Nat Goodwin's Book

Thus, sans sleep, we rolled into Goldfield.

What an exciting place it was! It reminded me of another primitive community in Nevada, Virginia City, which I had visited twenty years earlier. Here were the same lack of civilization, utter abandon, tent houses by the hundreds, a few straggling brick and adobe buildings and the inevitable long street running from end to end of the town. On this occasion the street was filled with a howling mob of men and women – rabid fight fans.

Scores of derricks and piles and piles of ore dumped on the sides of operating mines, not to mention hundreds of prospects and claims, told the veriest stranger that here was a mining town. Every other door led into a gambling house or a saloon.

As you contemplated the arid desert utterly devoid of vegetation, hemmed in by huge mountains themselves great uplifts of barren rock, you marvelled at the courage of the first man who made bold to enter that land of devastation and dust. To see that transplanted Brocken scene trodden by people from every part of the globe made me stop and ponder. What will man not do for gold? To be sure a greater part of this mob was attracted to Goldfield by the fight; but the aftermath was horrible to contemplate, the time when only those remained who gambled on what they hoped to find under the crust called earth. I realized that truly this was the country of the survival of the fittest.

A mining camp is a cesspool in which the unfortunate ones wish for death and a mecca for a certain type of speculators, the latter almost as numerous as the former. A poor man has a better chance on Broadway! The desert is no place for him. A practical miner can earn a fair living, but invariably he squanders it all on the green cloth. The wanderer has an ephemeral existence living upon the bounty of the workman who never refuses him a drink or a stack of white chips – if he is winning. As he seldom wins the wanderer (under this caption I include all those outcasts who form a veritable scum in mining camps) finds little chance to recoup his fortunes at the gambling table. The desert for such as these is a prison difficult to escape from.

After the fight Brewer persuaded me to remain as his guest for a few days. He had a pretentious dwelling, as dwellings in Goldfield went, and continued to fill the rôle of host admirably. I was already seized with a spirit of speculation and shortly had become launched with Brewer and an Englishman named Kennedy on a big deal which ended in our securing an option on a prospect known as the Triangle. It was situated about a mile from town at Diamond Fields (why the diamond no one seemed to know!).

Everybody was most courteous to me. (I can't imagine why!)

One night, in Casey's Hotel, I almost made a fortune. One always "almost" makes a fortune in a mining camp. On this occasion I was playing roulette when a Chicago capitalist approached me and suggested that I join a syndicate which was about to lease a property of great potential value. To get in would cost me $5,000. Just as I was about to pay down the money Brewer arrived on the scene and dragged me away unceremoniously. He told me more than $40,000 had already been sunk in the property and although they had gone down to a depth of nearly one thousand feet they had not discovered even a tomato can.

"Do you expect to find tomato cans as far down in the bowels of the earth as that?" I am afraid Brewer doubted the ingenuousness of my credulity as I asked this question – blandly.

Brewer persuaded me to keep out of the syndicate. The Chicago capitalist and his few associates in the succeeding nine months each took $1,250,000 out of this property and the price of the stock rose from $2 to $20 a share!

I put my all into Triangle. We bought a controlling interest for fifteen cents a share and then bulled the stock on the Goldfield exchange until it sold at more than one dollar a share. This was making money fairly fast. The whole thing was accomplished in about four months! I journeyed back to New York and quickly told all my friends to get aboard. Expert engineers had told me that at the one-hundred-foot level they had struck ore averaging $40 a ton. When the public received this illuminating bit of information the stock rose to $1.50.

I bought some at that price!

Previously I had bought more than 100,000 shares with my partners and as many more on my own account at varying prices from fifteen cents up.

The engineers were strictly truthful. They had found forty-dollar ore all right. But my partners neglected to inform me that they had carefully placed it where it was found! That was my introduction to the gentle art of "salting" a mine. Ever since, at the mere mention of the word mine there comes a brackish taste in my mouth.

They had taken their profits when the stock was selling at one dollar and had gone short 100,000 shares above this price; in fact they were the sellers of all the stock I purchased above the dollar price! Happily they were unable to control the upward trend of the market. As fast as they sold short I bought. Their stock got away from them. When they were called on to deliver what they had sold they had not one share and were forced to call upon me for help. Thinking they were in a hole merely because of innocent blunders I loaned them 100,000 shares for $4,000.

That block of stock they sent to my own brokers for my own account in Goldfield! My brokers confiscated all of it to satisfy a loan they had extended to this pair of partners of mine! Thus was I robbed of stock worth in the open market $150,000. When I was fully awake I sold the remainder of my holdings, realizing about 60 cents a share. In all I cleared about $20,000 in this first adventure into the mining game – although many of my friends still believe I made a half million out of Triangle.

Meantime I had endorsed Brewer's notes for $10,000 taking as security stock in another property he controlled. When the notes fell due I had to pay them as by that time everybody had discovered Brewer's specialty and was demanding liquidation. By threatening to send him to the penitentiary I succeeded in regaining part of the $10,000 and erased his name from my visiting list.

Brewer is now playing the tambourine in the Salvation Army. At the last reports he was trying to trade that instrument for a harp, with which to pick his way into heaven – undoubtedly. He was a failure with the pick in Nevada. Perhaps he will be more successful in heaven. If he succeeds in gaining admission (and I ever get there) I'll try to steal his harp!

Although I made but little money at Goldfield I was very greatly attracted by its life; the utter abandon, the manhood, the disregard of municipal laws, the semblance of honor which fooled so many, the codes of right and wrong, the tremendous chances that were taken with a dice box. It was as exciting as being a member of a suicide club!

Why do we court conflict with Fate when we know Fate is merciless?

I wonder.

Immediately after my unfortunate alliance with Brewer I formed an association with two men who, with me, believed in going at the mining game legitimately. By this I mean it is legitimate to buy options on prospects and properties which look good and place them on the market after they have been carefully examined by mining experts. Placing them on the market involves forming stock companies in each of which we must have the controlling interest. If the properties turn out well we continue to develop them and work them for all they're worth. This was the general idea of our new association.

I was the financial backer. One of my partners was a practical miner who knew nothing about publicity work nor the art of promotion. The other was a young man who had gone stranded in Reno and whom I had known slightly in Goldfield as one of the boldest operators in that roaring camp. He had failed for $3,000,000 in Goldfield (mentioned by way of corroboration of this young gentleman's boldness!), and then paid his creditors 100 cents on the dollar, quitting the camp broke.

In due time and with no little formality was launched the Nat C. Goodwin Company, mine operators with headquarters in Reno. Presently we secured control of a valuable property in the new mining town Rawhide. The stock was worth most in Rawhide itself. All the mining experts there knew the property. Thousands of shares were sold to the inhabitants of the new mining camp who were loudest in their boasts that we would soon prove that our property was the peer of the great Goldfield consolidated.

So confident were we that we had a really valuable property that we determined to go to New York and let the public in on the ground floor. With no difficulty at all we listed our stock on the New York Curb and with no manipulation that stock soared from 25 cents to $1.50 per share, almost over night. All we had to do with it was publishing the mining experts' reports.

The gentlemen who call themselves brokers on the Curb banded themselves together and conspired to work our ruin. In the end they succeeded.

But before they did we managed to mount fairly high in the business; our legitimate methods and the unflagging industry of my partners resulting in nine months in our acquiring the controlling interest in Rawhide Coalition, owning outright another property in Rawhide, one in Bovard, one in Fairview, one in Goldfield and the Ely Central. The purchase price of Rawhide Coalition was $700,000 and of Ely Central, $1,075,000. We had fine offices in New York in which we employed one hundred and twenty-five stenographers! There we edited and published a weekly newspaper, not to mention a daily and weekly market letter. Each had a circulation of 60,000 copies weekly.

This was the time that the big promoters of Wall Street decided we had been prosperous long enough. They "raided" our stocks – an interesting process for which there is not room here. Their raids were followed by the publication in two of the daily newspapers of the fact that one of my partners had a Past. It was a youthful past – the event happened back in 1894, just sixteen years before – but they dug it up to bludgeon the market with.

What of it? In Nevada it's what a man is – not what he was – that counts.

They said our "mines" and "prospects" were fakes, my partners impostors and I a willing tool. A burly police captain came to my apartments and threatened me with all sorts of punishments unless I agreed to pay for "protection." I was fearfully upset and insisted that my attorney examine the books of the company to assure me that everything was being conducted honestly. I knew the properties in Nevada were all we claimed for them. I had spent months there and had panned gold on every yard of these properties. My attorney made a rigid examination of the books and assured me that everything was strictly legitimate.

Then it was I determined to continue for I knew we had the goods and had been "on the level." But the market looters were inexorable and showed no mercy. They broke our stock in one day from $1.50 to 60 cents. My partner, the man with a youthful Past, stood by his guns. Instead of allowing the stock to tumble and against my advice, he bought every share as fast as it was offered with the result that we found ourselves owners of hundreds of thousands of shares of stock bought at prices ranging from $1.50 downwards which we could not readily dispose of again, because of the slanderous utterances of the destroyers.

This sportsmanlike act of my partner was repeated on another occasion, a few months later, during the marketing of Ely Central stock. The conspirators finally used a "pull" in Washington and succeeded in getting the Federal authorities to close-up the business. Rawhide Coalition, according to latest information, is earning $200,000 a year now (1913-14). Ely Central has been "grabbed" and will be merged with the Rockefeller-Cole-Ryan owned Giroux, its neighbor.

I had learned months previously that there was a plot on foot to put our firm out of business and the identity of the big interests behind this scheme thoroughly impressed me. The suggestion that I "get out" while the getting was good appealed to me strongly. But first I acquainted my partners with the facts. The man with the past was as stubborn as he was honest. He knew we were dealing honestly with the public and he was bent on standing by his guns and proving it. I knew the sword of Damocles was hanging by the slenderest of threads – and resigned.

Eighteen months later the offices were the scene of a sure-enough, wild-Western raid. All the staff was placed under arrest and indicted by the grand jury. It cost the government several hundred thousands of dollars to put that partner of mine in jail for six months, but they did it by main force and broke him first. The combat was an uneven one, and the "government" practically confessed before the trial was finished that they had been unwittingly used to do a "job" for Wall Street. The only crime my partner was guilty of was telling the truth and trying to protect his customers.

I have set this down, not so much as autobiography as a vindication for a man who insisted on being an honest man, no matter what the cost! Also I have wished to disabuse some of my friends of an impression that I made a fortune out of my adventure into the mining game. I didn't make a fortune. I lost one!

Chapter LXXII

THE FIVE FATEFUL FISH CAKES AND NUMBER FOUR

Marriage for me had become an incident, not a conquest, now that I had tried and tried again – three times! Ever since my earliest youth I had loved the beautiful in nature. But I never sought these beautiful creatures who sooner or later took my name. On the contrary, as I have shown, my second and third wives were thrust upon me by force of circumstances. Being human I allowed my bark of irresponsibility to sail tranquilly into the harbor of intrigue.

If these two marriages were errors my fourth venture into matrimony was a catastrophe! I fled from a Cleopatra to meet a Borgia.

And a dish of fish cakes proved my undoing!

I am passionately fond of the mixture of salt fish and potato – at least I had been for twenty-five years. Now, for some reason, the mention of the aforetime delicacy makes me shudder.

It was early one morning that I was hurrying to the ferry on my way to Washington when I caught the indescribable odor of fish cakes wafted toward me from the open door of the old Metropole Hotel. Instantly I forgot everything. Fish cakes appealed to me more then than anything in all the world – except only a cup of Child's "surpassing" and a plate of butter cakes, colloquially known as "sinkers." Into the Metropole I went and sat me down to await the execution of my order.

Hardly had I taken my seat when an ex-manager of an ex-champion prize fighter approached me with a proposition which reduced to its simplest terms meant that I become angel for a theatrical troupe. I had little confidence in his managerial ability and knew enough of his past environment to convince me that he was not the man to handle any part of my money. When he told me the enterprise had already been launched and had met with failure after a disastrous tour I was positive I should never be induced to act as its reviver.

I arrived at this sane conclusion, however, before the fish cakes were set before me!

The scenery, it seemed, was held by the sheriff in Jersey City for unpaid debts. The young and handsome woman star was lying in hiding in an apartment house nearby – in a hysterical condition promoted by her discovery of the perfidy of her manager and of the syndicate of backers who had "backed" with spontaneous unanimity at the crucial moment. These gentlemen, my informer continued, had not only refused to rescue the scenery from the vulgar Jersey sheriff, but had also refused to redeem $20,000 worth of jewels which the young and handsome star had pawned in Louisville that the attraction might remain on tour.

Before I had finished the first fish cake I discovered with mild surprise that the ex-champion prize fighter's ex-manager had a hitherto concealed attractive manner of speech and was altogether a magnetic sort of chap. As my digestive processes began work on that first fish cake I found myself interested not a little in this recital of the young woman's sufferings. I must have shown it for my companion waxed more and more enthusiastic and concluded an especially colorful description of her anguish with the whispered statement that she had been ruined!

In response to my sympathetic query he replied that he had intended to qualify the remark with the word financially!

In order further to test the truthfulness of his tale I asked the names of the syndicate of backers. They included a notorious roué, a wealthy stock broker and the ex-champion prize fighter – a versatile trio. It took but a short time for me to discover also the name of the attraction and of the young and handsome star. Fate was again at my elbow. I had heard of both play and player weeks before. The play had been suggested to me for my own use. I had refused to negotiate for it as I was then under the management of Charles Frohman and had no wish to make a change. But I knew that it was a very clever farce. Its failure, I was convinced, was the fault of inadequate acting and bad booking.

This conclusion was not reached until I had masticated five fish cakes!

By the time I had finished the fifth my blood was fairly boiling and the whole universe seemed to me to be calling aloud for a man to step forward and right the wrongs the young and handsome star had suffered. The treatment she had received was inhuman, I was sure of it!