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From Millionaire
T) 1 JTL _1 a Rkl TAKE WARNING! £A
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"JV I » " ? wwg •”■"s ~TI yarn never come back was a worse liar than '= 7 ~'-.\
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“A beggar on Broad
way. The coins that
dropped into my out
stretched hand were
few, but the lessons
were heavy. Ihe first
of them— (i As ye sow,
so shall ye also reap!”
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By COL. WILLIAM WAYNE BELVIN.
Formerly President of the San Francisco & Eastern
Railroad and a millionaire; recently a beggar and in
mate of Blackwells Island workhouse. Now on his way
back to respectability and fortune.)
I HAVE been wined and dined by the royalty and
nobility of Europe—and I have eaten a vagrant’s
fare in the Workhouse on Blac’. /ell s Island
I have floated loans for governments and I have
begged the price of a meal from strangers on Broad
wav.
I have been associated tn business with some of
the greatest men this country has produced—and I
have thrown in my lot with paupers for a dime.
I married the most beautiful and accomplished
woman on the Pacific Coast—and she divorced me.
I have been gentleman and vagrant, a plunger and
a pauper, a millionaire and a derelict.
The man who first said “They never come back”
was a worse liar than Satan, and has done more mis
chief To dav, at the age of fifty-three, just out of the
workhouse, without funds, without a home, with only
my wits as mv capital and my stock-in-trade. I find it
necessary to start all over again. I'm going to do it.
This is not mv swan song!
But how did it all come abopt? What were the
causes of mv “decline and fall"? What did I, a man of
education and refinement, of imagination and ideas,
an ex millionaire, learn from the level of the bread
\ line the streets, the park bench that was my bed as
long as the kindliness of the policeman held out? A
beggar on Broadway! The coins that dropped into
mv outstretched hand were few. but the lessons borne
upon me were heavy The first of them. “As ye sow,
' so shall ve reap!"
Because my story may save others now floating free
on the high tide of fortune from one day pounding to
pieces on the shore. 1 am willing to write it.
How Is vour money “perspective'"’ That is an
important question My lack of true money "perspec
tive" I put as the great cause of my fall. In strict
justice it was also the base of my successes
’ I lost my monev “perspective" long efore I was
twenty one. When 1 was eighteen my father gave me
000 to start in business I had been through Bethel
Academy and the Miami Military School. 1 had com
niPted in record time the course at a New York busi
ness college And yet. I started out with my $20,000
with absolutely no more real business ideas than the
average college boy has at that age. 1 had learned
lessons but I had no more knowledge of what they
meant or their practical application than a fish It Is
the common fault of our educational methods. I
engaged in the tobacco industry in Danville. Va.
Within a vear 1 had cornered the tobacco market of
the South and my original capital had grown to $300,-
000 Then my father died and my share of his fortune
was S6OO 000 With this $900,000 1 went to Seattle.
Wash and speculated heavily in land and railroad
interests. There 1 came under the notice of Henry
''j'd'tbbled in millions. Lesser amounts than a hundred
thousand meant nothing to me. I was only twenty-two
and the beneficial check of proportion was lost to me.
“ could make no allowance for a "vanishing point.
When Villard failed I went down with him!
Not lone ago 1 walked through Long Acre Square
it was cold and raining I drew my thin coat around
me and wondered where I would sleep A taxicab
drew up in front of Rector's. Out of it stepped a busi
ness man with whom 1 had once put through a deal
that netted each of us half a million From the taxi
came a vision in furs and jewels. I
recognized her She was an actress
at one of the music halls—-a woman
who had already wrecked two men.
I knew the man's wife—in happier
days my wife and I had often been
guests at their home. I shrank
back so that he would not see me.
f I saw him toss the chauffeur a bill.
~ I watched it greedily—beggary
sharpens our sight It was S2O.
The chauffeur reached down as
h astonuh . Mkj A
MEN of finance In America and abroad read with as -WwSi
ment recently that the brilliant Colonel William ay,
Belvin, formerly president of the San Francisco &• a
ern Railroad, and a millionaire, nad been arrested in. New Yor»
for begging on the streets and had been sent to the Workhous.
on Blackwell's Island. j
Here Colonel Belvin. regenerated and about to start to amass S
another fortune, tells hnw he dropped from affluence to vagrancy '
—as a lesson and a warning. ’jwimaSM t
f®BlW‘'i
though to make change. My old friend waved him a
careless remonstrance and walked into Rector’s after
the actress. Many of the jewels she wore had been
bought by him. Their supper probably cost him close
to SSO or more. The chauffeur glared at me and went
off for another "spender.” I waited for a little time,
watching the gayly dressed people going., into the
restaurant where once I too had been a "spender.
Inside I knew my old friend was ’’opening wine, In
the Broadway phrase. And 1 had eaten nothing for
many hours He does not know 1 saw him
but he may take my warning His is a case
of lost money ‘ perspective." Let him check
himself before he. too, becomes a derelict
After that first failure I went out to the
Coast, again. I had no funds, but plenty
of credit and backing. And I was young
I met there Rebecca McMullin, the most
beautiful of the three McMullin sisters,
noted for their beauty throughout the West.
I started in with railroad propositions
again, became President of the San Fran
cisco and Eastern, built one hundred and
sixty miles of road and sold out to the
Southern Pacific. We made $1,800,000
profit out of the deal, of which my share
was SOOO,OOO. With this money I went to
England and formed a banking house.
It wns the hey-day of my fortune, and
my wife and I lived at the rate of from
$50,000 to $75,000 a year. Mrs Belvin had
been the belle of the Pacific Coast; she
became the belle of Europe. When she
was presented to the English Court, in
1892, her presentation gown of point lace
costs2s,ooo. It was made in Brussels and
took six months to complete. But that was
only one item We entertained lavishly
and associated with royalty and nobility.
Itravelled back and forth between
America and England half a dozen times
a year, and always in princely style.
Os course the crash was hound to come.
My vision was all distorted. I had never
seen money matters straight since boyhood.
Big money and big deals had given me
mental astigmatism. Things began to go t
wrong When they got out of my range of . irt
couldn't, stop them. And 1 couldn't see anything ins
of a few millions from my nose. That’s as tad as no
being able to see more than a dollar away frorn your
nose. We returned to America in 1595 with my
fortune sadly depleted.
Now here’s a thing to think over. Money is a
mighty dangerous thing to get too familiar and care
less with Money nowadays is power. There's some
thing in it beyond gold itself Money has a weird
dangerous life of its own. There’s something in it to
be afraid of. You understand me. Maybe the thoughts
of man have dwelt on it so long evil thoughts,
capricious thoughts, life and death thoughts, all kinds
of ambitions and desires—that all this has created a
spirit we can call "The Money Devil." At any rate,
it s bad to get too careless about the way you treat
It. Carelessness there seems to bring in other Laxities.
The character changes, ideals and ambitions change.
Look at the way many people change when they
get rich suddenly Sweetness turns to gall, simplicity
to garishness, kindliness to indifference and suspicion.
There comes a weakening of the moral fibre along
other directions.
And that is when we begin to fall. When I re
turned I made in seven years another fortune out of
gold mines I had been living extravagantly as usual.
I had by various actions killed my wife’s love. I didn’t
realize it until too late When I lost it I lost the only
thing that at that time could have kept me balanced.
I fought it. because I wanted her. I lost.
I began to speculate heavily. I won and lost three
fortunes in wheat In 1596 and 1897. I formed the Brit
ish-American Finance Company. Tt was a solid concern
with good men back of it It prospered I was presi
dent of it and owned the controlling interest. It failed
in 1906 because I still couldn’t see anything less than
a million.
I £ to“ a rfnk m heaSS bUt '° glCal mißtak *
rpnT h 2.£u !ght came when 1 was stripped without a
_. ’ *’ithout a meal, with nothing left to pawn, n 0
Place to sleep even.
v^ Bt ° 0a J OT a whl,e stupidly staring at the Broad
ay crowds. Beautiful women in silks and furs and
jewels; well-groomed men in top hats and clean
i-nen. Clean linen! The thought of it was mad
dening. By twos and by dozens they went by me.
women who bore upon them jewels I had given them!
Men who were about to spend part of the thousands
their deals with me had put in their pockets. And
there I stood shivering, hungry, with not one cent
to rub against another!
Think of It! It seemed to me that It was my
Jewels they were wearing! My money they were
spending! What should I do? In my dull resent
ment I approached one of them, a man I had dined
a dozen times. He shook his head angrily and
passed on.
“These panhandlers,” I heard him say to the
woman beside him. “If the police did their duty
they'd all be in the workhouse.”
The woman looked at me. In my anger, I was
following close behind. "He doesn’t seem like an
ordinary beggar,” she said. “Oh, well,” said ths
man —and handed me a quarter.
And I took it! My anger died out I was glaA
to get it. Think of this, you men with money and
no money "perspective,” -who are throwing your de.’
lars right and left! You will say I should have ha,,
pride and have thrown it in his face! You’re wron<»
That kind of pride is for the story books. Whe(
you’re in the bread line, on the streets, a park benci.
your bed, you soon get to know what buncombe aL.
that is. The price of pride then is starvation. Tha(
quarter bought me a drink, a meal and a bed.
I met a man from Chicago in Washington Squari
one night. I will not tell his name. Once it way
honored in the West. I think that now he lies among
the cadavers in some hospital dissecting room. A
woman and a banking deal that had it gone through
would have been legitimate, but. failing to go
through, ■was not, had stripped him.
I had sought a bench farthest from the lights.
I Did This —
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„ e a re my conclusions, learned dearly enough:
...f 1 e ve so w so shall ye also reap," is just as true
now as it has always been -
. ma n never has tn life any more than Is In
himself Let him devel °P and strengthen himself,
everything will come to him. Don't lean on any
one Don't depend on any one. ’Learn rigorous self
reliance.
Don’t drink. You don t have to and sooner or
later it will get the better of you. No man is strong
er than rum.
Keep your money sense clear. Don't lose your
sense of values. Don’t let the money devil get yon.
you love
Do these and you’ll never be a beggar.
He sat wearily beside me. It
was a strange meeting. Nei
ther recognized the other at
first. We sat there, the two
derelicts, heads in hands, try
ing to get a few minutes'
sleep before the police made
us move on.
At last we turned and looket
at each other. “Belvin!” hi
gasped. We talked. Ire mem
ber his last words.
“Belvin,” he said, "the tron
ble with us men who have beei
something and are now dere
licts is simply that we have nc
real sense of proportion
Things never were as good as
they seemed to us in our hey
day. Things now are not reallj
bad at. all. What is to prevent
you and me from earning al
least a dollar a day? We ar<
strong enough even yet to
labor. And that would buy ut
all we need. But we won’t
do it. We thought the worU
owed us a living! The work
owes us nothing. We won'
labor because we still think o
ourselves as we were when w
had millions. We beg because
we unconsciously think it mon
harmonious We look at lift
through the same glasses wt
did when we were ‘spenders.'
If we could rid ourselves of all these
memories or see them in their real
proportions we could win success again.
We look at ourselves as beggars, and
ra we are beggars.
gs “Belvin, no man throughout life even
» really has more than w-hat is in him-
“ seif. The things we collect—money„
women, rareties, pictures, all of it
are illusions. We are to-day in reality
no more of a failure or a sucess than we
have ever been But even realising thia,
I cannot make it apply practically to my
life. And so I am going to end it. Thia
last act of mine will prove how much I
lack this sense of proportion. I know there
is hope, but I won’t take it; I know I’m
down and out only as long as I will to be.
but I can’t will otherwise! Try to see 11
you can!”
My begging career was short. I was not
myself or I would not have gone so low.
On Blackwells Island I got back both my
sense of proportion and of money values.