Where he shone most perhaps was as a “mixer.” He had wonderful manners, frank, cordial, magnetic, and handed out the same quality to everyone alike. He avoided, either by design or inclination, all the pomposity and circumstance of greatness, even went out of his way to be extra gracious to those who seemed a trifle embarrassed in his presence. In this way he endeared himself to a small army of young men and to some of the still more youthful highbinders who used to visit the Bank of California and stand up the smiling financier for baseball club uniforms and other all-important incidentials upon which the fame and glory of California hung. As to the industrial classes, they simply worshiped Ralston. He was their constant provider, philosopher and friend. It seemed to me that he knew half of the working population by their first name, and he was known among them familiarly and affectionately as “Bill” Ralston. It is a sad commentary on human nature that in the hour of his misfortune the men he had enriched took to the tall timber. Only his humble friends proved true.
This only gives the faintest glimpse of Ralston. For years I was his intimate associate. He was a man of many friends and many business connections, but I think he gave his entire confidence to only two men, Maurice Dore and myself. In all our relations I always found him punctiliously honorable and truthful, and though the acquaintance was a costly one to me, I hold his memory in affectionate remembrance—as I did when I last saw him forty years ago.
And even admitting all that his traducers charge, after death had silenced his voice forever, I would still say that he deserved a statue in Golden Gate Park as the most effective friend the State of California ever had. But before I close this story I hope to make it plain that a cruel wrong was done his memory and let the truth come out at last.
CHAPTER XVII.
Sharon, Too, Becomes Associate of Famous Pioneer; This Chapter Tells How Great Panic Was Averted.
Ralston Lays Foundation for Huge Fortune of D. O. Mills by Making Him a Bank President
Ralston had two business associates—I might almost call them familiars—William Sharon and D. O. Mills. D. O. Mills was a man of some fortune, worth perhaps half a million dollars. He was about to leave for the East to settle down somewhere under his own vine and fig tree, when Ralston took him up. The latter was just organizing the Bank of California, had no ambition for titular dignities, and offered Mills the place of president. He promised that the job would be a sinecure—that he would do all the work. Mills accepted. That was the foundation of his huge fortune. But he was a mighty cautious speculator in those days. He tried his hand at a number of ventures, sometime invested large sums, but always required a guaranty against loss. Strangely enough, this used to be given him often, because of the conservatism associated with his name. That, however, did not last long. He became a bold, ambitious, original operator on his own account. He had fine personal habits, but was just the opposite of Ralston—unemotional, cool-headed and austere.
D. O. MILLS
First President Bank of California,
a financier of national repute