but he had meanwhile gained a seat on the Stock Exchange.
He then went into business for himself, a statement which must be taken literally in view of his testimony that he “did not do any business for anybody but himself. I made a study of the corporations engaged in the production and manufacture of different things, and a study of the men engaged in them.”
In answer to questions intended to disclose the exact nature of his operations before he suddenly appeared as the man who “had more power than perhaps any other man did in the war,” he stood off from any intimations that he perhaps engaged in mere buying and selling of stock. “My business then became the organization of various enterprises,” he said, “and in connection with that, I, of course, did buy and sell stocks * * * If I organized any concern, I naturally took a large interest in it, or I would not organize it if I did not believe in it, and I stayed with the development of that concern; and then if I cared later on to sell it, I would sell it.”
Pressed by the examiners for a still more detailed account of his activities in business, he said:
“Well, I was instrumental in the purchase of the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company; in the purchase of Selby Smelter, Tacoma Smelter, and various copper, tungsten, rubber—I was instrumental in building up one of the great industries in rubber in Mexico, which was the establishment of the source of supply of rubber, and developed a large concern there for the production of raw material, which is still going on * * *
“I became interested in the new process of concentration of low-grade ores in the Mesaba Range, but the interest I had particularly in steel was in the study of the present-day organization, in order to get myself posted so that I could intelligently buy or sell their securities * * *”
It is an important point, one not made very clear in the testimony, what interests Mr. Baruch held at the beginning of the war. His previous activities in various fields, principally perhaps in the field of metals, had been important and numerous. In any case, as a young man, he is found to be master of large sums of money, and there is no indication that he inherited it.
