Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1886 — SYKESY. [ARTICLE]

SYKESY.

BY JOHN M’GOVERN.

In a city like Chicago there are on every side, young men who seem to have" eaught the smile of Fortune. They stand on the top round of the ladder, and they cry cheerily to the surging eompany beneath them that there is plenty of room up there. I happen to hear the other day how the grain trade had lifted and supported a climber. •Let us fiist philosophize, merely, that, when the good Dame Fortune smiles, she is apt to be looking at a bright, active, cheerful, temperate fellow, and the more abstemious his habits may be, the more delightful is the smile she seems to bestow. Well, this yeung man was a Hoosier. He lived in a Hoosier village, let us say Warsaw, because it was not Warsaw, and this Hoosier village was feeding many railroad passengers and reckoning them in her census. The plaoe was full of railroad slang, new jpilroads, business, and traveling men generally. The young man—let us call him Sykesy — 7? as bursting with the desire to succeed; he was boiling over with ideas; he was “dead on to” the weaknesses, timiQity and average humility and ignorance of mankind; yet he himself was also ignorant and inexperienced. And as to capital, Sykesy had, on this pivotal morning in his life, just eighty cents. But he met a good man that very morning, and secured an idea. An idea planted in a busy brain may be the seed of wonderful things. George Stephenson’s idea, and James Watt’s idea, made it possible for Vanderbilt to give eight children sll,000,000 each. Now Syksey, with his idea just secured, rented an “Take it, me boy!” cried his admiring friend, the landlord. “Its all right if you fail—but you'll not fail. ” •Local wheat-buyers in those days had been forced to ship wheat to the East and await returns, being meanwhile at the mercy of the middle-men. Syksey meant to actually buy wheat and pay the local man the cash. This was an entirely new thing in that region. So Syksey got on the next train and rode to the end of his 80 cents’ worth. The wheat-dealers were only too glad to see him. They sold him five cars of No. 2 red, and would have sold him v fifty more had he dared take on so much. But in buying five cars he had made no less than SSO. A young man, without a cent, who had no money with which to get home, had made SSO for his day’s pay. The sellers of the wheat were to start the loading of the ears that afternoon and bring the bills of lading, in Sykesv’s name, to Warsaw the next day. Syksey was to get home, and it was snowing hard. But what wds snow to Syksey, the man of large ideas ? A passenger train came and went —no use in bothering the passenger men. A freight train rumbled in. Sykesy knows the conductor. “Fd like to take ye back, Sykesy,” said the train man, “but you know how it is.” “All right,” said Sykesy, “M just walk down the other side of the train, and you needn’t bother your head. ” So Sykesy climbed on an out-of-the-way sand-car far down in the train, and when the brakeman afterward came along on top the train and looked down on the contraband, interdicted, and illicit Sykesy, that brakeman wheeled around and at some risk of falling, turned his brake with his back to the platform-car below him. Thus it came that Sykesy was not discovered by the lynx-eyed trainmen, and rode home in rust, snow, tLnd glory. The next day we see Sykesy at the bank; . . “Here," says he, “are bills of lading for 2,500 bushels of No 2. red, billed to me, Christopher C. Sykes, Philadelphia, notify Quake, Kimball & Quoke, 77 Walnut Street. Here is Christopher C- Sykes'name on-the back. Now take

those bills and give me the mortey. Its six and a quarter for you and you know its perfectly safe." The banker says :”I see, Sykesy. It's all right. I know your plan. It’s good. Let us see: Twenty-five hundred at a dollar thirty—that’s $3,250; eighteen for freight. I see—that’s $450. You want $2,800. Hqw much .shall I pay you?” “Twenty-seven hundred and fifty,” says Sykesy. “Leave the fifty to my credit. ” -Sjtkesy had bought at a dollar ten; he bbulcFsell in Philadelphia, net track, at a ’dollar thirty; freight (and insurance), 18 cents; net cost to Sykesy in Philadelphia, $1.28; 2 cents on 2,500 bushels, SSO. Sykesy had made SSO. Good idea! Beside the $6.25 discount, it was worth money to the banker to pay out money in Warsaw and receive it in Philadelphian This was why he was so accommodatnjg. Now it is not every young Hoosier in Indiana who has a chance to make SSO a day and be treated with consideration by bankers and with absolute veneration by small dealers in grain, and Sykesy had not lost sight of that fact. It may be imagined in what a very rage of enthusiasm he devastated Northern Indiana. He bought here and he bought there. The railroad men ran after him; the telegraph company put “Sykesy, Esquire, ” after his bills, and he sent on to Philadelphia no less than three thousand cars of grain in three months. That is a mountain of grain, dear reader —a million and a half of bushels! It must not be understood that Sykesy was to make 2 cents a bushel for any length of time. Other buyers were quick to imitate. 1 The market was treacherous. The exporters at Philadelphia were careful to pare down Sykesy’s profits. But for all this, and with all their business strategy, Quake, Kimball & Quoke gazed -with awe and admiration at this young whirlwind out west. It took away their dignified breath. Then their “thrift” came to their succor. So they telegraphed to Sykesy to come to Philadelphia. They wanted to see him. But Sykesy’s head was not easily turned. He telegraped back that the interests of the trade required his close attention to business. Another request, answered similarly, and then their came a peremptory command to “Come on or quit!” Sykesy went. He was received by Quake, Kimball, & Quoke with open arms and endearing terms of affection. They wanted him on a salary—this young man who had made $3,500 in three months! About $1,200 a year would do, they thought!! “Sykesy, you don’t know nothin’ about how India is knockin’ vis!” said old Quake. “India is a doin’of us up! In a few" years we won’t be shippin’ a quarter of grain to Liverpool—you hear me! India is ruinin’ ns—-and Odessa!” “You don’t know,” said the eloquent old Quakey, “how the risk is all with us. You—buyin’ right-’n’-left out there in bucketfuls, and we a tryin’ to feed it to people in Yurrup and keepin’ all hands employed at hum ! No, sir, you’ve been makin’ more money than we kin stand, for I tell ye India is doin’ of us up!—and Odessa!” So, rebel as he might, these were the terms for Sykesy—“net track, Philadelphia,” poor Sykesy joked to himself —a salary, or no more connection with Quake, Kimball & Quoke; no more symposia with bankers; no more bowing and scraping from the telegraph people; no more incense from the rural grain dealers. So Sykesy made the medicine as sweet as the exporters would tolerate, and swallowed it—eighteen hundred a year and all expenses of the trip paid

upThis concession by the Hoosier buyer would go far, so Quakey would have Syksey believe, to continue the export trade. India would" have to stand back —and Odessa. “Sykesy,” said the jovial and very excellent old exporter, “you’ve seen the stuff grow out of the ground. You’ve seen it carried to town, dumped at the station, and loaded on the car. Now you just stay here till you’ve ' sebn it aboard ship. We’ll show you how we get it out ’o the country?^ Behold, then, Sykesy on a stool beside old Quakey, behind a window, in front of which stands a line of, perhaps, thirty vessel agents. Quakey is no youngster. He has been captian of a volunteer fire company in earlier days; he has. been in the export trade thirty years; he knows every vessel that comes into port, and can give the maritine insurance men points pn age, condition, and capacity. Now the vessel agents begin the morning’s encounter. The firm means to engage about sixteen vessels, but the agents do not know but that the number will be only one. Again it may be thirty. The ships are on the other side of the ocean, about to come across. The first agent comes up. “What’s your figure, Bill? Huriy up there, now!” cries the impressive Quakey. “Oh! What do you mean? A rate like that for the Mary Jane? —why I know her; she was B 2 when I was a runnin’ wid tne masheen! Go ’way now! Give the other boys a bid!” “But what will you give?" asks the agent, not visibly affected and not willing to loose his place that way. And so, as the firm want sixteen vessels and the rest of the line agents look savagely in sympathy with No. lin the line, a bargain is soon made. The good ship Mary, Jane, now leaving some far-away wharf, is to arrive at Philadelphia and load in thirty days with, say, 160,000 bushels of No. 2 red wheat, which is. now"lying cool in the warehouses along some new railroad in Indiana, 900 miles away. Quake, Kimball & Quoke have received cable advice that it is safe to buy sterling exchange and send any quantity of wheat; prompt shipment, at 52s 4d in Lixerpool for each eight btishels. That comes near $1:75 per bushel, and the difference between that price and the Philadelphia market ($1,30) lies in ocean freight, insurance, charges, and profit. Prompt shipment in .sixty days. Now, to cover the cargo of the good" ship, Mary Jane, the Philadelphia firm telegraphs to a New York house, for, say, $380,000 worth of sterling exchange, sixty days hi, say $4,841. That operation binds the measure.pf value.

for the price of exchaiige fluctuates, while the figure of the wheat bargain made at Liverpool, dependent on delivery, does not days the firm will have $380,000 in London that must be transferred to New York. Then if they own that much exchange, already bought, there has been no possible fluctuation—to the firm. The firm does not wish to gamble—to either win or lose. Then another person in the firm makes a contract with a red or a blue or a white freight-line for cars from Indiana. And then the wheat begins to travel eastward. Your little town of Warsaw, for instance, might load seventy-five cars in one week. All that is needed is an otftlet—a market at" Liverpool, or Havana, or Havre. On to Philadelphia comes the Mary Jane. The 160,000 bushels of wheat are run into her hold, three-quarters in bulk, and a fourth laid on top in sacks to hold the cargo in shape. Quake goes to the marine insurance office; he shows his' papers and gets his policy. Then he goes to the New York bank. He shows his charter of the Mary Jane, signed by agent and captain; he shows the ralroad weighmaster’s certificate that there are 160,000 bushels of wheat; he shows the Grain' Inspector’s certificate that it is Np'. 2 red; he shows his ocean freight bill; he shows his cable advice as to price; he shows his purchase of sterling exchange, and, signing over the outfit to the bank, he draws against the cargo and—for a discount—frees his capital for further purchases. So the Mary Jane disappears from the visible supply, and becomes one of those celebrated cargoes off coast that we read of in the Mark Lane reports. So go the sixteen ships. It is a busy place—the exporter’s office. Now a cable from one country, now from another. “Havana—Quake, Phil.—Give you (equal to $1.35) sixty days.” “Liverpool—Quake, Phila.—Give you (eqhal to $1.36) —sixty days.” “Barcelona—Quake, Phila.—Give you (equal to $1.37) seventy days.” So come the cables. So go the ships. The Indiana farmer sells, and smiles, and wonders if the “speculators” at the stations will get their money back. But Quake, Kimball & Quote fail to get as much grain as they can handle. Sykesy must go west again. And west he goes, with a good knowledge of the wheat trade, a wide acquaintance and a clear head. He buys com, wheat, oats, barley, flaxseed, and oil-cake. The banks are charging a quarter of 1 per cent, to cash the buyers’ bills, of lading given by the railroad. Sykesy deposits a small amount of money in his New York bank and, by drawing checks against that bank, and sending the ladings by mail for deposit at par. is able to underbid the other buyers (now thick as flies in the market), for he saves a quarter of 1 per cent. __ He sends his check westward; he sends hi*s ladings eastward by the same mail. Sometimes his check goes to New York by way of New Orleans, for it is eastern exchange and handy to have. Thus Sykesy, without a thousand dollars to his name, may have, for short periods, immense sums of deposit in New York. As the bank pays interest on daily balances he receives notice one month that he has been credited with SSOO interest on balances of some SBOO,OOO. His interest receipts average, say, $l5O a month. Not bad for a young Hoosier, was it ? At the end of the first year Quake, Kimball & Quoke, probably discovering his little piece of financial acumen, cut his salary to $1,500. And yet they have profited by his low bids. “But India is terribleSme boy!—and Odessa!” The next year India booms to $1,200; and the next* year the coral strand actually forces Sykesy salary down to SI,OOO. The firm sent him up into Michigan to see if they could not beat Toledo and Drtroit out of two cents those towns were making by cashing ladings and sending back the money to Michigan by express. It was an onerous tax. India was beginning to boom again. So up Sykesy went, armed with letters from Governors and He explained to the Michigan men. They took him to the banker to see about it. The banker could not deny that if the New York Bank would take a bill of lading at par, and if Sykesy’s checks were good, it would “do up” Toledo and Detroit, but privately the great man told the “boys” that Sykesy \vas too smart a chap for them. “He talks first-rate politics; ho is up .on the liquor question from Maine to Kansas; he is clever on religion, and he knows altogether too much about bankin’ to be a safe wheat man. I tell ye, boys, ye’d better let that feller alone.” It took an extra week to pacify capital, restore confidence in Michigan society, beat Detroit and Toledo, and keep India under control. Then Sykesy was to be sent to Southern Indiana. “I’ve a man there whose want of judgment has cost me $30,000,” wrote Quake. The man had bought double bills of lading. He had bargained with tramps for Palace Hotels. He had had no sense at all. South went Sykesy. Ah, that was the first time the hrorld had turned the cold shoulder to him. He would sit at the instrumefit in the telegraph office. “Give you thirty net track PhiladeL phia!” “Give you thirty half net track Philadelphia—that beats Chicago market!” So would go the telegrams along the railroad to every station. But never an answer. The poor boy watched the Chicago market. He nevey took his own chances and made offers that ought to have caught any seller. Still never a reply—not even a return telegram at Sykesy’s expense. A compassionate friend advised the Hoosier to go back to Warsaw. “You’re a stranger in these parts,” said he. Even Sykesy grew despondent. “These tellers,” wrote he to Quakey, “vote the straight Democratic ticket and 1 ship to Baltimore. It’s no use. They’ll not sell to me.” But Quakey wrote Rack; “Stick there! It isn’t you who are losing. It’s me. I know what’s in you. ” So Sykesy sat down and wrote out a hektograph or ..some other O’Graphic dispatch, asking in a fervid piece of rhyme, if some deal's!; rri the latitude would not sepd him a “collect message” refusing to sell— anything would lm batter than this everlasting silent^

Then thb compassionate friend and Sykesy wept to a pop-shop and swore eternal friendship over a bottle of sarsaparilla pop—stuff, that many brave young men in those days drank without fear of blue vitriol or marble-dust. When they got back to the telegraph office there was a stack of dispatches. “Sell you 10,000. Send us another,” “Accept your offer. Bully for you!” “Can give you .15,000 same figure. Didn’t know you meant business!” So ran the telegrams. Sykesy had caught the region. “You see the old man at Philadelphia was right*” said the happy buyer. ' He knew more’n you and me put together. He’s got more spine than the whole town.!” „ “Now,” said the compassionate friend, in astonishment, “if you had the proper icjea of your ability, you would never buy another bushel of cash wheat for the East, You would buy options for the West. The friend exhibited a little book to Sykesy. The friend had made commissions that very month to the amount of SBOO. “Do you know, Sykesy, there’s more truth than poetry in what your old man says about wheat? It’s goin’ down. It’s got to go down. And thesff fellers that’s pilin’ it up in Chicago will never pell it at what they’re payin’. Your old man isn’t squealin’ for nothin’.” Idea No. 2. Sykesy went back to Warsaw. He turned his eve toward Chicago. He turned his back toward Philadelphia. He knew a thing or two about wheat himself. There were in Warsaw a coterie of wise men who thought they could break a millionaire up in Chicago. They tried it. 1 . They did it. Warsaw was hardly big enough to hold them. Sykesy attended to their buying and made a commission. The millionaire returned to the fray. He broke Warsaw. Sykesy made his little “eighth,” and speaking in a speculative sense was the only man ip Warsaw. Then, as India began to fairly belch forth cargoes of wheat, Sykesy moved up to Chicago. The big board had use for just such men, and in five years he did a business that made a fortune. At 31 years of age he was worth S2OO/000. He had dwelt on the edge of the Western Maelstrom, and never looked into he got a commission. He ‘had lived in America, where young men wake up. He had let whisky alone. He had been a man of his word. ; And, above all, he had done business with men of large ideas. At Philadelphia there is no cargo for the good Mary Jane. Quake, Kimball & Quoke send a lot to Cuba once in a while, and bring back a few cigars. But as for India, she has it all her own way —lndia and Odessa! And at the railroad station in Indiana, the fariner who comes to town sells his erghty-cent wheat rnefully. “I wonder,” says he, “what has become of all them ’ere Philadelphia speculators. They was putty good fellers—all on ’em — purticulerly Sykesy!”-— Chicago Current.