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IN MY HUMBLE OPINION ROkie White FEATURED COLUMNIST R Ray Collins FICTION |
The field of eight horses broke out of the gate cleanly
and passed in front of the Grandstand with the favorite, Top
Gallant, out in front by two lengths. The race was a mile and
eighth for two-year olds and your horse, Buttercup, a chestnut
mare, was running fifth and showing no signs whatsoever of gaining
on the leader. At the Clubhouse turn they were bunched but keeping
pace with each other. None of the jockeys seemed willing to break
out and make a move on Top Gallant who was still a length and
a half in front as they passed the quarter-mile pole. The crowd
hadn’t picked up the urge to yell yet and we could hear
the thudding hoofs as they turned into the back-stretch still
in unison. The pack stayed that way for another furlong before
Velasquez gave her a single stroke of the whip and Buttercup
began to make her move. She was a two-year old filly who didn’t
know that she was supposed to stay behind the boys, maybe because
they were geldings. With a will inherited from her Sire, Road
Agent, she started to lean forward and overtake Ragout for third
and then Country Boy for second. All the way around the far turn
she steadily gained on Top Gallant with every step until he lead
by only a half-a-length as they came into the home stretch. The announcer kept repeating her name as she moved up and
the crowd started to pickup the scent of an upset and started
yelling and shouting for their own choice. You were not immune
to the raising anxiety and soon you were shouting for Buttercup
to keep going. I was reminded of the dressed-up Eliza at the
Derby in My Fair Lady shouting, "C’mon, Dover, move
your bloomin’ arse." The tempo picked up measurably
and the little filly gave a sudden surge and took the lead by
a neck just as they crossed the finish line. "She won, she won, she won, you kept repeating over
and over while alternately jumping up and down and beating me
on the chest and back. I was happy for you and knew that you
would get great delight out of the eighteen dollars you had won
for your two dollar bet. I plastered a big grin on my face while
I let five ten dollar tickets on Top Gallant slide out of my
hand onto the already littered deck of our Clubhouse box. "C’mon, lets go get my money," you were
urging. "I wonder how much I’ve won?" "Eighteen dollars," I told you. "And the
window wont be open to pay winners for another ten minutes. So
try to relax a moment and just enjoy the winning feeling." "How do you know how much I’ve won?" "Its right there on the tote board, on the infield,
just behind the finish line. See, there’s your horse’s
number, 3, and those are payout numbers next to it. Your horse
pays eighteen dollars, $7.40, and $4.80. The $7.40 and the $4.80
are if you had place and show bets on the winning horse. You
did very well honey, I’m very happy for you. And from the
look on your face I can tell that you are very happy for you
as well," I said catching on to your enjoyment and laughter. "How do you know so much about race tracks? Are you,
or were you, a habitué of the race track?" "When I was a kid, my dad was a cook at the tracks
in the Bay Area and I used to go with him on Saturdays and hangout.
I had about 4 hours to kill before the first race with nothing
to do but read the Racing Form and listen to the guys talk. I
picked it up pretty quick. And don’t forget my grandfather
used to be a bookie, its in the genes I guess. Now, let’s
go get your winnings, then you get to buy the beers." "Why me?" "Because you won, that’s why you." "Well if you say so. But I don’t think its fair.
I just won the money I don’t want to spend it on beers right
away. "In that case then, I’ll just remind you of who
paid for the ticket in the first place." "Oh, OK." The rest of the day was much the same. You kept picking
winners with two dollar bets and I kept letting favorite tickets
accumulate on the ground. If racing was in the genes, I now knew
why my mother and grandmother were driven to complete distraction
by my grandfather’s betting on the races. It also reaffirmed
by decision to only come to the track about once every five years
or so. All I ever did was lose my ass. "C’mon babe, lets get out of here and get some
dinner. I think I can do better at picking a winning restaurant
than I can a winning horse." You were still keenly happy over your success at the track
and kept chattering away at how lucky you were. You had won a
total of $183.00 and felt like the queen of the Nile and just
a bit full of yourself with all the luck you had had. Well, you
were my queen that was for sure and while I didn’t want
to burst your bubble, I thought perhaps I could put things into
perspective for you and point out that, while luck may have had
some bearing on the outcome of the day, it was not something
you could rely on totally. "Did I ever tell you about the man who didn’t
believe in luck, although everyone around him thought that he
was one of the luckiest fellows to ever amass a fortune. In fact,
he did that about three different times." "No, not at all. You know very well that it wont last.
You’re just having fun. And after all it isn’t every
day that you win $183.00 at the track. And lets face it honey,
it was blind luck. What you know about horses and horse racing
you could put in your eye and still be able to see." "I know. But it is fun. And I’ll even pay for
the dinner. Besides you’re probably broke. I didn’t
see you turning in any winning tickets at the track. Now what
about this lucky guy. What was his name and what did he do?" "Well, his name was Baldwin, Elias Jackson Baldwin,
and what he did, had to do with horses. That’s why I’m
reminded of the story. But really, it’s the story of two
different men, Baldwin and David Belasco, one of America’s
premier impresarios. They both had some things in common which,
frankly, all interest me: horses, the theater, and making money" But to start the story honestly, this is the story of a
man who didn’t believe in luck. He spent a very busy life
and had more details to take care of in a day than the average
man faces in a month. His was a story of fabulous success. He
started with nothing and, surpassing any success story Horatio
Alger ever conceived, he became an industrial giant. Luck? No, there was no luck to it. He stated bluntly that
everything he ever had, everything he ever accomplished was due
to hard work and knowing what was going on, and his own brain
power. He said that you never got anything in life that you didn’t
go after. Sometimes it meant hard work; sometimes it meant being
smarter than the other fellow. But it never depended on luck.
There was no such thing as luck. He did not believe in luck;
and yet, men called him ‘Lucky’ Baldwin. Baldwin came to San Francisco in 1853. He was twenty-five
years old. Most of those twenty-five years had been spent in
the journey across the continent from Ohio with his parents. The journey was too slow for the young Baldwin; so, leaving
his parents, he moved on alone. Along the way he managed a hotel.
He married and was a father before he was twenty. He traded horses,
sold horses, and made a few thousand dollars. In 1853, with a
few horses to sell and seven thousand dollars in his pocket,
he landed in San Francisco. His coming to San Francisco was not a matter of chance,
or luck. He understood and loved horses and the boom town of
San Francisco was wealthy and its prosperous citizens found great
delight in showing off their new-found wealth in the costly and
dashing horses they rode or drove. With a population of twenty-five
thousand, Baldwin saw possibilities in a livery stable. Now in those early days of the California Gold Rush, San
Francisco was lacking in adequate living accommodations for men
as well as for beasts. The most remarkable and perhaps the most
popular place of lodging was the Niantic Hotel, built on the
hull of the sailing ship, Niantic, which had gone aground at
Sansome and Clay streets. Then there was the Pacific Temperance
Hotel; where Baldwin found lodging. After a few days in that
badly run hostelry, he decided he could do a better job of running
it and make money in the bargain. He offered to buy. The proprietor
asked six thousand dollars. Baldwin offered five thousand. The proprietor said, "Supposing I had asked five thousand?" Baldwin answered, "Then I would have offered you four." For three days the two men, the horse trader and the hotel
man, dickered. At the end of three days Baldwin wrote a check
for five thousand dollars, and the hotel was his. Then Baldwin
made a suggestion, a very simple suggestion, that the check and
bill of sale be dated three days earlier so that he could show
folks back East what a fast operator he was. The ex-hotel man
agreed. The lease and the check changed hands. "And now," said Lucky Baldwin, "there is
a little matter of three days' board and lodging." "Oh, yes," said the hotel man, "you do owe
me for three days." "On the contrary," said Baldwin. "You owe
me. According to this check and agreement, I have owned the hotel
for three days." No, Lucky Baldwin's success was not based on luck. A month
after he bought the hotel, he sold it, doubling his money for
a profit of five thousand dollars. After that, he turned to horses, and opened a livery stable.
The stable was never to be very important in the overall scheme
of his building of a fortune, but it was his favorite enterprise
and the Baldwin Stables was always well thought of long after
his death. Some years later, when he was running two stables, he decided
to sell one. He found a prospective buyer and gave him a thirty-day
option, agreeing that the prospective buyer could run the stable
for the thirty days and then, if he were satisfied, could buy
it for ten thousand dollars. The buyer agreed and assumed management.
Then, sharp operator that he was, Baldwin turned all the business
from the stable he was keeping to the stable in the hands of
the buyer. The purchaser, finding that business exceeded his
most optimistic hopes, paid the ten thousand dollars, received
his bill of sale, and the next day business fell off. Of course, these stories of Lucky Baldwin are considered
examples of sharp and unethical practice today. But, if we can
believe the critics of his day, such promotion in the 'sixties
and 'seventies was simply called ‘shrewd business.’
Horse traders were admired, and the sharper the trade, the more
admiration it won. All this, of course, was before humanity mended
its ways and the lawyers and PC’ers took over and business
became ethical. But livery stables and hotels were small business. Baldwin
had made profits and now he sought a game with greater glory
and that game was ready at hand. The first Comstock Bonanza in
the hills back of Virginia City, Nevada, was at its height. So
Baldwin invested. Then he sold when stocks were high, bought
when they were low, and by the time the ebb tide came and the
Bonanza kings were counting their losses, Baldwin was a millionaire.
That certainly was not luck, just damn good business sense; why
anyone will tell you that one should buy low and sell high. Now
where was the luck in that! After reaping millions from the Comstock, he decided to
travel. He went to the Orient and there he saw a troupe of entertainers
that simply amazed him. Little men who did amazing feats of juggling
and wrestling. With the instinct of a showman, he realized that
such an act would be a sensation in sensation-loving America;
no Oriental acrobats had ever crossed the Pacific. So with all
the aplomb and panoply of a Barnum, he brought the troupe home
with him, toured the United States with it, made another fortune
out of it, and then sold it to a young Englishman who wanted
to take a novelty act to London. And so, the young Englishman returned to Piccadilly with
his Japanese jugglers, and they inspired him and his partner
to write an opera. The young man was W. G. Gilbert and his partner
was Arthur Sullivan. The opera was The Mikado. Now, fate or luck, that kind of luck that Baldwin had always
scorned, took a hand in his affairs. Before sailing for India,
he had told his broker to sell some of his Comstock investments.
Now, on his return, he learned that he had sailed carrying the
key to his safe in his pocket. The stocks, locked in the safe,
could not be sold. And during his absence they had increased
in value to such a degree that they were worth from four to five
million dollars. The story was told on Bush Street and spread
through the city, and overnight Elias Baldwin became "Lucky"
Baldwin. Baldwin's venture in the vaudeville business was at an
end, but his love of the theater was intensified. He used to
sit in his livery stable and talk about it. He liked to talk
to a young street urchin who sold newspapers, a youngster who
spent most of his time in Baldwin's stable. "Davey," Baldwin would say to the boy, "someday
I'll build you a fine theater and you shall be my star actor." The newspaper boy was David Belasco and Baldwin built that
theater for David Belasco, incorporating it in the Baldwin Hotel
at the corner of Powell and Market streets in San Francisco. The hotel was completed and opened a year before Billy
Ralston’s Palace Hotel. He purchased a clock for twenty-five
thousand dollars and had it placed at the entrance. That clock,
about the only thing left of Baldwin’s hotel, still stands,
keeping imperfect time in the lobby of the St. Francis Hotel
on Powell Street, three blocks up from its original resting place. Finally, on a night late in the fall of 1875, the Baldwin
Theater-originally called Baldwin Academy of Music opened with
Shakespeare's Othello. The part of the Moor was played by Louis
James, and Iago was played by James O'Neill, the father of Eugene.
It was San Francisco's first great theater; the opening night
was a scene of splendor that has not been forgotten to this day. Now, the story of David Belasco, the same David Belasco
who inspired Baldwin to build his magnificent theater, doesn’t
start in San Francisco; it starts in Vancouver, British Columbia,
in the hotel room of a circus clown named Ledo. He was a kindly,
whimsical, and lonely man. One day he was sitting in his dingy
room when a police officer visited him. The officer had been
informed that Ledo was nursing a sick boy. Yes, Ledo acknowledged,
the boy was very sick. He would probably die. Where were his
parents? Ledo was not sure. The boy had been born in San Francisco;
his parents had moved to Victoria. The lad had run away to sea,
reached Vancouver, had been given shelter in a monastery, and
had again run away, this time to join the circus. He was a wonderful
boy, Ledo said. He was a daring bareback rider. He rode a white
horse around the ring, and leaped through burning hoops, a feat
that had never before been done. "But," said Ledo, "he'll probably never
do it again; I think he is going to die." The officer asked the boy's name, and Ledo said, "Davey." Davey? But what was his full name? Ledo answered, "Davey Belasco." With the officer's aid, Ledo located Davey Belasco's parents,
who had returned to San Francisco, and he set sail for California
with the sick boy. They reached the Golden Gate. Davey recovered,
but Ledo caught the fever from him and died. The Belascos were poor. Davey wanted to go to work at once
to make a fortune for the family; this was when he was ten years
old. But Humphrey Abraham Belasco had the deep love of learning
and he ordered young David to school -- there would be plenty
of time later to make a fortune. Davey entered the Lincoln School and immediately drove
the teachers to desperation. He would not study. He balked at
grinding through Greek tragedies and Shakespeare; he preferred
to recite inane, melodramatic poems, instead like ‘The Maniac.’
His English teacher pleaded with him to "choose the fine
things, Davey, the beautiful things!" And David said he
would, and continued to recite ‘The Maniac.’ Yet, years
later, David Belasco said, "My first love of the classics
was inspired by that teacher, Nellie Holbrook." Now, the one thing that Davey Belasco liked, even more
than ranting melodramatic poetry, was to play hooky from school
and visit a tobacco-chewing friend who owned a livery stable.
They both wanted money; the stable owner so that he could buy
horses, the boy so that he could be an actor and own his own
theater. They made a bargain. The stable owner would make a fortune
and build a theater for the boy. And then Dave could act and
the stable owner could come to see the performances free. The
stable owner’s name was Lucky Baldwin. Well, of course Baldwin made his fortune and he built the
Baldwin Hotel and Theater; called the Baldwin Academy of Music,
on Market Street near Powell, and young David Belasco played
there, played one hundred seventy-five different roles in all. But David Belasco did not stay in San Francisco. Playing
the Baldwin Theater one night, he met two young men who were
with the Haverly Minstrels. He sat with them all night in the
Rathskeller at the corner of Kearny and Sutter streets. All night
long they talked until one of the young men fell asleep just
as the sun came through the swinging doors and David Belasco
signed an agreement with the other young man. He would go to
New York as his stage director. The other young man was Charlie
Frohman. So, David Belasco became a stage director and then a producer,
and finally he built his own theaters and presented his own great
stars. Among his possessions was a book in which he wrote the
names of the actors and actresses he discovered, and to whom
he gave their start. There was Mary Pickford. She was fifteen years old at the
time Belasco first saw her. There were Frances Starr and her
sensational success in The Easiest Way, and Leslie Carter, Blanche
Bates of San Francisco in The Darling of the Gods, Lenore Ulric,
David Warfield, Ina Claire, Henrietta Crossman, Madame Modjeska,
Nance O’Neill And there was one other whose name means little
to the generation of today-Adelaide Neilson, the loveliest Juliet
of all time. There is a poignant story of Belasco and Adelaide Neilson
that has been told many times and I have absolutely no reason
not to believe it. One night, Belasco came to Adelaide's dressing
room after the final curtain had fallen on Romeo and Juliet.
In his hand he held Juliet’s slipper; she had lost it in
the tomb scene. "I want to keep the slipper," he said, "in
memory of the most wonderful night the theater has ever known." Adelaide gave him the slipper, and he nailed it on the
star's dressing-room door of the Baldwin Theater, to hang there
till the theater experienced a disaster of its own. But that
comes later in the story. "And because I love you so," Adelaide Nielson
said, "I want you to have a memory of me that you can carry
in your pocket." She emptied on the table a bag of precious jewels and insisted
that Belasco choose one of them. He selected a black pearl. Adelaide
shook her head. Not that; anything but the black pearl. She was
very superstitious. She had a premonition that when the pearl
left her possession her life would end. She took the pearl out
of Belasco's hand, and in its place handed him a beautiful, flawless
emerald. The following day she left on her Eastern tour. A month later, David Belasco received a package from Adelaide
Nielson containing the black pearl and a card on which she had
written "Davey, I can't get your voice out of my mind."
She died that day. In 1909, the boys of the Lincoln Grammar School held a
reunion to honor one of their favorite sons. A committee was
formed to greet him. The banquet was held in the Hofbrau Cafe.
The Lincoln School boys stood and cheered as the honored guest
walked in, walked in with sentimental tears cascading down his
cheeks. He stood at the banquet table, America's most spectacular
producer, David Belasco. And when the cheers had subsided, someone
shouted, "Now act for us, Davey. Give us some Shakespeare." But David Belasco shook his head. "No," he said,
"I'm not an actor. I'm just one of the Lincoln School boys
come home. I'll not act for you, I'll recite for you." And he recited the poem that had driven Nellie Holbrook
desperate almost fifty years before ‘The Maniac’ Now, as I said earlier, David Belasco was one of America’s
premier impresarios of the American theater and there are many
stories about him. But we started with Lucky Baldwin and seem
to have gotten off the track somewhat; so I digress. What happened
to Baldwin after he built his splendid hotel and theater? Well,
Lucky Baldwin turned to new fields. He had heard of the beauty
of southern California, so he toured the south and fell in love
with the richness of the San Gabriel Valley. Here was the opportunity
he had dreamed of; he loved horses, knew, and understood horses.
He would build the greatest racing stable in the world. He bought tens of thousands of acres of land at a cost
in the neighborhood of a half-million dollars. And he built a
race track to show and race his horses, a track that he named
Santa Anita-after his favorite daughter, Anita. Yes, the interests of Lucky Baldwin were growing and growing.
A great hotel and a great theater in San Francisco; a vast ranch
and race track in southern California. And next he visited Lake
Tahoe, fell in love with its beauty, and built another great
hotel, the Tallac. In all, his lands covered some seventy thousand
acres, and-amazingly, due to lawsuits, due to national panics,
due to a score of reasons, Baldwin found himself a man of mighty
wealth but strapped for cash. He refused to pay bills and judgments
piled up against him, and he evaded the judgments. Elias Baldwin
had scorned luck, and Lady Luck was turning against him. "But no," he persisted. "There's no such
thing as luck. A man gets what he pays for." And so, he staged the first of his many comebacks. An incident
illustrates his methods of how he was able to turn adversity
into opportunity, and in the bargain, enhance his reputation.
The gas bill for the Baldwin Hotel was two thousand dollars a
month. He could not pay the bill, and the utility company threatened
to turn off the gas. So he built his own gasworks and sold the
surplus not required for the hotel, making a profit that made
the lighting of the hotel cost him less than nothing. But he had to have cash. He commenced subdividing and selling
some of his vast holdings in southern California. He was the
south's first land promoter in a land that spawned more fast-talking
real estate salesman than there would be oil wells on Signal
Hill.. And he achieved new fame by a statement he made in 1881
when a prospective purchaser objected to paying Baldwin's price
for unimproved land. "Hell," said Lucky Baldwin, "we're giving
away the land. We're selling the climate." As the 1890’s neared their end Baldwin still owned
his hotel and theater; he still owned Santa Anita; he still owned
Tallac on Lake Tahoe, and he owned thousands of acres in Bear
Valley. And then, in 1898, in one of the most disastrous hotel
and theater fires in history, the Baldwin Hotel and Theater burned
to the ground. Many lives were lost in the blaze. The value of
the hotel and theater was three million dollars, all uninsured.
Baldwin sold the land to James Flood, and the Flood Building
stands on the site today at Powell and Market. And at the age
of seventy-two, Lucky Baldwin started out to make a new fortune. His adventures took him to the gold fields of the Klondike.
He did make a fortune in Nome, and again he found himself possessing
vast holdings, but still with no money. And so, he came home to the city he loved, but not to die.
He would end his days in San Francisco, but first he would prove
he was not beaten. He was only in his seventies and he figured
he had time to make several more fortunes. And, yes, perhaps
to lose them as well. But it would not be luck; if he lost, it
would be because he had not been shrewd enough, or wise enough,
or perhaps he had been too sentimental. To succeed, a mark could
not be sentimental as he had been sentimental about Santa Anita
and San Francisco. Elias Baldwin-Lucky Baldwin-died in 1909. He was eighty-one years old. He had no cash. When his estate was appraised, it was found that the most fantastic, the most colorful, in some ways the most unscrupulous and in other ways the most trusted, the most sentimental and picturesque of San Francisco's giants had died leaving a fortune of thirty-five million dollars. © Copyright 1998 by Ron Samuel Ron Samuel, -- actor/writer grew up in San Francisco and If you want to know more about Ron, you can check out his
web site by clicking the icon: If you like the story, send him an e-mail and let him know. He'll even answer you. If you don't, well, keep it to yourself. And remember: that life is serious' |
