Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 195, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1911 — Used to Be Betting Commissioner For Millionaire John W. Gatos. [ARTICLE]

Used to Be Betting Commissioner For Millionaire John W. Gatos.

i_ Mr. and Mrs. Earle Reynolds were in Buffalo when John W. Gates, the millionaire, died in Paris, and the following telegram was sent out from Buffalo and published in most of the large city newspapers: In Buffalo this week there is a man who for eight years was intimately associated with John W. Gates, the great American financier, whose spectacular career was brought to its close in Paris after a game but losing fight with death. Earle Reynolds, more familiarly known in the sporting world as Skater, who is playing in vaudeville this week at Shea’s theatre, was Gates' confidential man in the time of big racing and big betting. From 1897 to 1903 Mr, Reynolds acted as Mr. Gates’ betting commissioner. He came to know the financier as one brother knows another. If one would learn of Mr. Gates, his characteristics, his habits, his virtues and his faults, he has but to go to Mr. Reynolds. The vaudeville performer was thrown into close contact with the famous man as w4re, few others. He had opportunities to observe Mr. Gates under almost every sort of circumstance. And in Buffalo there Is at least one mourner for the noted financier. “No finer man ever lived than John Gates,” said Mr. Reynolds last night. “He wa| as square as they make them, as game as the best loser that played the markets, as kind as a good Samaritan and ,as daring and rescourceful as the greatest general that ever fought a battle/ He was a good friend, a good winner and a good loser.

“As his betting commissioner I have handled as much as $120,000 a day for Mr. Gates. There will never be another plunger like him. I’ve seen him stake $12,500 on a horse that was running second in the homestretch. I have seen him wager $50,000 on the toss of a coin,. -He r was always cool and collected. He was the same when he won as when he lost;. “I became acquainted with Mr. Gates through my father, who was 8 horseman. I knew him when he first started' out, when he wasn’t worth SIO,OOO. He was the same then as he was before he died. There was never anything stuck-up about John Gates. He was as plain and unassuming when he was worth $60,000,000 as he was when he sold barbwire fences. “During the five years I was. with, him I should estimate that he gave away $500,000. 1 am sure that no other rich man was so charitable. He helped every down-and-out person that came to him. I don’t believe he ever turned down anybody. And he never gave away less than SIOO at any one time.

“His wonderful foresight, of course, brought him his fortune. He could see further ahead than any man I have ever known. He had more sporting blood in his veins than 100 of the average racetrack men pifct together. After he had amassed a fortune there was no limit to his plunging. He did not have to have an edge or inside information. He was always ready to bet either way.”