Yorkville Enquirer

GIVES BUSINESS AWAY

Quits Wall Street With Two Million to the Good.

STAVED OFF WOLVES OF THE STREET

Turns Business Over to His Helpers and Associates--Started at Fourteen, Quits at Forty-four Will Help Educate Boys Opportunities as Great as Ever.

New York Evening Telegram.

Here's a 1924 thought for you to take home with you and mull over in spare moments.

John Borg, stock broker, is quitting Wall street with two million dollars honestly earned

Mr. Borg started his career in the "Road of Remorse" at the ripe old age of fourteen. He is now forty-four, writes Jane Dixon.

Do not gather the notion that this salient example of American upbuilding is quitting the ground cold. On the contrary, he is leaving the fray in the heat of action, with warmth of success sending out its glow along the often perilous but most pleasant paths he has traveled.

And he is leaving, by way of heritage, as sound and as significant a business as buzzes in "the Street" to three of the next younger generation, who have won their spurs.

After January 1 the future of Borg Brothers, dealers in big business, will be in the lap of the gods and three valiant and willing workers, William Gilmore, Charles Haldenwang and John H. Borg, nephew of the John who established the firm.

"Yes," admitted the man Wall Street didn't trim. "I'm retiring, turning over the business to the boys. All strings are cut when I go out. It is theirs, absolutely: A plan I made two years ago now reaches its culmination.

You see, I know I am leaving the house Jack built in adequate hands.

These three boys started with me. Gilmore was my cashier. Haldenwang was a telephone operator in my office. John Jr., began as a board boy. They showed ability and I shot them right along. For the past two years they have been on probation, with the idea that if they qualified the business would belong to them. They have made good.

How He Staved Off Wolves.

"How is it you have not been gobbled up by the wolves that are supposed to howl and hunt in packs down here in the canyons of the Money Mart?" we asked.

John Borg tipped the back of a swivel chair against an old-fashioned rolltop desk that might be doing duty in the insignificant corner reserved for a common or garden variety of clerk. His blue-gray eyes, in which the flames of inner fires flare high with eagerness or settle into steady gleam of determination according to the mood of the man, took on an appreciative twinkle. His tall, lean figure, trim for action, relaxed into the ease of conscious power. His clean-cut jaws lost a bit of their aggressive angle.

"Because I've always kept an ace in the hole to chase them away with," was the reply. "You see I was actually tossed into the mill pond and I had to strike out and swim to keep from drowning.

"The turn in the course came when I was with the firm of Williamson & Squires, back in 1908. One day I went to a head of the firm and told him I thought I'd specialize in American Can stocks. He asked me what I knew about American Can that made me think I was a specialist. I answered I knew as much, maybe more than some of the fellows who posed as oracles. He told me to go ahead. And I did with a bang.

"I did so well for the firm that when a new baby arrived in my house and my wife was in bad health I struck for a raise in salary. I was making $60 a week. Not only did I fail to get the raise but the word came along that owing to conditions salaries must be cut.

Salary Cut in Two.

"My next pay envelope held thirty dollars. The weekly bad news had been cut in two. Not while I have my two hands and a couple of feet, I promised myself. I had saved a thousand dollars out of the sixty dollars per. 'Now or never,' was my decision. I went in for myself. The thousand melted away on the first two turnovers I tried. Broke and in debt!

"It was swim now, with all there was in me, or hit the bottom with a dull thud. I floundered along, got my stroke and began to make headway.

Several good mining stocks brought me results. At the end of 1908 I had $50,000 all my own, money made legitimately in stock transactions. The cut in salary was the best thing that ever happened to me. The company made me a present without knowing it."

"Is it true," we queried, "that you are going to spend the rest of your time playing around and enjoying the fruits of the two millions?"

"Partially," admitted the cautious Mr. Borg. "Wall Street is not a street of mature judgments. It is a snap bang street. You must make quick money or be taken. Quick money means intensive concentration. It means being on the job every time the ticker ticks. Now, $2,000,000 is a heap of money if you aim to take care of it yourself, make it work for you and for others. I figure that, having all the money I can possibly need, the sensible thing to do is to give my attention to executive matters, and let the young men have theirs to make get a turn at the wheel.

Keen About His Newspaper.

"I'm pretty keen about a newspaper I bought over in New Jersey-the Bergen Evening Record. It was a bankrupt concern when I took it over, but we're making money today, and we're something of a political power, too. Independent in politics. Print a good story whether it's Republican or Democratic in trend. The newspaper business has always appealed to me. I didn't get a chance to follow it up but my son shows strong inclination to realize my dreams. He's going up to Yale next year.

"College education? For it, strong! Missed it myself. Had to go to work. But I haven't forgotten. A few years ago I endowed a $25,000 a year scholarship fund for the benefit of graduates of Union Hill, N. J., high school, of which I am an alumnus.

"The winner of this scholarship gets tuition and $1,000 to see him through Rutgers. Two of the winners have graduated and four are now in college. Each student who accepts the scholarship pledges himself to do as much for another boy within ten years after his graduation. In this way I hope to build up an endless chain which will eventually contribute heavily toward the sum total of American culture and intellect. Young men today need all of it they can get."

There was a silence--silence pregnant with the posture of the past, battles fought and won and lost, but more won than lost. A slow smile came into being at the corners of the Borg mouth and spread until it crinkled up the corners of his eyes and was lost in the still abundant thatch of his dark hair.

Asked to Head Auto Firm.

"Strange how opportunities unfold as we go up the ladder," he ruminated. "It was as difficult for me to make $10 back in the days when I needed the $10 as it is for me to make $100,000 today. Here for example," picking up a pudgy, important looking envelope, "is a communication asking me to accept the presidency of a large automobile manufacturing concern at practically my own figures. I may do it."

"But," we protested, "you were going to quit and play recess."

"So I am," authoritatively. "This thing just sort of caught my fancy. Not easy to drop a habit after you've had it with you constantly for a long time. The home habit is a valuable one for a young man to form. My wife knows nothing about the financial game, but she is a wizard at making home the sort of a place a man looks forward to all day and hustles to get to after he's closed his desk down on the grind.

"I've gone home with all sorts of venom in my system--down here it's dog eat dog if you don't watch your appetite--resolved to get even, to get back; to score ruthlessly. Twilight, lamplight, music--my wife can make a piano sing and trill and croon--and the poison is gone. Music is the tired business man's medicine.

"The right woman, the sympathetic woman, the understanding woman, is two-thirds of a man's success whether she is his business confidant and adviser or the soother of his soul by the home fireside, his pilot in a heavy sea or his port in a storm.

"Opportunity! It's as active today as it was when I lost it in order to win it again. Ask the three young men who are taking over his business. They can tell you a lot about it."