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A COUP BY GATES. Sold a Combination of Railroads to the Morgan-Hill Combine. MADE A MILLION DOLLARS He Got into the Deal by Accident, but Made It Pay. BOUGHT UP CLAIMS OF CREDITORS Who Got Left When the Stilwell Scheme Was Knocked. THEN COMBINED THE ROADS HE BOUGHT They Run from Kansas City to Quincy, and from Omaha to St. Louis and Have Branches. (Special to The Post.) New York, February 1.-The Press says: John W. Gates has made another coup, and incidentally has made a million dollars-perhaps much more. He has sold a combination of railroads to the big railroad pool-the Morgan-Hill group-and indirectly has become the medium through whom complete control of the railroads of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys has been obtained. The deal involves $10,000,000 in actual money and several times that sum in railroad securities. The deal contemplates the sale of the Kansas City, Peoria and Chicago railway company to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy--a statement of detail and devoid of interest. But beneath the surface is hid a scheme which required much foresight and good judgment-one that has enormous profits to the promoters, and has resulted in absorbing into the Northern Securities company a system which might have been an irritating competitor for business. Mr. Gates has made his big profits practically in a few months, but for more than two years he has been working on the plan which now has proved so profitable. The lines he sells were incorporated into a railroad system only a few weeks ago, but the system as a system became so important that immediately the report was started that a through line from Kansas City to the Atlantic coast would be established. Mr. Gates got into the deal by accident. He bought $100,000 stock in the Guardian Trust company of Chicago, an institution promoted by A. E. Stilwell, who then controlled the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Trust company of Kansas City, the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf (now the Kansas City and Southern, owned by the Stillman-Harriman syndicate). and the lines in what were known as the Stilwell railroads north from Kansas City to St. Louis. Gates did not like the management of the Guardian Trust company, and he was successful in his application for alreceiver. The railroad lines it controlled south from Kansas City fell into the hands of the Harriman-Gould-Stillman-Kuhn, Loeb & Co. syndicate, and the Northern railroads were left to the creditors. The Chicago speculator bought up the claims of creditors. He hired lawyers to sell out the properties under foreclosure and bought them at judicial sales for the account of "Gates and associates." Through this method he got railroads that ran from Kansas City to Quincy, Ill.; from St. Louis to Omaha, with many branches to less important points-in all a system of 500 miles through fertile and rich country.
