Part Two begins... Just previously to my marriage I was lucky in the stock market and made money so when I decided to marry I felt I could afford to support a wife. I bought a house at 962 Park Place, Brooklyn, and brought my bride there in a lovely new home with everything looking rosy for the future, but shortly after things began to go wrong. The market became very erratic and hard to guess its trend. I began to lose money, and to regain some of my losses I bought more shares than I should, and so made larger losses. During the period between 1900 and 1906 I lost all the funds I possessed and then foolishly allowed Lucia to loan me the money she had inherited from her father. Of course I expected to return it with interest, but I lost this money also. And just when I found myself in this unfortunate position, Mr. Ashmore, the head of the firm, was suddenly killed one morning as he was starting for the office. This event occurred just after a bad break in the stock market which practically wiped out not only my own account but also my largest customers. And on top of these calamities, the firm of Ashmore & Co., where I had been employed for over ten years, went out of business "overnight" as it were. I suddenly found myself without a position, minus funds, no income, no salary, and this at a most unfortunate time; as just at this period a bad panic was in the offing. The stock market was slumping and the financial horizon looked like a storm was brewing, which eventually did come with a vengeance and broke over Wall St. like a tornado, uprooting things generally and leaving a wreckage behind that took years to restore, carrying with it banks and trust companies and causing many financial failures to brokerage firms. Very few escaped losses and many firms escaped failure by the hair of their teeth, as it were. However, I started out to try to get another position just previous to the financial storm or Panic of 1907. I managed to obtain a position with the Stock Exchange firm of Gate & Hayes, of 71 Broadway. We were compelled to sell our house at 962 Park Place, Brooklyn, and we rented a small cheap apartment at 215 W 100 St., New York, where we resided for six years. Just after I obtained my new position two very unfortunate events occurred. The first was the Panic of 1907 began just after I started in with high hopes to regain my fortunes, and I witnessed even more disastrous events occur than I had seen happen in the other panics previously mentioned. The 1907 Panic was a money panic, banks failed and money became so scarce as to be practically unobtainable, even savings banks refused to pay out cash to their depositors, and of course the stock market went to pieces. As the saying was in those days, the bottom fell out of everything. My hope of building up a clientele fell with the market. The little business I was able to get from friends was business done at a loss to them. The firm refused to accept buying orders, and people could not sell except at a great loss. Business simply stopped completely, and to make matters worse for me I became seriously ill and but for the kindness of this charitable firm, I would have been again with(out) any means of support. For several weeks I was home too ill to go to work but the firm sent me my pay every week, small as it was, it was a godsend to us.

I was with this firm for a year and they let me stay, more because they felt sorry for me, than that they thought I was earning the salary, I felt sure I was again a failure but conditions were such I was not altogether to blame for not making good and so I finally resigned as gracefully as I could. Well I applied for a position with the stock exchange firm of R.H. Fiero & Co., and again Gate & Hayes did a charitable thing in giving me a good reference and this got me this job. Well, I struggled along from 1908 to 1912 with the latter firm and it was here I met Harry Kennedy. He was an owner of a chain of theaters, the predecessors of the Keith Theaters, Harry selling out to Keith. (Harry Kennedy will return to the memoir later. JR) I forgot to mention another incident that happened to me which I am going to take the liberty to tell now. When I was with Ashmore & Co. there often entered our offices green individuals including salesmen peddlers (?) and call men, the latter offering option privileges for sale, either to buy or sell certain active stocks at prices over or under the market for limited periods. Among these callers there entered one day a little red-headed Jew who was selling fountain pens. Well it happened just at this time the market was in one of the dull periods when the traders who used to sit around and wait for something to happen to pass the time, waiting and watching for their favorite stocks to move. When the little Jew entered I had a bright idea, and so I proposed to the crowd we make up a lottery on the fountain pens, and so we did and resulted in the Jew selling out his stock then and there, much to his surprise and joy. Well, it was a little fun and we all got a stock of pens. A few weeks later on the Jew again appeared selling rugs. Well we made another pool on a rug, and again a little later on, in he came in again, and this time he called me to one side and said, "I want to take a flier (?) in the market; what do you suggest?" I asked him how much money he had. He said $500. Well, I knew if he started trading on such a small amount of money he would very likely lose it and so I told him I would think it over.

I thought I would get rid of him that way, but the next day he came in again an asked me what I had decided was the thing to buy. I looked the stock board over and said, "Now there's Wheeling common selling at $5 per share, you can buy 100 shares at that price, and, I think it nice for a safe purchase." Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad common stock was more or less of a joke in Wall Street at this time. It sold at 5 or 5 1/8, or 4 1/8, and that's about the range of its fluctuations for months at a time, they used to call it the "wash" stock, which could be taken with two meanings, one, that it only sold on wash sales, meaning matching orders, or the other that it was one of Washington Conner's "pups." So called because Washington Conner, an associate of the Goulds, controlled this company and manipulated its shares. When the traders in our office heard me advise the little Jew to buy Wheeling they all smiled. He gave me the order to buy and I succeeded in putting (?) the stock at $5, and I told him he would have to pay $12.50 commission, he said o.k. and paid me $512.50, and in a day or two he came in and received his certificate. Everybody had a good laugh when he went out with the stock, but I said, "Well, he can't lose anyway, but he will wait a long time before he sees the stock move." And so we all forgot about the incident, my idea was not to let him speculate and lose his hard earned money. Now comes the surprise. One day, not a long time afterwards, Wheeling suddenly got active and began to go up and finally it sold up to $11, and the very day it sold there in come the little Jew and said, "Now, dear Mr. Zieley, your advice was so good in buying; do you advise me to sell?" I said yes quick, and so I sold out the stock for him which netted him over 500 profit. Well when he got his check he was so pleased he shook my hand and said, "Much obliged, you're a fine feller and can pick 'em good." He left, and that's the last time I saw him for several years. Now comes the epilogue of the story. Dark days came upon me when I lost my friends and my money, and I was so hard up I couldn't buy my wife a Christmas present. The day after Christmas, who should put his head in the door of Fiero's office but the little red-headed Jew, and motions to me he wanted to see me. I went out to the hall, and he said, "I've been trying to find you for a long time and I found out today where you were. I don't want to sell you anything. I got a little present for your wife, but don't open it until you get home, and I hope you will have a happy Christmas." Well, I took the box home and Lucia opened it, and inside there reposed a beautiful black fox muff and scarf. Just what she needed, so "bread cast on the waters returned to me after many days." The little red-headed Jew had not forgotton the good turn I did for him years before. Continued on page nine...