Montana Power

Since last autumn, the stock-market price of John D. Ryan's* Montana Power Co. shares have gone up and down queerly. Since January 1 their quotations have ranged between $102.25 and $169.50. Last week, trading in the stock became steady at $165.50 a share; and pat upon that situation, Mr. Ryan who theretofore had always smiled mockingly at offers to buy the company, let it be known that he and other directors had agreed to sell out to the American Power & Light Co., for the equivalent of $166 a share. That is, they were trading each of their Montana Power shares for two shares of a new issue which the American Power & Light was issuing; and a banking-syndicate (Bonbright & Co., White, Weld & Co. and National City Co.) was willing to pay $83 for each of those new American Power & Light shares. Mr. Ryan, in Manhattan last week, recommended that other Montana Power shareholders make the trade. They as a group would be getting somewhat more than $82,000,000 for their property, and to him that seemed a good deal.

To Sidney Z. Mitchell, another director of Montana Power, it was doubly a good deal. Mr. Mitchell is chairman of the American Power & Light Co., and has long maneuvered to persuade Mr. Ryan to sell out. Montana Power, which Mr.

Ryan formed in 1912, owns 95% of the electric light and power resources of Montana; it sells current to Mr. Ryan's greater company, the Anaconda Copper Mining Co. (he is chairman) and its subsidiaries, including a 120-mile electrified railroad; and it has a 99-year contract to furnish power to the electrified portion of the St. Paul Railroad. Montana Power is one of the largest and most powerful concerns in the Northwest. Isolated it is worth a good many millions.

As part of Mr. Mitchell's American Power & Light Co., it is worth several millions more. American Power & Light, one of the many potent public utilities which the omnipotent Electric Bond & Share Co. (Sidney Z. Mitchell is its chairman also) "supervises," recently acquired control of the Washington Water Power Co., which operates in Washington and Idaho, and for a longer time has owned the Pacific Power & Light Co., which operates in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. By adding to those companies Montana Power, American Power & Light has a well-knotted system tying the northwest communities snugly together.

When John D. Ryan's father migrated from Ireland in 1847, two years after the great "potato" famine there, the belief current abroad was that the U. S. was paved with gold. The father found, of course, no gold covering the Michigan district where he eventually betook himself. But below the surface he found a metal far more useful to the industries of man--copper. He discovered the rich Baltic coppermine in the Lake Superior copper-district, and he managed the Hecla mine. The son, however, when he reached manhood, at first would have nothing to do with copper. He preferred to deal with another subsoil wealth--the oil that John D. Rockefeller and his partners were selling. In that way he met the late Marcus Daly, western mine-promoter and Montana banker. John D. Ryan in 1901 (when he was 37) helped to organize the Daly Bank and Trust Co. at Butte, Montana, and later became its president. He was then, at the beginning of the century, a tall, well-set-up young executive given to cheerful pugnacity and serious business. The late Henry H. Rogers, Standard Oil partner, recognized the qualities, and persuaded John D. Ryan to manage the properties of the Amalgamated Copper Co. in Montana and to fight the late Fritz Augustus Heinze for control of the Montana copper-industry. Manager Ryan won his fight. When Henry Rogers died, in 1909, Ryan became president of the Amalgamated. Next year he dealt with Montana copper-companies in such a way that Anaconda Copper Mining Co. bought the subsidiaries of the Amalgamated, and after a proper interval he became president, then chairman, of Anaconda. During little more than ten years he has built the company's assets up to more than half a billion dollars. It produces 15% of the world's copper each year, and is the world's largest producer of silver.

The War, of course, aided the company's growth. Although he sold copper to the Government at half its market value, the Great War demand and the elimination of costly selling-methods gave the corporation great profits. But they were only incidental to his War efforts. Incidental also was the construction of 30 miles of railroad in Wisconsin. The road cost $12,000,000 and carried the precious spruce, logged in Wisconsin, to the tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, which carried them to the airplane-factories which Mr. Ryan was supervising for the Government. That the 30 miles of track completed an important railroad-connection needed by the St. Paul was also an afterthought.

*Not to be confused with Thomas Fortune Ryan, street-railway consolidator, Congo diamondmine owner, financier.