THE YEAR OF BIG FIGURES
I soon recouped these stock-market losses. At about four o'clock one afternoon, a few days afterward, a miner who had been at work during the day on the Loftus-Sweeney lease of the Combination Fraction, called at the office of the trust company and asked me to buy 1,000 shares of Combination Fraction stock for him. He divulged to me that just as he was coming off shift he had learned that a prodigious strike of high-grade ore had been made at depth. Combination Fraction had closed that afternoon on the San Francisco Stock Exchange with sales at $1.15. I went out on the street and proceeded to buy all the Combination Fraction in sight. In half an hour I had corralled about 60,000 shares at an average of $1.30. An hour later the owners of the lease obtained the information on which I was working, and by eight o'clock that night, when the Goldfield Stock Exchange began its evening session, the price had jumped to $1.85. Within a week thereafter the price sky-rocketed to $3.75, and at this figure I took profits of nearly $150,000. Had I held on a little longer I could have doubled that profit, for Combination Fraction a few weeks later sold at higher than $6.
The Combination Fraction strike was followed by a number of others, and the boom gathered force. By October, Goldfield Silver Pick had advanced to $1 per share, up 600 per cent. Goldfield Red Top was selling at $2, Jumbo at $2, and Mohawk at $5, showing profits of from 2,000 to 5,000 per cent. Others had gained proportionately. In fact, there were over twenty Goldfield securities listed on the exchange that showed the public a stock-market profit of anywhere from 100 per cent. to 5,000 per cent.
Mining machinery of every description was being shipped into camp, and for half a mile around the Combination mine the landscape of assembled gallows-frames resembled a great producing oil field. There were signs of mining activity everywhere. For four miles east of the Combination mine and six miles south every inch of ground had been located. Claims situated miles away from the productive area were changing hands hourly at high figures.
The Sullivan stocks kept pace in the markets with the other booming securities, and it was plain that the trust company was riding on a tidal wave of success. Our profits exceeded $1,500,000 at this period, and we were just eight months old.
In a single fortnight the Sullivan Trust Company promoted the Lou Dillon Goldfield Mining Company at 25 cents per share, a valuation of $250,000 for the property, which cost $50,000; and the Silver Pick Extension, which cost $25,000, at the same figure, netting several hundred thousand dollars' profit on these two transactions. Options to purchase the Lou Dillon and Silver Pick Extension, which were situated within 500 feet of the Combination mine, had been in possession of the Sullivan Trust Company for months, and had increased in value to such an extent that on the day the subscriptions were opened in Goldfield for Lou Dillon at 25 cents per share, a prospector named Phoenix, who had received $50,000 from the Sullivan Trust Company for the entire property, subscribed for 100,000 shares, or a tenth interest in the enterprise, paying $25,000 therefor.
It was the rule of the Sullivan Trust Company to open subscriptions in Goldfield on the day its advertising copy left the camp by mail for the East. Newspaper publishers were always instructed to publish the advertisements, which were generally of the full-page variety, on the day following receipt. In the case of Lou Dillon it became necessary to telegraph all newspapers east of Chicago not to publish the advertisement because of oversubscription before the copy reached them, and in the case of Silver Pick Extension the orders to publish the advertisements were canceled by telegraph before the mail carrying the copy reached Kansas City. San Francisco, Los Angeles and Salt Lake subscribed for 50 per cent. of the entire offering of Lou Dillon and Silver Pick Extension, and Goldfield for 25 per cent. As a matter of fact, had we desired, we could have sold the entire offerings in Goldfield, Tonopah and Reno without inserting any advertisements, so great was the excitement in the State itself.
At this period the combined monthly payrolls of the mining companies promoted by the Sullivan Trust Company totaled in excess of $50,000, and excellent progress was being made in opening up the properties.
It was early Autumn in Goldfield, warm, dry and dusty, and never a cloud in the sky. I was at my desk eighteen hours a day, and liked my job. Things were coming our way.
The Sullivan Trust Company was in politics. Mr. Sullivan was popular with the miners, and Governor Sparks was a large asset of the trust company because he had been allowing the use of his name as president of all the mining companies promoted by it. Nevertheless, when the State election approached, the Governor had no money for campaign expenses. He telegraphed the trust company from Carson:
"I will not stand for renomination."
We replied: "You are certain to be elected, and you will be renominated by acclamation if you accept."
"I won't run unless you guarantee my election," he telegraphed.
We answered: "We guarantee."
The Governor was renominated by the Democrats. The Republicans placed in nomination J. F. Mitchell, a mining engineer and mine owner, who was very popular among mine operators.
There were thousands of miners domiciled in Goldfield. The Western Federation of Miners dominated.
"Sullivan," I said, "isn't it a certainty that the miners will vote the Democratic ticket because Mitchell has been put forward by the mine owners? Is it necessary to spend any money with the Western Federation?"
"Not a dollar!" replied Mr. Sullivan. "There's a meeting of the executive committee to-morrow. I'm going to be around when they meet. Without spending a cent I'll bring home the bacon. Watch me!"
Sullivan reported to me the next day that he had succeeded in his mission.
"I didn't attend the meeting," he said, "but I did see the main 'squeeze.' He told me that a contribution to the Miner's Hospital would be gratefully accepted, but that even that was not necessary, and that Sparks would win in a walk."
The only campaign money advanced by the Sullivan Trust Company was given to Mr. Sullivan to go to Reno. He asked for $1,000, and he used it in conducting open house on the first floor of the Golden Hotel, meeting people and greeting them. Reno appeared to be a Republican stronghold, and Mr. Sullivan, by baiting the Catholics against the Protestants, succeeded in holding down the Republican majority to an extent that was wofully insufficient to overcome the Democratic majority rolled up in Goldfield with the aid of the miners. Governor Sparks was reëlected by a handsome majority. Had the occasion demanded it, we would have "tapped a barrel." But it was not necessary.