He joined the staff of Dow Jones, Company, the original publishers, 'a3_a young man when the paper colisisted of a series of small shoots, not unlike handbills, that were pritited in a dingy office Broad Street just under the how! mob that, until a few years ago, was the New York Curb Market' As-days in Wall Street before the advent of the telephone, Mr. Barton well understood the gather ing and dissemination of news yes from the 1001 MeKGniey stocks to the Great War fora, the greatest peri growth the' United States ever saw, he gradually assumed higher offices in the Wall Street Journal Company, fas it was liter called, until just after the 1907 panic when he axsunied the Eitorship and owned a majority of the stock of the Company. lo was a personal friend of every' Important personage on the Ameri can financial and diplomatic sce for years past and was especially: close to the small town minister's on, E. Lil, Harriman, who rose from a $2 broker in Wall Street to the builder of the greatest railroad sys tem in the United States. Indeed it was one of Mr. Barron's bright young men" who became Mr. Harriman's secretary in 1907 and wer! to England to secure control of the important Mlinois Central Railroad that was then in hands and was a link Tine anxio the " Gould interests complete it transcontinental lines throug the southern United Strates.
The Plunger's Terror Of late years, though Mr, Barton had retired largely from the limelight, he still directed the paper from behind the scenes and some years ago Tt was he who sounded the death knell of the notorious Boston postal exchange financier, Ponzi, whose juggling of funds entrusted to him by the gullible brought a financial calamity running Lawson, when that astute stock market' plunger was organizing "blind pools", the funds of which largely went'to further his own ambitious plans.
The "Wall Street Journal came into considerable publicity a few years ago following an incorrect reporting of the decision of—the Supreme Court of the United States in a case regarding the legality of establishing an income tax on stock dividends.
The reporter telephoned his office that stock dividends were taxable whereupon the news was flashed over the news tickets all across the country and brought in a flood of selling orders that caused a violent crash in the market. About an hour later came the correct report that. stock dividends were not subject fan income tax whereupon a flood of buying orders poured in and the up move did not stop for. several weeks.
The "Wall Street Journal" also was noted in November 1918 for publisking a premature flash that the war had ended, causing also a drop in Prices that was extremely violet! only to be regained when the story was proved false, The Eccentricities of Genius Mr, Barton possessed certain cccentricities that usually are attribu'- ed to those possessed of genius. Like the famous humourist, Mark Twain, Mr. Barton spent practically the whole day in pyjamas in his hotel room and ran his various interests by means of a flock of telephones that were installed in his special suite in a well known, New York hotel. A story is told that a former Treasurer of the United States called on him by appointment in NewYork and was received by the Editor garbed in his night Many of the most brilliant fine anders in the American industrial world received their early training fon one of the Barton papers ahd though it was a difficult. scho-', those who were up to the Barton mark never had cause to regret their early hardships under the vigorous editor.
He wes a violent Swedenborgian and had a practice of attempting to convert all his employees to that faith, A short stocky man with a flowing white heard that reached almost to his waist, Clarence Barton will be a figure greatly missed the financial world of the United States.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.