Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1905 — DRINK HIS RUIN; SUICIDE HIS END [ARTICLE]

DRINK HIS RUIN; SUICIDE HIS END

Former Friend of Wall Street Kings Takes His Life in a Chicago Hotel. Chicago, Aug. 31.—Once a friend of J. Pierpont Morgan and described by H. O. Havemeyer, the sugar king, as one of the most brilliant young business promoters in the United States, Noah M. Letts, treasurer and manager of the Letts company, of which Harry G. Selfridge is an official, committed suicide by swallowing morphine tablets in his room in the Union hotel. 11l Randolph street. He died penniless save for a small life insurance policy, payable to his two small sons. Drink was the cause of his downfall. Mr. Letts left a temperance sermon to his sous in the form of a farewell note, scribbled on a piece of paper, torn from a notebook. It read: "To My Boys: Please, for your sake and God’s sake, never drink a drop. I love you better than my life. But I can’t stop, and my action is for the best. Your Papa.”

dealer and had been drinking. After several quarrels he was refused the loan of a revolver by McCleary, as Stuckey said he wanted to kill some one with It Stuckey appeared In the poatofflee and rushed at McCleary with a drawn dirk, yelling to him te say his prayers. McCleary drew a revolver and killed Stuckey at the first ehot.