apparently "sicked on to the job," and but for the quick intercession by telegraph of United States Senator Francis B. Newlands of Nevada with the Postmaster General at Washington, I am certain that potent influences even at that early day would successfully have "started something." But of this more at another time, I am ahead of my story.
CHAPTER VII
Rawhide
Because Rawhide, the new Nevada gold camp, was born during the financial crisis of 1907, I couldn't see any future ahead of it from the promoter's coign of vantage—not "through a pair of field-glasses." It requires capital to develop likely-looking gold "prospects" into dividend-paying mines, and I could not imagine where the money was going to come from. Eastern securities markets were in the doldrums. Time money commanded a big premium. Prices for all descriptions of mining stocks had flattened out to almost nothing. Investors were at their wits' end to protect commitments already made. Financiers everywhere were depressed. A revulsion of sentiment toward speculation had set in, seemingly for keeps. Only a hair-brained enthusiast of the wild-eyed order could hope at such a time possibly to succeed in the marketing of new mining issues.
A financial panic has no terrors, however, for gold-seekers. The lure of gold is irresistible. Money stringency serves only to strengthen the natural incentive. By the first week in January, 1908, fully 2,000 people were reported to be in Rawhide. At the end of January the population had grown to 3,000.
The camp easily held the center of the mining stage in Nevada.
Many of the Rawhide pioneers hailed from Tonopah and Goldfield. Without exception the opinion of these veterans appeared to be that the surface showings of the new district excelled those of either of the older camps. Never before in the history of mining in the West had there been discovered a quartz deposit so seemingly rich in the yellow metal at or near the surface which at the same time embraced so large an area of auriferous mineralization. Goldfield, at the same early age, had been a mere collection of prospectors' tents, while Rawhide was a thriving, bustling, populous camp with more than a hundred leasing outfits conducting systematic mining operations.
News was brought to Reno of a phenomenal strike made on Grutt Hill in Rawhide. Specimen rock taken from a seam of ore assayed $300,000 to the ton. The Kearns lease on Balloon Hill reported 15 feet of shipping ore on the 65-foot level which assayed from $300 to $500 to the ton.
There was full verification of this. Also regular shipments were being made to the Goldfield reduction works.
Samples of rock were received in town that were studded with free gold. I was thrilled. Statements made by camp "boosters" that a part of Balloon Hill was "gold with a little rock in it," were not exaggerations, judging from the specimens that were placed in my possession.
My apathy began to melt away. Against my earlier judgment, I now began to change my attitude.
The camp looked like "the real thing," panic or no panic.
Why should not the American public, even in these tough financial times, enthuse about a gold camp with possibilities for money-making such as are offered here, I asked myself. Don't drowning men grasp at straws? Is it not the habit of horse-race players when they lose five races in succession to make a plunge bet on the sixth with a view to getting out even? This panic had impoverished hundreds of thousands. What more natural than that those who were hit hard should now fall over one another to get in on the good things of Rawhide? If the camp makes good, I reasoned, in the same measure that Goldfield did, early investors will roll up millions in profits.
I visited the camp. What I saw electrified me. Soon I was under the magic spell.