Fritz Augustus Heinze

F. Augustus Heinze (* 5. December 1869 in Brooklyn , New York ; † 4. November 1914 in Saratoga County ) was an entrepreneur in copper mining in Butte (Montana) .

Life

F. Augustus Heinze studied at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and at Columbia University .

Copper King in Montana

In 1889 he was employed as a mining engineer for the Boston and Montana Company in Butte . He worked temporarily for the Engineering and Mining Journal in New York. With his two brothers Otto and Albert in New York, he founded the Montana Ore Purchasing Company from 1892 to 1893 . This set up a powerful copper ore reduction shaft furnace . In this furnace, the ores from various small independent mines were melted at competitive prices. In 1895 he acquired the Rarus mine , which, together with other leased pits, continuously used the furnace.

In the early 1890s, Heinze invested in Canadian mines with a reduction furnace in Trail, British Columbia . He became an advocate for the isolated provinces against the Canadian Pacific Railway and threatened to build his own parallel to the existing railway lines. Eventually he was resigned from the Canadian Pacific at a profit.

As Heinze came to Butte, had William Andrews Clark and Marcus Daly their claims already staked and were in copper mining as copper kings ( English Copper Kings established). Heinze used details of the mining legislation and fought for the position of the third copper king before the courts .

In 1899, Marcus Daly founded the Amalgamated Copper Company with Henry Huttleston Rogers , Albert Cameron Burrage from the Anakonda copper mine and the Parrot Silver and Copper Mining Company . Rogers and Burrage were directors of Standard Oil .

In 1902, Heinze merged his shares in Montana Ore Purchasing Company , Nipper Consolidated Copper Company , Minnie Healy Mining Company , Corra Rock-Island Mining Company and Belmont Mining Company in the United Copper Company , a company with a book value of approximately 80 million Dollar. The United Copper Company produced 42 million pounds of copper annually while Amalgamated Copper Mining Company produced 143 million pounds annually.

The fight against the Standard Oil

In 1897, the Montana executive, including the District Judges , was elected. In 1899, William Andrews Clark wanted to represent Montana in the United States Senate by bribing MPs for Montana . When this became known, the Senate refused, and in 1900 Clark was directly elected to the Senate. In the 1900 election campaign, Clark allied himself with Heinze, who was also a member of the Democratic Party . Both copper kings opposed the Amalgamated Copper Company of Standard Oil . The US Congress had passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 , a law that prohibited, among other things, the conspiracy to create monopolies and illegal interference in trade. The trust subsequently acted as a holding company. Heinze delighted voters in Montana with his agitation against Standard Oil and published in his newspaper The Reveille .

He illustrated the absolute power of Standard Oil when he described the market power that forced workers to buy from Company stores: “They will cut your wages and raise prices in Company stores for every bite you take eat, on every scrap you carry ... and when you die, they will bury you in Standard Oil coffins. "()

In order to get the workers' decisive votes, Clark and Heinze promised their workers the eight-hour workday with no pay and challenged Amalgamated to do the same, which their directors refused to do. Clark and Heinze encouraged the Clerks' Union to call for a general close of business at 6:00 p.m. The majority of employers agreed, but Daniel J Hennessy's Copper City Commercial Co , the company store , refused.

Heinze wanted to control the judiciary in Silver Bow County , Montana, especially the choice of friendly United States District Judges suited him in his numerous lawsuits. The Montana Ore Purchasing Company supported more than 30 judges in their election campaign.

In 1896 William Clancy was elected a District Judge . His judgments showed unconditional support from Heinze. In the campaign alliance with Clark in 1900, Heinze had gained another ally, Edward Harney, who was elected district judge at the second court in Butte. With his friends in the District Courts , Heinze was able to prolong his legal battles with Standard Oil . The Montana Ore Purchasing Company began litigation against the Boston and Montana Company in 1898 .

When Arthur P. Heinze was recording the claims of the Copper Trust Company , he discovered a narrow, triangular inland plot of land that was adjoined by the high-yielding mines Neversweat , St. Lawrence and Anaconda , but on which they themselves had no mining rights. Fritz Heinze had the mining rights to this 40 square yard property asserted in the Clancy Court. He argued that the deposits of the other three pits had their dome in this property. William Clancy had the three adjoining mines closed in early 1900, after which around 3,000 miners became unemployed. There were threats to lynch Clancy, which led him to withdraw the restraining order.

Heinze had leased the Minnie Healy mine from Miles Finlen, a friend of Marcus Daly's, and, unlike Finlen, had tracked down a rich ore vein .

On October 22, 1903, Clancy passed two far-reaching judgments that brought the dispute with Standard Oil Co. into a decisive phase.

He confirmed a Johnstown Mining Company title for the Minnie Healy mine . This decision upheld Heinze's claims to roughly $ 10 million in proven ore and provided him with additional opportunities for Apex lawsuits at surrounding pits. More importantly, Clancy had ruled in MacGinnis, Forrester, and Lamm's favor, and ruled that Amalgamated was forbidden to own stocks and forbidden to take dividends from its Parrot, Boston and Montana branches. That decision meant that Amalgamated Holding's businesses in Montana were declared illegal.

Hours after that ruling, Amalgamated Holding closed most of its Montana operations. About 15,000 workers, the majority of Montana's wage earners, became unemployed. The Amalgamated demanded that Heinze, John Macginnis and Daniel Lamm should sell their shares to Parrot. The Butte Miners Union with Senator Clark and other interested parties offered to buy the shares in the Parrot. On the afternoon of October 26, 1903, Heinze appeared before an audience of about 10,000 who had gathered in front of the Silver Bow County court . Many of the men were hostile and some were armed.

“It has been alleged that I would campaign against Amalgamated Copper Company in county and state courts. Six or seven years ago these gentlemen came up to me and said, “You have to leave the state. If you don't go, we'll drive you out. ”You've tried and tried ever since. They currently have injunctions pending against me, without which I would be able to employ 2,000 additional men. You have fought me in every possible way. They hit me in one way or another, a dozen times, and I've borne my defeats like a man. I have declared my struggles to the public when I have the opportunity and called for support at the polls. I bet my life to have a hundred men within earshot whom I now employ and who have been offered bribes of between $ 1,000 and $ 10,000 to swear perjury and to fight me in court. My friends, the Amalgamated Copper Company , with its influence and position, is the greatest danger any church can have within its borders. Mr. MacGinniss' stock is a bulwark that protects you and others here in Butte, miners and merchants, from the aggressions of the unscrupulous Standard Oil Company . Rockefeller and Roger stole the oil wells of America, trampling down every human and divine law. They ruthlessly crushed every obstacle in their path. They wrecked railroad trains and torched their competitors' oil refineries. They conspired with railroad companies to ruin their competitors and drive them into bankruptcy. Sometimes they were caught doing what they did, buying up the judges and protecting themselves from the striped prisons and other punishments. These Rockefellers and Rogers want to control the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the Montanan […] It is true that I am very interested in the outcome of this fight. My name, my fortune and my honor are at stake, everything has been criticized. You have known me for years, you are my friends, my co-workers, I urge those of you to report who I have wronged on a single occasion. These people are my fierce, bitter, unforgivable enemies, but they are your enemies too. If they crush me today they will crush you tomorrow. You lower your wages and raise the prices in the company store on every bite you eat and every scrap you carry. They will force you to live in Standard Oil houses for as long as you live and Standard Oil coffins when you die. Your tools and servants are here now, striving to build another trust that is already notorious. Let them win and they will create conditions in Montana which will blow up the most beautiful views and make the name Montana hateful to those who love freedom. They broke the Colorado miners because they had no one to stand up for. In this battle the state must be protected from the servants of the Rockefellers and the piracy of the Standard Oil, in which we are partners and allies. We will survive this together or go under together. "

- Fritz Augustus Heinze October 26, 1903

Heinze evasively offered to sell Parrot's shares on terms that he knew Standard Oil would not accept. The Amalgamated rejected all compromise proposals and asked Governor Joseph Toole to convene the Montana Parliament to pass a Clancy Law to remove elected district judges from office. The Montana Parliament passed the Fair Trials Bill in a special session on November 10, 1903 . Fritz August Heinze had lost the battle for control of the courts. In the 1904 elections, Heinze's friends were voted out of the District Courts. Deviating from his promise never to sell to Amalgamated, Fritz Augustus Heinze began negotiations with John D. Ryan , who had become the managing director of Amalgamated Montana in 1904. After 15 months of negotiations, the Heinzes announced in February 1906 that they had sold their shares in Butle to Amalgamated. Amalgamated paid $ 12 million for the United Copper Company . It acquired more than mines and reducers, which closed about 100 pending lawsuits that had shut down assets valued at approximately $ 50 million.

Panic of 1907

Heinze returned to New York in 1906, bought into the Mercantile National Bank , became director of the Mercantile National Bank , worked closely with Charles W. Morse , and was on the governing bodies of at least six National Banks , five trusts and four insurance companies.

His brother Otto Heinze wanted to sqeeze the shares of the United Copper Company , which were not traded on the NYSE . On October 10, 1907, Morse, Augustus, and Otto Heinze met at the home of Charles T. Barney , director of the Knickerbocker Trust Company , on Fifth Avenue . Morse told the Heinzes that he believed it would take about $ 1.5-3 million to squeeze United Copper Company shares . This squeezing failed and Barney was advised to resign as director of the Knickerbocker Trust Company . On October 21, 1907, the National Bank of Commerce announced that it would no longer accept changes to the Knickerbocker Trust Company , which motivated the Knickerbocker Trust Company's investors to want to withdraw their deposits. The Knickerbocker Trust Company was temporarily insolvent and Barney took his own life. Fritz Augustus Heinze lost a fortune. The crisis expanded into the panic of 1907 .

Augustus Heinze was charged with 16 financial offenses in October 1907. By 1909, by a series of fortunate coincidences, he was acquitted of everything.

Return to Montana

On November 7, 1909, Augustus Heinze returned to Butte, Montana. Although he had been fully rehabilitated by the courts, he was scarred by the events of October 1907. His mining operations collapsed and his relationship with his brother Otto, his former business partner, was destroyed. His marriage failed and his health deteriorated. Heinze died at the age of only 44 from a gastric haemorrhage due to liver cirrhosis .

Individual evidence

1. ^ The New York Times , November 5, 1914, F. AUGUSTUS HEINZE, MINE OWNER, DEAD; Stricken Suddenly at His Home in Saratoga, Where He Had Gone to Vote. HIS MONTANA OPERATIONS Won $ 10,000,000 Verdict from Amalgamated Copper Co . pdf
2. ↑ http://www.colorantshistory.org/AlbertBurrageBio.html Albert C. Burrage Biography by Robert J. Baptista, September 6, 2006
3. ↑ http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv91660
4. ↑ Patrick F. Morris: Anaconda Montana. Copper Smelting Boom Town on the Western Frontier . Swann Pub., 1997, ISBN 0-9657209-2-6 , p. 196 ( limited preview in Google book search).
5. ↑ Patrick F. Morris: Anaconda Montana. Copper Smelting Boom Town on the Western Frontier . Swann Pub., 1997, ISBN 0-9657209-2-6 , p. 109 ( limited preview in Google book search).
6. ↑ Michael P. Malone, Richard B. Roeder, William L. Lang: Montana: a history of two centuries . University of Washington Press, 1991, ISBN 0-295-97129-0 , p. 221 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
7. ^ The New York Times , July 21, 1898, SUIT OVER A BIG GOLD MINE .; Boston and Montana Company Replies to the Application for a Receiver . pdf
8. ↑ Michael P. Malone, William L. Lang: The Battle for Butte: Mining and Politics on the Northern Frontier, 1864-1906 . University of Washington Press, 2006, ISBN 0-295-98607-7 , p. 173 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
9. ↑ Michael P. Malone, William L. Lang: The Battle for Butte: Mining and Politics on the Northern Frontier, 1864-1906 . University of Washington Press, 2006, ISBN 0-295-98607-7 , p. 175 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
10. ↑ Until 1906 trusts , unlike banks, did not have to deposit any minimum reserves . From 1906 they had to deposit 15% of the deposits as a minimum reserve, of which a third had to be held in cash. Robert F. Bruner, Sean D. Carr: The Panic of 1907: Lessons learned from the market's perfect storm . John Wiley and Sons, 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-15263-8 , p. 67 ( limited preview in Google book search).
11. ^ Robert F. Bruner, Sean D. Carr: The Panic of 1907: Lessons learned from the market's perfect storm . John Wiley and Sons, 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-15263-8 , p. 45 ( limited preview in Google book search).
12. ^ The New York Times , October 22, 1907, OTTO HEINZE & CO. IN BANKRUPTS 'COURT . pdf
13. ↑ http://openjurist.org/218/us/532/united-states-v-fritz-augustus-heinze
14. ^ The New York Times , March 4, 1910, REINDICT F. AUGUSTUS HEINZE; Old Charges of Misapplication of Mercantile Bank Funds Renewed. . pdf
15. ^ The New York Times , April 29, 1910, WISE GETS FIGURES ON THE HEINZE LOANS; With $ 79,765 Balance Otto Heinze & Co. Borrowed $ 636,000 on Copper and Ice Stock . pdf
16. ↑ Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - F. Augustus Heinze and the panic of 1907