Fifty Years in Wall Street quotes

In my description of Drew, Vanderbilt, Gould, Travers, Keene, Conkling and others, I have followed the advice which Oliver Cromwell gave his portrait painter:

“Paint me as I am,” he said. “If you leave out a scar or a wrinkle, I shall not pay you a farthing.”

I have given my opinion of men and things also without any superstitious regard for the proverb de mortuis nil nisi bonum.

This, of itself, was equivalent to extensive contraction. The currency of one section had now to supply the currency needs of both sections, and for a long time the drain of money from the North to the South was felt in the money market.

The country was somewhat like a sick man accustomed to and dependent on stimulants, to withdraw which suddenly would have been perilous.

Many in Congress recognized this danger, for it was a noticeable feature of the debates on the subject that not a few of those who had been strongly opposed to our excessive issues of paper money during the war, and warned the country against them, …

This panic and its immediate results created an entire revolution in the methods of doing business in Wall Street. Prior to this time, the antique element had ruled in things financial, speculative and commercial.

This crisis sounded the death knell of old fogyism in the “street.”

A younger race of financiers arose and filled the places of the old conservative leaders.

It is the same idea that has been handed down, as if by divine right, from old world prejudices, especially in the learned professions.

No doctor was considered a safe prescriber unless his hoary locks, bald head and wrinkled brow proclaimed that he had almost passed the period of exercising human sympathy.

The same rule of judgment was applied to the lawyer and the clergyman.

It was next to impossible for a young man, without powerful and wealthy patrons, to obtain membership in the New York Stock Exchange at the time of which I speak.

The old fellows were united together in a mutual admiration league, and fought the young men tooth and nail, contesting every inch of ground when a young man sought entrance to their sacred circle.

The idea then struck me that there was a chance for young men to come to the front in Wall Street. I was then engaged in the dry goods importing trade, in which I received my early training.

His career at that time was more marvellous even than that of Keene of a recent date. Morse made a fortune of several millions in a year, and became bankrupt during the same period, without any available assets to speak of.

It was all honorably lost, however. There was no Ferdinand Ward game connected with it.

Youthful speculators had not then learned the “crooked” methods of the young idea of modern times. It was there also that Daniel Drew began to accumulate those millions that afterward were subject to such a rude scattering.

Mr. Little was generous and liberal to a fault with his brother speculators who had experienced misfortune.

He used to say that he could paper his private office with notes he had forgiven to the members of the Board.

He was also remarkable for his great memory. He could easily remember all the operations he made in the course of a day without making a note or a mistake.

Even the most intelligent men I meet in other professions and walks of life have the most utterly crude and undefined notions about the methods of doing business at the Stock Exchange.

Many good and pious clergymen are under the impression that Wall Street is a name for the sum total of all kinds of infamy, and solemnly exhort their devoted flocks not to touch the unclean thing.

Clerical obliquity of judgment is not quite so bad, nor popular ignorance so dense in this respect, as it has been, but there is a large field for improvement yet.

It has taken greater advantage, for the general good, of scientific discovery than all the scientific societies combined.

Wherever the electric wires have penetrated the Wall Street broker has followed.

The members of the Stock Exchange are, through the power of electricity, in closer sympathy with the great heart of civilized humanity than all the missionaries and philanthropic societies in the world. They are the great cosmopolitans of the age.

No idea could be further wide of the mark in regard to Wall Street men as a class, however true it may be of some individual instances, as in other departments of business.

Wall Street gives full value for everything it receives, and the country at large is deeply its debtor.

Some people may think this a paradox, but there is nothing more easily demonstrated to those who have observed the commercial and industrial progress of the country and the age.

per annum on the aggregate of the year’s investments.

In this way it is easy to see how the rich will get richer, and the poor poorer.

Sometimes men make money in Wall Street by strange turns in their fortunes that appear like having been governed by a special Providence, and this sometimes occurs when men appear to be utter wrecks.

There are others who lose, in spite of all that the most honest judgment can do to prevent them.

Some men, when they have money, are so fearfully perverse that all attempts to get them to do the right thing only have the opposite effect, and they prefer to follow every wild rumor.

One day, for instance, a man gave me an order to buy a thousand shares of Erie without limit. The order was executed at 94. I had no sooner bought it than the stock went down.

He then came back the fifth time, and said: “I first saw one man who told me to buy, and then another who told me to sell. I understand one is called a ‘bull’ and the other a ‘bear.’

About these names I don’t know much, but I do know now that I am a — jackass.

”

The latter are more liable to youthful and enervating excesses, as they have the means to indulge in nocturnal amusements that are not conducive either to clear brains or active habits during the day.

Night dancing and late suppers, with some of their social concomitants, when habitually indulged, don’t contribute to business success.

I know how this is myself, and therefore speak feelingly; but I don’t lay myself open to the charge of egotism when I say that I have never permitted the habit to get the better of me.

They make any man, no matter how strong he may be, physically unfit for ordinary business. These “recreations” up town, however attractive and delightful they may be, don’t fit a young man for business down town.

The line must be drawn somewhere. Let us draw it, say, at Fourteenth street.

There has been much said and written about Civil Service Reform by various authorities from President Cleveland down to Dorman B. Eaton and the Custom House officials.

I don’t insidiously single out the dude for an odious comparison. The remark will apply just as appropriately to the young man who is better fitted for a blacksmith or a farmer, or perhaps a preacher, than a business man or a financier.

“All blacksmiths,” says the Rev. Robert Collyer, “can’t become preachers, and it would be bad for the world if they did.”

There is a good deal of philosophy in the remark of this popular preacher, and quite to the point on the subject which I am now attempting to handle.

… Tirades Against Wall Street.—Adventurous Thieves Have No Sympathizers Among Wall Street Operators.—Early Training Necessary for Success in Speculation.—Ferdinand Ward’s Evil Genius.—A Great Business can only be Built up on Honest Principles.—Great Generals Make Poor Financiers, Through Want of Early Training.—Practical Business is the Best College.

There is no place in the world where people are trusted so much on faith as they are in Wall Street; not even in the Church.

The business is one of mutual confidence, and each day there are numerous opportunities for men to secure many millions of dollars of other people’s money and take themselves safely off to that Paradise of defaulters and absconders over the Border.

He would be tabooed by all intelligent people. Yet there would be about as much truth in such a statement as in most of the eloquent anathemas and objurations launched from the pulpit every Sunday against Wall Street.

There is no place on this earth where adventurous thieves have fewer sympathizers than in Wall Street, except perhaps in Pinkerton’s and Byrnes’ detective bureaux.

There is another popular delusion with regard to those who don’t succeed in Wall Street. Their failure is frequently attributed to sharp practice on the part of the old habitues of the Street.

He will never stoop to swindle, no matter how low the rest of his moral condition may be brought.

No great business can be built up except upon honest and moral principles.

It may flourish for a time, but it will topple down eventually. The very magnitude to which the business of Wall Street has grown is a living proof of its moral stamina.

It is impossible, in the social and moral nature of things, to unite a large number of men, representing important material interests, except on principles of equity and fair dealing.

A conspiracy to cheat must always be confined to a small number.

The most successful men of Wall Street, to my own personal knowledge, are those who came to the Street young and have “gone through the mill,” so to speak;

The great captain of the Union’s salvation was as helpless as a babe when Ferdinand Ward and James D. Fish moved upon his works.

The eye that took in the whole situation at a glance at Vicksburg, Richmond and Appomatox was totally unable to penetrate the insidious and speculative designs of the “Young Napoleon of finance.”

General Grant was a victim, not so much to the sincere, veracious and unsuspecting attributes which were so largely predominant in that great man, as to his want of early training in financial business affairs, and to the fact that he was unable to appreciate …

After recovering from the first effects of his surprise, he exclaimed: “I never thought the world was so large!”

So it is with me. I never thought that Wall Street was so big, nor that Wall Street affairs were so extensive, until I began to write about them.

They expand, as well as improve, surprisingly on closer acquaintance.

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We of the United States have constituted ourselves a sort of police of the New World.

Again and again have we warned off the highwaymen and burglars of the Old World who stand at the head of its governments, styling themselves conquerors.

… justice to his character for gratitude, however, it must be said, in passing, that, like young “Corneel” Vanderbilt, he paid all the money he borrowed, and placed some of his New York and Hoboken creditors in good positions at the Tuileries, under the Second Empire.

He never forgot a favor nor forgave an injury.

The Emperor’s knowledge of American affairs, as well as his ambitious designs, were briefly, but at the same time very fully disclosed, in conversation with Mr. Benjamin, at the Villa Eugenie, at Biarritz. “He turned with peculiar and undisguised eagerness,” said Mr.

The announcement of this overt act of war spread like wildfire, and the wildest scenes of excitement and consternation were witnessed in Wall Street and throughout the entire business community. The whole country was panic stricken in an instant.

Stocks went down with a bound to panic prices. Fortunes were lost, and millionaires were reduced to indigence in a few hours.

Money was unobtainable, and distrust everywhere was prevalent.

I have known others who have had these mysterious forebodings, but who recklessly disregarded them, and this has been the rock on which they have split in speculative emergencies.

Therefore I say again, beware of “points.” They constitute the ignis fatuus which lure more unfortunate speculators to their financial doom than all other influences put together.

HON. ELBRIDGE GERRY SPAULDING, Author of the Legal Tender Act, which authorized the issue of greenbacks in 1862. He was a member of Congress from New York.

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Speculation brings into play the best intelligence as to the future of values.

It has always two sides. The one that is based principally on the facts and conditions of the situation wins in the end, and the result of the conflict is the nearest possible approach to correct values.

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Patents are ‘corners’ protected by law.

The inventor has a monopoly for seventeen years in his invention against all the world, and this gives him a right to make and sell the article covered by his patent, often at a profit of several hundred per cent.

I doubt the expediency of either undertaking to regulate enterprise by law or to choke off competition by the law-making power. The result would be woeful stagnation in business. It would crush the motives for commercial activity and depress the creative energies of prosperity.

The law of supply and demand is the best regulator.

Congress attempted to suppress speculation in gold during the war, and as soon as the act was passed prohibiting such dealings, the premium on gold advanced 100 per cent.

Take the usury laws for example. The methods of getting around these are numerous, and there is practically no limit to the rate of interest that can be exacted except the conscience of the lender, which is frequently very elastic.

Daniel O’Connell said he could drive a coach and six through any act of Parliament.

Jake Sharp was also of opinion that he could run a double-track horse-car railroad through the best act that could be framed by any Albany Legislature.

Daniel O’Connell said he could drive a coach and six through any act of Parliament.

Jake Sharp was also of opinion that he could run a double-track horse-car railroad through the best act that could be framed by any Albany Legislature.

Jake was checked in his career at considerable trouble and expense, but his case illustrated that the rule referred to holds good generally in legislation.

The successors of the great operators sometimes maintain it, but in this instance Judge Hilton made a signal failure, though in some respects he is a far abler man than Stewart was. Yet, he had not the genius, for working “corners,” of his eminent predecessor.

He is, probably, so well learned in the law that he has too much inclination to go around the “corners.”

One thing is certain, very few of these merchants can become wealthy except through the medium of “corners.”

“I don’t see anything here,” he said, “about delivering. You can call, but I don’t mind it.”

There were two “corners” in Harlem. The Common Council was cornered in one and the Legislature in the other.

In the Rock Island “corner” the bulls bought 20,000 shares more than existed, and the price rose from 110 to 150.

… by a messenger from Wall Street, who conveyed to him the important intelligence that a wicked and unregenerate clique of “bears” had conspired to sell Hudson stock “short,” and that it was declining with great rapidity under the repeated and unmerciful blows of their hammers.

The Commodore arose and shook off his lethargy, as a lion may be supposed to shake the dew from his mane prior to his preparation for a spring upon an unfortunate foe.

The Commodore hastened down to Wall Street and instructed his brokers to take all the sellers’ options offered in Hudson. Cash stock was then taken as quickly as possible until the market was bare.

One would naturally imagine that the severe lesson which the Common Council had received in “corners” would have taught others to beware of the Commodore in this line of speculation, although it was new to him, but it did not.

People as a rule will not learn either by precept or example. They must go through the rough experience themselves.

The Legislature soon fell into the same trap in which the Common Council had been caught and which they had actually set for themselves.

He owed them none, and though a good Christian prior to his death, he was then practically a stranger to the doctrine of the great Nazarene. “Return good for evil,” or, “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

He was rather inclined to follow the maxim of that practical Quaker, who, when smitten on the cheek and asked to turn the other, replied, “Friend, thou didst not read far enough. It is written, ‘pay what thou owest,’” and he knocked the fellow down.

This was the rule of action to which the Commodore rigidly adhered in dealing with the Legislature in the Harlem “corner.”

In one day 15,000 shares matured at this figure.

Speculators who read these lines, just pause and think of it for a moment! The stock that sold at $3 when I made my debut in Wall Street in 1857, reached 285 in 1864, and could have been put to 1,000.

Don’t you feel astounded at the possibilities of speculation?

There was hardly any achievement of his life which he gloated over with such ineffable delight as the cornering of the Legislature. He would say, when referring to the matter afterwards: “

We busted the whole Legislature, and scores of the honorable members had to go home without paying their board bills.

” Thus ended the second “corner” in Harlem.

Mr. Drew was negligent in his attire, even to the verge of slovenliness. He dressed like a drover, having originally been employed in that capacity.

By the way, the significant term of “watering stock” originated in the practice of Uncle Daniel giving his cattle salt in order to create a thirst in them that would cause them to imbibe large quantities of water, and thus appear bigger and fatter when brought to market.

Until he met with Gould and Fisk, it was difficult for anybody to get the best of him in a deal.

Mr. Drew was negligent in his attire, even to the verge of slovenliness.

He dressed like a drover, having originally been employed in that capacity.

By the way, the significant term of “watering stock” originated in the practice of Uncle Daniel giving his cattle salt in order to create a thirst in them that would cause them to imbibe large quantities of water, and thus appear bigger and fatter when …

Until he met with Gould and Fisk, it was difficult for anybody to get the best of him in a deal.

He was wonderfully prolific in resources for the purpose of getting advantage of those who attempted to overreach him.

A good story, illustrative of this trait in his speculative character, is told of the time that he was so severely squeezed in Northwestern stock.

… could rally their broken ranks from the demoralizing effects of this unexpected sortie from the stronghold of Erie, the stock had declined from 95 to 50, wiping out the broadest margins and putting the whole army of bulls, reserve forces and all, to utter rout.

Millions were lost and won in a day in this deal.

This was regarded as a grand coup d’etat, and one of Drew’s most brilliant exploits in operating.

… so often retired since that time, except that Drew had probably an honest intention so far as it was possible for him to have such a conception of leaving the Street forever, but it would seem that he had not the power to do so.

Once in Wall Street, always in Wall Street.

It is like the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, as laid down in the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is impossible to get out of it when the speculator gets fairly into its fascinating grasp.

… the infatuation of some latent and mysterious force or attraction, the victim of some potent spell, like the one in whose weird grasp Nancy Sykes was firmly held when she essayed to get away from the murderous “Bill,” as described by Dickens in Oliver Twist.

Drew came back to Wall Street, and saw and was vanquished, quite unlike Cæsar.

When he returned to the “Street” after a few months absence, the scene was greatly changed.

He was invited into the pool by his old partners, to have a little practice at the popular game of spider and fly.

Drew had been the spider for a long time who had inveigled the unwary flies from every direction into his insidious net.

He was now asked to assume the role of a fly, while his former pupils played spiders.

In plain terms, he was coolly requested to go into a “blind pool” in Erie, deposit four millions, shut his eyes and open his mouth, leaving the Erie sharpers to put taffy or candy into it, just as they pleased.

He was no longer to have the privilege of pulling the wires, nor the wool over other people’s eyes.

On the contrary, he was to be one of the puppets that should dance to the music of Gould and Fisk, and let them pull the wool over his eyes.

He was not to ask any questions, but pay his money and take his choice, that is to say, whatever Gould and Fisk chose to give him. The terms were rather humiliating, and on reflection, Uncle Daniel revolted.

He did not see the point of paying the piper without having the privilege of choosing the tune.

He, therefore, withdrew his funds after losing a million, and undertook the task of bearding these two young lions in their den—the den which he had constructed for them, and the two young lions which he had so carefully nurtured to destroy him.

This was probably the first time that he lost faith in the power that moves the arm that moves the world.

He went to his Christian brother with tears in his eyes, saying: “It is no use, brother; the market still goes up.”

And Uncle Daniel ceased to pray, and despairingly fixed his attention on the ticker.

It was a sad truth, heartlessly uttered by the generous “Jim.”

Drew had no mercy on others, and could not expect to be shown any of that “twice blessed quality” towards himself.

The private scene in the Erie office between old Drew and Fisk and Gould, just prior to their final and victorious charge upon him, was deeply pathetic, yet none of the three showed more conspicuously that they were destitute of that proverbial honor among “boodlers” …

Such prodigies of success cause the members of the older social fabrics to stare with astonishment at the stupendous capabilities of our great country.

There is nothing interests people so much as the start in life, probably because there are so few who consider themselves able to get a good start.

So far as I can learn, in the case of Daniel Drew, the boy was father to the man.

He said: “I was troubled with visitors, some of ’em well on to 100 years old. Some of them said I bought cattle from them when I was young, on credit, and they wanted their bills.

I kept no books, and how was I to know I owed ’em for them critters?

It was dull outen thar,” he continued, “and yer never can tell till the next day how ‘sheers’ is gone.”

… carry out the plans connected with his religious endowments, and he grieved deeply that he had not the means to return to Wall Street that he might have another lucky turn that would enable him to fulfil these religious obligations according to the original intention.

In the bankruptcy schedule his personal property is itemized as follows: watch and chain, $150; sealskin coat, $150; wearing apparel, $100; Bible, hymn books, &c., $130.

Although he was economic in his domestic expenses, he entertained friends liberally, and his house at the southwest corner of Seventeenth street and Union Square was always open to Methodist ministers, free of charge, from all quarters of the world.

Besides that, I liked the excitement of making money, and giving it away, and am glad of it. So much has been saved anyhow.

Wall Street was a great place for making money, and I could not give up the business when I ought to have done so.

Now, I see very clearly what I ought to have done. I ought to have left the Street eight or ten years ago, and paid up what I owed.

After the panic he had made an assignment to Wm. L. Scott, of Erie, Pa., but was not legally declared a bankrupt until 1876. His liabilities were $1,074,131.83, and his assets were estimated at $746,499.46.

Like Vanderbilt, Drew kept his accounts in his head, and considered the whole paraphernalia of book-keeping a confounded fraud.

His failure, which at one time would have induced a panic, did not cause a ripple on the surface of speculation.

His general demeanor was bland, good-natured and insinuating, with affected but well dissembled humility, which was highly calculated to disarm any resentment, and enable him to move smoothly in society among all shades and conditions of men.

He has often been mistaken for a country deacon.

So, now, having revived and collated the chief incidents in the chequered career of this great speculative celebrity, I close this sketch with the ardent hope that he may have found that peace beyond the tomb which the ordinary speculator in Wall Street can seldom …

In any and every commercial nation, trade is subject to regular successions of prosperity and depression. This oscillation results from, or constitutes a natural law.

The action of commerce, like the motion of the sea or the atmosphere, follows an undulatory line.

First comes an ascending wave of activity and rising prices; next, when prices have risen to a point that checks demand, comes a period of hesitation and caution; then, care among lenders and discounters;

Seney boldly began the watering at the very inception of the enterprise, pouring it in lavishly and without stint.

There was nothing mean or niggardly about his method of free dilution, the sight of which threw some of the old operators into a fit of consternation.

The stocks were strongly puffed, and as they were so thoroughly diluted their owners could afford to let them get a start at a very low figure.

In this way Mr. Seney was understood to have made a very large amount of money, and from being almost one of the poorest men in Brooklyn, he soon became marked as the richest.

While he continued to thrive it was a singular fact that the majority of his financial friends seemed to fall into a decline.

When the affairs of the Seney enterprise were wound up, it was discovered that these people had little left except the certificates which bore the high-sounding term of the Seney Syndicate Property.

They are always subject to be called upon by the application of the stern methods of honest financiering to give an account of their stewardship, and to have the transactions of a lifetime eventually gauged by the standard of public honesty.

It is the winding up that tells the tale, and exposes the duplicity of the ablest financiers, who vainly imagine that dishonest methods will always prevail.

Of the four famous “financiers” mentioned who were most prominent in the Summer panic of 1884, the speculative history of John C. Eno was in some respects the most remarkable and most interesting.

Though he had no money to operate with when he made his debut in Wall Street, soon after this large issue of Erie stock, he began to show signs of wealth very rapidly.

He had the reputation of being the fortunate owner of several railroads and steamboats, an opera house, at least one bench of judges, an unlimited number of lawyers and a bevy of ballet girls.

The Head Centre of this gold conspiracy needs no introduction here, as I have attempted to do him ample justice in another chapter. He was also the power behind the throne in Erie as well as in the Gold clique.

Gould that few people know how to appreciate at its true worth. It has stood out conspicuously in his character in many other exigencies. It reminds one of the unkind but vigorous remark of the famous old English critic, Dr. Samuel Johnson:

“Patriotism, Sir,” said the old cynic, “is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

About the time the above events were transpiring, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. H. H. Van Dyck, resigned his office in this city. Mr.

These are constitutional defects, any one of which may easily cost an operator a fortune. And yet self-knowledge, with self-control, may prevent these natural disqualifications from seriously interfering with success.

There is no mental discipline more severe and exacting than that of speculation.

There is no pursuit in which a man can less afford to indulge in whims, or prejudices, or pet theories, than that of staking his money against the prospective changes in financial values.

In some cases, knowledge is unattainable and the operation must be a leap in the dark; and in such instances a man is unwise to step in unless his experience satisfies him that he is uncommonly sagacious in guessing.

Many speculators lose because the information on which they base their operations is insufficient; more because it is false; and others because, while their information is correct, they do not know how to turn it to account.

Between one or other of these difficulties in the use of information must be distributed a very large proportion of the losses incurred in speculation. Incomplete or insufficient information is especially dangerous. One-sided knowledge is nowhere so deceiving as here.

It will thus be seen that there were seven dollars of liabilities for every dollar of assets, and the intrinsic value of the stock was represented by a minus quantity of 20 per cent., having no positive value at all.

In other words, it was 20 per cent. worse than nothing.

In spite of these facts, however, Mr. Villard had the stock listed at the Stock Exchange, and through a carefully prepared report, showing immense and unprecedented earnings, he had the stock bulled up to 200.

… knew all the artifices of making a sharp bargain, became helpless in the mystical presence of Ward, and were completely non-plussed by his superior acumen in taking advantage of every situation that offered the least opportunity of practicing his peculiar methods of chicanery and fraud.

Ward seems to have been very much of a mind reader.

He knew when he passed that check over to the gentleman referred to, for $250,000, that it would come back again, that it would keep burning that man’s pocket while he kept it there, and that sooner or later he was bound to return it …

… would not put the money in any other kind of investment, and would not be likely to operate, except through Ward himself, as no other man could be found anywhere who could make himself the instrument of realizing such stupendous returns for the money invested.

It is marvellous how the idea of large profits, when presented to the mind in a plausible light, has the effect of stifling suspicion.

The specious pretexts of Ward appeared equal to the task of overcoming the most obdurate cases of incredulity.

… who has had no experience in Wall Street matters to estimate the extremes of fanaticism in speculation to which a man is prepared to go when he is seized with a monomania either on the bull or the bear side, but especially on the latter.

The evidence of his senses counts for nothing, and the evidence of other people’s senses, if possible, goes for less.

He is a consistent bull or bear, as the case may be, and that settles it. He is Sir Oracle on the stock market and when he speaks let no dog bark.

The evidence of his senses counts for nothing, and the evidence of other people’s senses, if possible, goes for less. He is a consistent bull or bear, as the case may be, and that settles it.

He is Sir Oracle on the stock market and when he speaks let no dog bark.

This inveterate combination of egotism and fanaticism has ruined many hundreds, to my own knowledge. The disease is contagious, and Smith had a very obstinate form of it.

Mr. Heath being weak in both body and mind, yielded his opinions to those of Mr. Smith, by virtue of the superior mental force of the latter.

In conducting a large Wall Street business it is necessary that a man should have the mental stamina to say “no” firmly, and stand to it.

In order to be able to do this he must be backed up by a vigorous, healthy physique.

Tweed contributed largely towards these fluctuations. He and his trusty companions pulled the wires at the City Hall while the puppets in several of the brokers’ offices in the vicinity of Wall Street danced to the sweet will of the managers in the municipal building.

One of Tweed’s three famous maxims was, “The way to have power is to take it.” The other two were, “He is human,” and “What are you going to do about it?”

In conformity with the first maxim, Mr.

The speculative craze was then intense and epidemic.

Waiters and chambermaids bloomed into millionaires with the rapidity of mushroom growth.

Mr. Keene secured a seat in the Board, and began to do an immense business.

He was so flushed with successive victories that he began to regard failure impossible, and thought he was a man of destiny in speculation, such as Napoleon considered himself in war.

He speculated in everything that came along—in wheat, lard, opium and fast horses.

Keene’s attempt to get a corner in all the grain in the country, however, was a signal failure.

Many of them are to-day living in luxury who started with a desk and a few plain office chairs to do business for the California millionaire, and now he is comparatively poor, and thrown on the slender resources of his wife.

Keene arose from nil to be worth thirteen millions. He is now back where he started.

A full and correct history of Keene’s beneficences would fill this volume, and however much I admire him, I cannot afford to give him so much space.

Wherever Keene appeared, though apparently alone, it was safe to bet that Ward’s shadow could soon be seen.

It is said of Seneca, when he observed a house falling, and nobody near it, that he asked: “Where is the woman?”

So Keene’s presence naturally suggested Ward to the mental vision of every Wall Street man and every sporting man.

The general result of this system of financiering has been to deprive the legitimate original investors of their chances of making a fair return out of their investment. As a rule, the bondholders have provided all the capital expended, and the stockholders have invested nothing.

The bondholders incur all the risks; the stockholders have no responsibilities.

If the enterprise proves a success, the bondholders get their interest, while the stockholders, without a dollar of original outlay, get vastly more than ever falls to the mortgage creditors through the stock becoming an instrument of profitable speculation.

In this dilemma, the outlook for some time ahead is not an encouraging one for the older companies. To my view, it seems very probable that their original sins of construction and their subsequent transgressions of stock “watering” are about to find them out.

The natural law of competition is a terrible foe to the violators of commercial justice. It is the inevitable police power of trade.

Its working may be evaded for a time; its final conquest over wrongs and monopolies may sometimes be delayed beyond the limits of human patience, and men may at such times lose confidence in its power to right the wrongs of society;

This has been done by the State to cover up her own infamy, and make it appear that we were the guilty parties and not the State.

The attitude of the State of Georgia, your Honor, is not unlike that of a pickpocket, who, after rifling his neighbor’s pockets, is the first to cry “stop thief” to elude detection.

All that the bondholders ask and claim is to have the entire case submitted to a proper judicial tribunal. This right we have been denied by the State, and the Constitution leaves us powerless to enforce it.

… and own them, and I know the interest and principal will surely be paid, but unless the bonds are ‘listed’ they are not, in mercantile parlance, a ‘good delivery,’ and will not stand abroad as they should, equal with the best State in the Union.”

A State which once repudiates its obligations cannot be trusted not to do the same thing again.

What guarantee can any investor have that the bonds which Georgia is now trying to put upon the market may not be outlawed by the next Legislature?

The Graphic has no interest in the matter beyond that of upholding public morals, the good name of the State and the rights of swindled creditors.

The State which repudiates is as foolish as the imbecile who cut off his nose to spite his face.

—N. Y. Graphic, June 6th, 1885.

He then became a butt for savage ridicule.

A small black flag was exhibited which seemed to have the same effect upon him as a red rag has upon a Texan steer.

The President became furious, and losing entire control of himself, pointed towards a man in the crowd saying, “Who is that man who dares to hoist that black flag. Let him come up here and I will tell him what I think of him.”

The President’s journey was continued to Chicago by way of Cleveland, where he made similar outbursts to those displayed at Albany. By the time he had reached Chicago he had become a public object of ridicule.

He spoke so vociferously about “my policy” that the very boys in the streets began to utter these words ironically and jeeringly.

The tour of the President was designated “Swinging around the circle,” and when he returned to Washington he had become an object of national contempt, and the majority of the people had entirely lost confidence in him.

The scene that followed the remarks of these gentlemen and myself is indescribable. The whole audience arose to their feet and cheered vehemently.

If the house had been struck with lightning the caucus managers could not have been more surprised, and Judge Robertson must have begun to doubt his own identity.

Concerning the scene in the Convention at this juncture, the New York Herald the next morning had the following:

“

It is a happy day when conventions seek candidates, not candidates nominations.

This dream has been realized in the action of the Convention of the 21st inst. at Utica, New York.

He saw the man, and asked why he had made such a remarkable ejaculation at the prospect of such a terrible consummation.

“Anything to beat Grant,” was the reckless and self-sacrificing response.

It was in this spirit that the Robertson party made the fight at Chicago, and in this spirit that they triumphed. It was anything to beat Senator Conkling, however, so far as Judge Robertson was concerned, who on other grounds would probably have preferred Grant.

The excitement growing out of the political battle between these factions aroused the intemperate zeal and insane delusions of Guiteau to kill the President.

Thus the thread of cause and effect, when followed up in this way, is entangled in the deepest mystery.

It seems to have a soothing effect upon their minds, and furnishes them with a tangible object upon which they may wreak their vengeance and feel satisfied.

There is nothing so irritating to the disappointed speculator as the harassing doubt of where to fix the blame.

The Tweed Ring supplied this long-felt want, and filled the aching void in the heart of the man who happened to get on the wrong side of the market.

There is nothing so irritating to the disappointed speculator as the harassing doubt of where to fix the blame.

The Tweed Ring supplied this long-felt want, and filled the aching void in the heart of the man who happened to get on the wrong side of the market.

When speculators frequently had their margins “wiped out,” and were almost beggared of everything except their votes, they found that consolation which Wall Street refused them, in the sympathetic hearts of Tweed’s “heelers,” who pointed to the poor office-holders of the Republican party, representing them …

He did not wait until the tide began to ebb, but, like an able seaman, set his sail at the propitious moment to catch the prosperous breeze as well as the tide.

Thus, through a lucky chance and other men’s exertions, Mr. Tilden was raised high on the very crest of the tidal wave of reform, almost before he knew it.

In the first instance, this happy accident of being one of the trinity of legal advisers to our committee, for which he was well paid, did not lead immediately so much to fortune as to fame, but it formed an important portion of the pedestal …

Tilden’s great forte in politics, as in financial affairs and railroad matters, was to set a cash value on everything, and measure it accordingly.

If he opened his “barrel” the contents were not distributed indiscriminately, but on the principle directed by the most expert judgment of where the money would do the most good—according to Mr. Tilden’s ideas of good.

What they were I don’t attempt to explain, but, like the popular novelist, charitably leave them to the inference of the reader, or to that expert Moses who so ably deciphered occult telegrams from Florida and Louisiana when there was such a close contest for …

After a few moments reflection he replied: “I believe I am almost certain to make $5,000 a year.” The Commodore promptly responded:

“James, as I can do better than that myself in handling $50,000, I will give you $5,000 a year hereafter, and you may consider yourself in my employ at that salary.”

There was no way for James to wriggle out of it, and he accepted the situation with apparent good grace, whatever his internal emotions may have been at the time. The Commodore forthwith dispatched Mr. Cross to San Francisco to manage his steamboat business there.

H. Vanderbilt had, has been left far behind in the race for wealth, and for the highest prize ever gained by one man in any nation.

It has been truly said that a fool can make money, but it takes a wise man to keep it.

Wm. H. Vanderbilt’s financial wisdom, as well as his ability, was signally displayed in keeping this great fortune intact, besides adding fully three times as much more to it;

The thing is possible, but just about as probable as it was for every private soldier of Napoleon the Great, who each had a Marshal’s baton in his knapsack, to become a Marshal.

“Every blacksmith,” says the Rev. Robert Collyer, “might become a preacher, but it would be a great public calamity if it should happen to that extent.”

The bare outlines of the Vanderbilt wills, which have made such a deep impression on the community at large, will be found in another part of this book. I think they will afford very interesting reading for generations yet unborn.

It is inalienable, and it is so with all great fortunes in this country, and thus, I think, we are better protected here in England than you are in America.”

“Ah, but like you in England, we in America do not consider a fortune dangerous,” was the ready response.

The best proof of Wm. H.

So far from making any pretence of being a lover of art, he was in the habit of saying, when a handsome painting was shown him,

“It may be very fine, but until I can appreciate its beauty I shall not buy it.”

Apropos of his modesty and judgment, in regard to the fidelity to nature of a picture, a circumstance is related of his visit to Boucheron, a French picture dealer, where he wanted to see a painting by Troyon, with the object of buying it.

But it was not very safe for “Corneel” to rely upon his father, or to bank upon his credit in any case.

If he had depended solely on the paternal security, he would often have found, when in his worst straits, that he had leaned upon a willow cane for support.

“Corneel” had a peculiar fascination in his ability to catch the ear of prominent men, who would listen attentively to his tale of woe, and some of them were so thoroughly under the spell of his persuasive powers that they would “fork” out the required …

… business capacity “Corneel” was a shocking “bore” and a victim of morbid melancholia, but these men of genius were won by the impression which he had made upon them, and thoroughly imbued with the deepest sympathy for the wrongs which his strange hallucinations conjured up.

Unlike most men who borrow money from friends and don’t pay, instead of exhausting his credit by this business delinquency, he made it the basis for increasing it, and it generally seemed to be a potent means of enabling him to borrow more.

Hence his obligations to Mr. Greeley were persistently cumulative until they exceeded $50,000.

“I have let him have some.” “I give you fair warning,” replied the Commodore, “that you need not look to me; I won’t pay you.”

“Who the devil asked you?” retorted Greeley. “Have I?”

This closed the interview. The Commodore retraced his steps down the rickety stairs into Spruce street, and Greeley continued to grind out his illegible chirography for the profane printers. There is no record, I believe, that the subject was ever reverted to between them.

“How do you get so rich, Mr. Rothschild?” said a friend of his to old Anselm one day, as he leaned over his dusky little counter. The original head of the great house said:

“I buys ‘sheep’ and sells ‘deer.’”

His knowledge of the quality of coins was marvellous. He could detect a light coin the moment he took it in his hand, and there was no imitation diamond or gem could escape his eye.

“It is now a debatable point among scientists,” he began, “as to whether or not the oyster has brains.” Travers, who up to this time had endured the infliction of his loquacious guest, with the calmness of Job, said,

“I think the oyster must have b-b-brains because it knows enough when to sh-sh-shut up.”

By this satiric stroke the English orator was dumbfounded and almost paralyzed; his fluent tongue ceased to wag with its usual volubility, and when requested to name his time for the international contest, he begged to be excused until cured of his cold.

Its owner quickly replied,

“If it couldn’t talk better than you, I’d cut its damned head off.”

Mr. Travers for a long time afterwards made up his mind some time or other to get even with this dealer in animals and birds, and succeeded most effectually. His coachman made a complaint to him that the stable was overrun with rats. Mr.

The owner of the dog then turned to Mr. Travers and said: “Now you see what a fine dog that is, won’t you buy him?” Mr. Travers replied:

“I d-d-don’t w-w-want t-t-to b-b-buy the d-d-dog, b-b-but I’ll b-b-b-buy the r-rat.”

Mr. Travers, when he first saw the owner of this dog, remembered him in connection with the parrot. Since the rat fight, however, this same man has never ceased to remember Mr. Travers, so that honors remain easy between them. Mr.

I replied, “that I was surprised that a man of that character should have acted so villainously, as I had always supposed that such men were influenced by the recognized principle the world over, of honor among thieves.” Mr. Travers instantly replied:

“No one could have t-t-told him that I was a th-th-thief.”

I remember another instance, which was during the war period. I had written a series of letters on national financial matters, which were then before the country for discussion, and they were published in the New York Times. Mr.

This gentleman was standing on the side of the street opposite the Club one afternoon, while Travers was surrounded by a cluster of club men on the other side.

“Look across the way, boys,” observed Travers, “th-th-there’s B-B-Barlow with his hands in his own p-p-pockets at last.”

On another occasion, when Travers, who resides at Newport in the summer, and is the possessor of a small-sized yacht there, which he obtained some years ago in lieu of a debt, was taking a refreshing sail on his yacht in the bay one morning, …

One of Travers’ best bon mots was inspired by the sight of the Siamese Twins. After carefully examining the mysterious ligature that had bound them together from birth, he looked up blankly at them and said,

“B-b-br-brothers, I presume.”

Among Travers’ contemporaries, Mr. Charles L. Frost was very well known a few years ago. His specialty was purchasing the junior securities of foreclosed railroads which were supposed to be wiped out, so far as any visible element of value was concerned.

The last time I saw Mr. Travers down town he called at my office. After he ran his eye over the stock quotations, I said: “The market is pretty stiff, Travers.” He said:

“Y-yes, it is th-the st-st-stiffness of d-d-death;”

and, sure enough, in the course of two or three days afterwards, a big smash took place.

“In exchange for my points on horses. Yes.”

“Well, I’ll give you a f-first rate p-point. If you’ve made that much in two y-years, st-stick to your b-b-business. It is a f-first-rate p-point.”

One day, many years ago, Mr. Travers was standing on the curb of New street, opposite the Exchange, buying some stock from a gentleman whose aspect was unmistakably of the Hebrew stamp.

As with the eagle eye of a connoisseur, he perceived that the bill was altogether too high. He succeeded in getting, however, only a slight reduction.

Moral: Don’t give carte blanche orders to decorators any more than you would hire a cab without first making a bargain.

Mr. Mills came to New York to take up his residence some years ago, with a fortune of many millions of dollars.

He gradually engaged in mining speculations, and ultimately met with such success that he died famous as one of the bonanza kings. It is an interesting circumstance that four Irishmen secured the lion’s share of the bonanza millions, and they were all born poor.

The harp of Tara’s halls never was struck to so strange a roundelay as this.

James G. Fair is another of the bonanza kings who has had an interesting career. He was born Dec. 3d, 1831, near Belfast, Ireland. He came to this country with his parents in 1843 and settled in Illinois.

Wm. C. Ralston was one of the most notable, as he was one of the most remarkable, of all the financial giants of the Pacific Slope.

He ascended the gilded summits of financial renown, and he fell into a shadowy valley of stern retribution and utter ruin.

No man could be more popular, none could exhibit greater daring in his business enterprises.

He seemed to derive almost childish pleasure in contemplating this splendid building, which would have so far outshone any that could ever have been owned by the man who had once spurned him for his poverty.

The poor young men of one generation are often the millionaires of the next.

One of the great monuments to his memory is the great Lick Observatory.

May, 1870.—

The process of “shearing the lambs” was repeated in this month.

June, 1870.—James Boyd, carrying 40,000 shares of stock and $5,000,000 gold, failed. The market showed signs of breaking, but was sustained by the cliques.

Girard died in 1831, at the ripe age of four score and one. He was worth nine million dollars, of which but a very small pittance went to a few of his relatives, the great bulk of the estate having been distributed among charitable institutions.

This great philanthropist was exceedingly close in money matters with men generally, and it is said that he never had a friend, except the friend in the pocket, which is by all odds the most genuine.

The late James Lenox takes rank with the great philanthropists of the age, in attempting to devote a large portion of his surplus wealth to the good of humanity.

During his life he was a general donor to all kinds of charitable institutions, and almost every variety of labor organization. He ran for President in 1876 on the Greenback and Labor ticket, and was defeated by an overwhelming majority.

He had an idea that a large issue of greenbacks would create universal prosperity and make everybody happy.

He died in 1883, at the age of ninety-two, leaving five or six million dollars, the greater portion of which fell to his son and daughter, the latter being the wife of Mayor Hewitt.

… worked and poorly fed mediums of accumulating wealth to relieve the necessities and minister to the comfort of the less fortunate, the idle, the dissipated, the poor and the needy, and in general those who misunderstood and abused them on account of their good work.

It was good for those benefactors of humanity that virtue is its own reward.

The Directors repeatedly offered to increase the remuneration, but he declined to accept it. He often refused offers as high as $50,000 a year to become the President of other roads. He was autocratic in his administration. His will was law.

He found the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad a weak and struggling underline in the railroad world, and he left it a giant in the American system of railroad transportation.

Robert Garrett, the son of the preceding, and now the President of the Baltimore & Ohio Road, is one of the railroad kings of the United States.

And he is wise. He is many times a millionaire. Why should he devote his life to unnecessary care and labor?

Rich men in this country are apt to work too hard. They do not enjoy life as men of far less wealth do in Europe.

Under almost any administration the Baltimore & Ohio Road has a great future before it. The road was built to draw the Western trade to Baltimore. This trade had been diverted from that city by the building of the great canals.

Great men do not always have great sons. For one Pitt, the son of a great Chatham, there are hundreds of sons who intellectually dishonor great fathers.

Brains, intelligence, industry, energy, and pluck; these are the talismanic words which stand for success in America, where no ghost of a dead feudalism hovers over the land, darkening it by its blighting presence.

In England the first question, a silly echo of centuries, is, “Who is his father?” But who are the nobility? Have they any title as such to the respect of right-thinking persons?

In England the first question, a silly echo of centuries, is, “Who is his father?” But who are the nobility? Have they any title as such to the respect of right-thinking persons?

The nobility is running to seed, or rather the once noble tree is withering and dying; it has borne its fruit and its time has passed away.

In Scriptural language, Why cumbereth it the ground? How many of the nobility are now worthless roues, habitual seducers, dried up or half consumed by the fires of passion and debauchery!

It is indeed the gem of the ocean to which the world may well offer homage.

Here merit is the sole test. Birth is nothing. The fittest survive.

Merit is the supreme and only qualification essential to success. Intelligence rules worlds and systems of worlds.

In this country no one cares about ancestry.

The spectacle of Mark Twain weeping at the tomb of Adam is a humorous expression of American opinions on this general subject of ancestry.

To save time he paid his devoirs to the fountain head without stopping at the Guelphs, the Tudors, the Bourbons, the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, or the Romanoffs.

A son of Henry Clay or Daniel Webster can never hope to attain the lofty pre-eminence of the sire, and suffer by comparison.

Great men do not always have great sons.

For one Pitt, the son of a great Chatham, there are hundreds of sons who intellectually dishonor great fathers. Brains, intelligence, industry, energy, and pluck;

After this cordial termination of the trouble, the defendant turned to the plaintiff and said confidentially, “

I am sorry you did not take the thirty thousand dollars which I offered you. I would sooner you had it than anyone else, as I had to pay it all the same.

”

… condition, and believing his story, which was very plausible and pathetic, I told him that he might remain a short time longer on the same salary, but that I should require him to use all his exertions to get another place as speedily as possible.

When he entered on the second term his services were no more use to me than a fifth wheel is to a coach.

After the expiration of a few weeks, I sent for him and inquired if he had got another situation; I said I had given him ample time to obtain one, and that I could not consent to keep him any longer.

The case is now, therefore, awaiting the good time and discretion of the Court of Appeals, where it will, in all probability, be heard and adjudicated upon sometime within the next ten years.

In the meantime the young man is happy in the reflection that his judgment is a good investment, drawing six per cent. interest.

There is still another case illustrative of some of the peculiar points referred to, and showing the truth of the maxim among lawyers that, “You never know what a jury will do,” in which I had the honor, or the misfortune to be joined.

It is the insidious and uncertain nature of the calamity that strikes the mind with awe. There is no possibility of anticipating it or making the least provision to avoid its dreadful consequences. The Charleston earthquake wiped out over ten millions of property.

It came, like a thief in the night, and before morning the greater portion of the city was a mass of ruins.

When we reflect on the extent of the destruction of property, it is marvellous how few people were killed—only about one hundred, and only two or three hundred were wounded.

The modern nobility spring from success in business.

Peace has its victories in the formation of character greater than those of war; and peace and republicanism will develop the future greatness of the human family, and not pretentious yet effete monarchies, of which mankind is heartily sick.

Many of the so-called noblemen of to-day shine only by a faint reflected glimmer from the armor of mediæval ancestors; or their ancestry may be much more recent, and steal slyly off in the gloom of forgotten crimes to the prison or the gallows;

or their patent of nobility may be a thing of yesterday, a child’s bauble solemnly displayed by addle-pated dotards, ridiculous even to the unthinking.

The English nobility is coming to the auction block.

Not a few in former times laid their heads there for treason, but now it is articles of more value, namely, the curious, the antiquities, the bric-a-brac, the works of art, the rare furniture, which comes to the block, and they are purchased by the …

And to-day he is a Colossus among statesmen, whose grand figure will loom up in history as one of the foremost men of the nineteenth century, a Titan dwarfing the proudest of a senile nobility.

And yet he is simply a great Commoner.

If the Irish wish to assist nature in purging Great Britain of her bilious incumbus of nobility, they should recognize the fact that ridicule is a good medicine. The Irish are proverbially prolific.

This, however, only for a period; for I think the time must come when electricity will be the one motive power of this country and of the world, so far as the transportation of people and property is concerned.

Time is money, and the American idea is to save time.

We now waste little enough of it in all conscience. The greatest business of the world, that of the New York Stock Exchange, is already compressed into five hours’ time;

But a greater change, one quite as likely in the future, and perhaps possible within the lifetime of some of our children, will be the abolition of railroads by the pneumatic tube process, and the transmission of power as I have suggested.

A hundred years hence the people who then occupy our places will look upon us as primitive and crude, or, in accordance with the Darwinian theory, as the monkeys from which their perfected race has been developed.

In fact, there is a good deal of Darwinism in our development, in a business sense, if not in a human sense.

While the reliable material for Mr. Gould’s biography may be subject to the common fate of growing less, as time advances, there is no danger of utter oblivion in his case.

He has impressed his footprints on the sands of time too firmly for that.

I don’t for a moment mean to insinuate the reason for this, which is given by Shakespeare as applicable to similar cases, although some ill-natured and envious people might use the well-known quotation in this connection:

It is worthy of remark that this was one of the few cases in which, where Mr. Gould made up his mind to obtain the control, possession or ownership of property, he did not succeed.

The methods of acquiring the control and the possession of other people’s property have been raised to the dignity of a fine art by Mr. Gould.

This art has been prosecuted, too, through “legitimate” means. He has had the law at his back every time, and been supported in his marvellous acquisitions by the highest Court authority.

Q. Did you confer with others? A.

I conferred with myself as well as others. What I thought was a fair price for me was a fair price for the others.

Q. To whom did you deliver your bonds? A. I suppose to the committee, but I do not know.

Q. You don’t remember? A.

I don’t charge my memory with these things after they are over, but my books will show, and they are at the service of the Commission.

Mr. Gould’s manner in saying this was unusually suave and polite, and the lines of his mouth relaxed just enough to suggest a smile.

Q. Did General Dodge and Mr. Humphreys look into the past history of the road? A.

I consider the future of a road more important than its past.

Q. Yes, but what I want— A. The past was no criterion as to the Union Pacific road.

Gould had a plan to build a road from Omaha to Ogden, just outside the right of way of the Union Pacific, and give that road back to the Government. It would give others “a chance to walk.”

The Government tried to squeeze more out of the turnip than was in it.

For $15,000,000 a road could be built where it had cost the Union Pacific $75,000,000.

“I never figured it out. Stock doesn’t always depend upon dividends altogether. I paid 750 for my Missouri Pacific—4,000 shares at that figure.

You pay more for rubies than for diamonds and more for diamonds than for glass.

”

Gould retorted that he could have bought it on the previous day for $2,000,000. The Commodore explained that the difference between yesterday and to-day was $800,000. Gould said nothing and retired. He made another effort on the following day. The Commodore had been thinking.

His thoughts cost Mr. Gould $1,000,000, for his price on the third day of the negotiations was $3,800,000.

Mr. Gould did not express his thoughts, but his speech demonstrated that he appreciated the danger and expense of delay. He said, “I’ll take it,” and he did.

“Return the two shillings!” echoed the club man. For a moment he was silent. Then, as a retrospective gleam crept into his eyes, he slowly shook his head and, with seeming irrelevancy, said:

“I—guess—you—are—not—very—well—acquainted—with—Mr.—Jay—Gould.”

The above story was submitted to Mr. Eugene Cruger at his residence, No. 1211 Livingston Avenue, together with the inquiry as to its accuracy. Mr. Cruger made the following reply:

Cyrus W. Field—Hon. Stephen V. White—Austin Corbin—Philip D. Armour—Hon. Levi P. Morton—John A. Stewart—Anthony J. Drexel—The Jerome Brothers—Addison Cammack—Russell Sage—Chauncey M. Depew—James M. Brown—Stedman the poet—Victor H. Newcombe—Moses Taylor—Former Giants of the Street—Henry Keep—Anthony W. Morse.

Cyrus W. Field has been termed a locomotive in trousers.

The simile illustrates the indefatigable energy of the man. His indomitable resolution and his energy of character have placed him high among the distinguished men of the age. He was born at Stockbridge, Mass., in 1819. His father was a clergyman.

He has five thousand names on his pay roll. He has cornered pork three times within recent years, and in 1880 made, it is said, three millions in punishing bears who tried to sell the market down.

A campaign against the bears in pork or meats he calls protecting his cellars.

Those cellars are well protected. No bearish Ali Baba has the pass-word to go in and plunder them, and the number of cinnamons and grizzlies, big and little, who have licked their paws in rueful remembrance of the attempt are not a few.

Mr. Morton was born in the State of New Hampshire. At 20 he became a clerk in a country store. He had to shift for himself.

Necessity is the stimulus that men of real ability require.

He stayed five years in the obscure New Hampshire village and then went to Boston, where he ultimately engaged in business. But New York attracted him.

Vanderbilt built his palatial Fifth Avenue home was once the property of Mr. Keep, who originally bought it for about $250,000 for the purpose of building a charitable institution, but changed his mind when the property quadrupled in value.

Then he concluded that charity should begin at home.

He sold the plot, extending for one block along Fifth Avenue, to Mr. Vanderbilt for one million dollars. Still his original intentions were good, and it was only after the real estate market, as with Satanic malice, had in that locality advanced 400 per cent.

The small speculators operating on moderate margins were of course all wiped out almost to a man, but many of the big fellows were saved.

It is probably the only instance on record where the death of a big operator saved a general smash.

Those hurt were numerous politicians and small fry operators who instead of getting away with snug fortunes in the shape of profits, lost their all.

then all will be well again. The present turbulent waves will pass over without many shipwrecks, and then will come calm weather and a smooth sea.

Patience is a great virtue; exercise it, and wait for bottom; then get in and get rich.

Gentlemen, this is my Christmas greeting to you. You all have my best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year.

He remained a bear on the rising tide of currency inflation following the outbreak of the war, and was submerged and wiped out.

He was an odd fish—singular in appearance, manner, and business methods, but for more than twenty years he had a great name in Wall Street.

To speak colloquially, he was the cock of the walk by self-assertion and common consent.

He was a born speculator. Speculation was his daily bread. He liked it for its own sake. His ambition was to control the stock market, and he was willing to run extra hazardous risks to achieve this end. He once said:

“I care more for the game than the results, and, winning or losing, I like to be in it!”

It was this feeling that kept him in Wall Street after his money power and his prestige of success, as well as his health, had passed away. He was out of debt, but without money in any considerable amount.

Then, at the next election, he ceased to be its president, and a new board of directors was elected. He was also dropped from the Panama Railroad directorate and the Atlantic and Pacific board.

He had lost his money and his prestige, and there were none so poor as to do him reverence.

He led a precarious existence as a small speculator afterwards, and, not long before his death, failed for a small amount as a member of the Consolidated Exchange.

The brief meteoric Wall Street career of Ferdinand Ward, who lured General Grant into forming the firm of Grant & Ward, is well remembered.

He went up so high that when he came down he landed in Sing Sing prison.

Fish, the president of the Marine Bank, did the same, after being long in good repute.

All these reminiscences of the ups and downs of Wall Street will serve to remind my readers that, while it is often easy to make money, it is still easier to lose it.

Therefore, boldness should be always tempered with caution in the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar in Wall Street.

They never awakened to the fact that the president had sold out on them until his shares were delivered against their purchases, as they thought, of “short” stock. Rubber broke and did not stop tumbling until it had gone from 61 to 16.

This deal had all the elements of a comedy-drama, and the playwright who can do it justice will find material there which will make him an everlasting fortune and reputation.

It is not often, however, that newcomers in the Street fare as well as this in the end. For a time they will go on merrily enough, and send things booming, but in the end most of them get the worst of it.

It was at this period that he was worth on paper over $15,000,000. But he found, unfortunately, when it was too late to retreat, that though Pacific Mail was up to 107 it was not worth that figure when the unloading commenced.

He was landed high and dry with it all, and the Street told him he was welcome to it.

He tried to sell, and found that there was no market.

The stock thus created, after being admitted to dealings in Wall Street, was made active and bid up by the promoters to high figures to catch buyers, while the public, which had become crazy to buy, took it in enormous amounts.

It bought in haste to repent at leisure, for, I regret to say, most of the buyers have it still; and the aggregate loss its shrinkage in price represents is to be counted by very many hundreds of millions of dollars.

But it was fortunate for both Wall Street and the nation that the inflation which ran riot till September, 1902, was then checked by the conservative action and warnings of the banks and men like myself, for if it had been allowed to continue for …

… there is no more interesting or exciting serial story than the stock ticker tells, from day to day, to those interested in the stock market, or one that often excites more joy or sorrow, or carries with it more weal or woe, prosperity or ruin.

But the ticker, like Tennyson’s brook, will go on forever during business hours, for we shall never be without a stock market and speculation.

The transactions of the New York Stock Exchange in 1901 were so tremendous in volume as to excite wonder. But they only represented the speculative spirit, the intoxication of the time.

Without loans it was impossible for them to buy and run up stocks to inordinately high prices, as they had been doing. Therefore they found that, to a large extent, their occupation was, like Othello’s, gone.

They were eagles with clipped wings.

The heavy liquidation by large and small operators in 1903 caused a heavy and almost continuous decline in prices on the Stock Exchange.

Our foreign imports also increased till they made new high records, although our exports failed to keep pace with them. This large import trade reflected both the rising fortunes of the rich, who had suffered severely during the depression of 1903, and the general prosperity.

Our imports are the barometer of the times.

When these are good, they are large; but in bad times they shrink enormously, for a large percentage of them represent luxuries, and we are a luxury-loving people, and, in comparison with Europeans, our manner of living is expensive, not to say extravagant.

… December 1st, of sixty millions in National Bank note circulation, which was so much fuel added to the fire of speculation, not, however, in Wall Street, as much as in the interior, where there was a rage for new enterprises of all kinds, mostly speculative.

Everyone with money enough to make a venture seemed to be seeking a short cut to wealth.

This inland speculation and business activity, particularly in the West and South, caused the exchanges or clearings of the banks all over the country, except in New York, which was comparatively dull, to reach larger totals than ever before.

Then came a heavy decline in iron and steel, among other things, an equally heavy reduction of the profits of industrial corporations, with many corresponding reductions in dividends, and a very sharp contraction in our before greatly expanded foreign imports owing to the hard times.

We had a rich man’s panic, and plenty of poor rich men.

But, again, we had abundant grain crops, although the cotton crop was very short, which resulted in our shipping more cotton to Europe in the autumn than ever before, while its price was abnormally high.

Dividends and reserves also increased in proportion. Russia’s disastrous war was waged without causing any national disturbance in Wall Street, and her largely reduced crop of wheat helped us to secure better prices for our own surplus wheat in Europe.

So it is an ill wind that blows no one any good.

In 1905, too, we witnessed the stormy upheaval in the Equitable Life Assurance Society, begun by the acrimonious duel between President Alexander and Vice President Hyde, which led to the general exposure of the waste, extravagance, graft, and corruption in life-insurance management, through the investigation …

No wonder they staggered, and finally, in the spring of 1907, succumbed under the heavy loads they were carrying, which they had mistakenly bid up to excessively high prices in a vain attempt to bring in the public as buyers.

Wall Street was then the only blue spot on the map of the United States.

To relieve the pressure for money there, and so help to bull stocks, the large interests in Wall Street, excepting J. P. Morgan & Co., imported from Europe $40,000,000 of gold in the spring of 1906 and $45,000,000 in the autumn.

The keel of a future bull market of large dimensions had been laid by the disastrous liquidation that had occurred, and we subsequently witnessed its development on a rapidly ascending scale.

It is a law of nature that action follows reaction.

This reminds us that Wall Street easily passes from one extreme to another, and that very often the dawn is nearest when the night is darkest, in finance as well as nature.

This reminds us that Wall Street easily passes from one extreme to another, and that very often the dawn is nearest when the night is darkest, in finance as well as nature.

Moreover, Wall Street is always with us, just as the poor are, and the stock market is a serial story that never ends.

In July, the improvement in the stock market, and especially the Harriman stocks, was very decided, with the indications favoring a wider and more active speculation, for as yet it was almost entirely professional.

But still the banks and trust companies continued to lose their ordinary deposits rapidly, and the money thus withdrawn by the timid and distrustful was taken out of circulation by being placed in safe-deposit boxes, tin boxes, wallets, and other receptacles.

This hoarding was foolish, as well as harmful and un-American.

New York had to deal with a banking crisis.

… the heavy decline in prices under the rush to sell in order to raise money, while many banks all over the country issued their own cashiers’ checks for both small and large amounts, instead of currency or clearing house certificates, in payment of depositors’ checks.

The banks were in a partial state of suspension from Maine to California.

The extent of the drain on bank reserves may be inferred from the fact that the statement of totals for all the New York associated banks for the week ending on Saturday, November 2, showed that they were collectively $38,838,825 below the dead-line of 25 …

The wiseacres in Wall Street and elsewhere had to take many sledgehammer blows in this panic year. They had become like Tom Toddy—too big-headed for their bodies.

When a man knows it all, then his danger commences.

My advice is, never follow such a leader, but wait patiently and the time will come when you can safely copper him.

The wiseacres in Wall Street and elsewhere had to take many sledgehammer blows in this panic year. They had become like Tom Toddy—too big-headed for their bodies. When a man knows it all, then his danger commences.

My advice is, never follow such a leader, but wait patiently and the time will come when you can safely copper him.

In September, 1906, when stock and bond prices were advanced abnormally to a 3½ to 4 per cent basis, while six months’ money was loaning at 6 per cent, it was evident that one or the other was too high;

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused an entire breakdown of confidence; which is usually the major part of the foundation of credit. The undermining of this caused the closing of the doors of the Knickerbocker Trust Co.

Then a state of chaos ensued and bedlam broke loose, and almost everybody in Wall Street stood aghast wondering what would happen next.

As I have faithfully presented my side of the case to you, in a crude way, I ask you, as though you were impaneled on a jury, the question: Why should all the blame of producing the recent panic be laid to President Roosevelt?

The accounting and publicity I advocate would expose, check, and prevent the irregularities and the one-man power abuses that have ended in so many collapses. The one-man control of large corporations must come to an end.

An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

Corporations, too, should show that they have souls by not neglecting the welfare of their employes.

The one-man control of large corporations must come to an end. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

Corporations, too, should show that they have souls by not neglecting the welfare of their employes.

They should promote their health by giving them healthy surroundings where they work, and also by making graduated provision for old age service, or pensions in case of disability, after long service.

The one-man power in large corporations, with a lot of dummy directors subservient to it, should also come to an end.

Dummy directors are no better than so many decoy ducks that mislead the public.

They are directors who do not direct, and are not expected to direct by those in control who selected them for election. They are consequently a false pretence.

The one-man power in large corporations, with a lot of dummy directors subservient to it, should also come to an end. Dummy directors are no better than so many decoy ducks that mislead the public.

They are directors who do not direct, and are not expected to direct by those in control who selected them for election.

They are consequently a false pretence.

His chief qualification consisted in his always attending punctually all the meetings. He came early and stayed till the end. He watched closely to determine which way the majority vote was going and always went with it.

He was never known to open his mouth, except when the luncheon was served after the directors’ meeting had adjourned.

He was much lamented by corporation managers when he died. He was their favorite director, on the ground, as claimed, he gave no trouble and was perfectly satisfied with the result of every meeting.

But those who have nothing to hide have much to gain from it, and should welcome the lime-light of this new era of publicity.

Secrecy is only the defence of the weak.

The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Tobacco and Paper Trust cases, that corporations cannot take refuge in secrecy, but must give testimony as to all their transactions, when required, even where it is self-incriminating, is a great victory …

The corruption of judges and juries and the bribing of legislators should be more abhorrent than larceny itself to every captain of industry and all corporate officials, who should have equal respect for the truth and their own honor.

Great wrongdoers should be no more exempt from punishment than small offenders and mere millions should furnish no protection to them.

Great fortunes accumulated by monopoly and oppression, and other dishonest means, are no credit to their possessors, but really a reproach, and the abuse of power by them is a great national evil.

Great wrongdoers should be no more exempt from punishment than small offenders and mere millions should furnish no protection to them.

Great fortunes accumulated by monopoly and oppression, and other dishonest means, are no credit to their possessors, but really a reproach, and the abuse of power by them is a great national evil.

Every business man should take pride not only in his regard for honesty, truth, and fair dealing, but in his own personal honor, whether he is acting for a corporation or himself.

This, however, opens a channel for development of benevolence, kindness, and patience, without which human nature would be exceedingly one-sided and forbidding. The indigent, unfortunate, and weak will always be a charge upon the stronger, whether in the family, the municipality, or the state.

It is folly to think that life can be lived without struggle; and that is one of the chief delusions of Socialism which would quickly impair our national manhood and endurance.

Trouble and pain have their part in the plan of nature.

It is folly to think that life can be lived without struggle; and that is one of the chief delusions of Socialism which would quickly impair our national manhood and endurance.

Trouble and pain have their part in the plan of nature.

The Socialist is usually an unfortunate or misled individual. He has probably suffered from reverses or unfortunate environment. He has perhaps been roughly or cruelly handled. Perhaps he cannot get on satisfactorily, or his ambitions have been disappointed.

What incentive to struggle would remain if the results of that struggle were to be taken away from you and given to others who sat idly by? What would be the effect upon the United States of throttling the ambition to achieve?

Take the necessity of struggle out of life, and we should quickly weaken human nature.

Civilization would decline and national decay quickly follow. True, the competitive system works harshly upon the weak and incompetent. This, however, opens a channel for development of benevolence, kindness, and patience, without which human nature would be exceedingly one-sided and forbidding.

It is not the natural law, but the attempt to ignore it, that gives us trouble.

I most emphatically assert that we cannot get rid of competition, any more than we can get rid of the law of gravitation.

The American inventor, mechanic, farmer, merchant, and financier, and the worker in every profession, are, every one of them, proud, respectively, of their skill, knowledge, and ability. Their ambition is to excel—to produce the most and best.

It is one of those planks that we often see inserted by parties in their platform, to stand upon, to attract and gather in the votes.

So Socialism has its uses—for them.

I will admit that there are many economists who have presented a friendly side to the Socialistic theories involved, and have prepared able and extended articles in their endeavor to support or uphold such theories (either in whole or in part);

They, naturally, prize individuality as they do independence itself, and have every reason to believe that the present system of government is the best for them, and that this land of Individualism is no place for Socialism.

Imagine New York under Municipal Ownership of our public utilities!

We should then have fastened upon us a more colossal and more corrupt Tammany than even existed in Tweed’s times. Graft would thrive beyond all dreams of avarice.

Imagine New York under Municipal Ownership of our public utilities! We should then have fastened upon us a more colossal and more corrupt Tammany than even existed in Tweed’s times.

Graft would thrive beyond all dreams of avarice.

Let us take a lesson from England in this respect, where public ownership has been tried on a larger scale and under more favorable conditions than elsewhere.

… for us to give undue recognition to the Socialistic outcries in this country, for by so doing we might encourage and aggravate a condition that, to my mind, is an equal menace to both Capital and Labor—the two great living forces of our national life.

We may increase an evil by magnifying it.

Too much appreciation and regard cannot, however, possibly be shown to that spirit of unrest existing among us, which leads to individual betterment and national development, and which is especially characteristic of the American people.

“And if you had two Angora goats (which Jerry did have) would you give one to Flanagan?”

“What, give him one of my goats! Not by a jugful! Let Barney Flanagan buy his own goats.”

One of my millionaire clients, on his return from a trip abroad, called upon me to pay his respects. In the course of our conversation he said he had become a confirmed Socialist.

In the course of our conversation he said he had become a confirmed Socialist. I expressed surprise, and said, “Then, of course, you are going to divide up all your properly with your less fortunate associates?” He said,

“Oh no, but I want all the other fellows to do it.”

The most commendable object in Socialism is the uplifting of the down-trodden and poor, yet that great Commoner and Tribune of the People, William Jennings Bryan, tells us that under Individualism we have seen a constant increase in altruism.

Even the children of the most ignorant foreigners are imbued with this ambition before they are able to speak our language.

Too many despise honest labor and want to live by their wits.

So we have a vast host of surplus politicians, office-seekers, promoters, brokers, lawyers, clerks, canvassers and drones.

In olden days the young were willing to follow in the footsteps of the old, and begin life where their fathers began.

Now they expect to begin where their fathers leave off, and are dissatisfied and disappointed if they find that they have to start from the foot of the ladder.

What we most need in this country to promote and popularize farm and village life, and check the general tendency of both young men and young women to drift to the large cities, is a change in our educational system.

The remedy for corporation wrongdoing is found in publicity!

This publicity is the great need of the present and the future, and the public should demand it. It is a lamp that we should always keep burning.

In a recent address delivered by me before the Wharton School of Finance of the University of Pennsylvania, I urged that the New York Legislature, as well as the Legislatures of the other States, should respond to the popular agitation for this publicity by passing …

So they reversed their tactics.

In other words, they decided to run, and, being a little lame, they started early.

Instead of continuing their bull movement in stocks, they at once withdrew their support from the market and began to liquidate themselves, for self-protection.

The best and highest-priced stocks suffered the heaviest decline, and for a fortnight there was an outpouring of stocks and a downpouring of prices that finally carried nearly all of these below the lowest of March.

Wall Street trembled in its boots.

The decline was accelerated by the unusual scarcity of money on time, and the advancing rates for it, which undermined confidence in the future of the money market, and in the ability of many corporations in urgent need of money to borrow on their collaterals, …

… and there were many gloomy forebodings as to what would come next, either in the way of failures or State or Federal action against railway or industrial corporations, which would, by damaging their credit, lower the value of their stocks, and possibly imperil future dividends.

We too often fear the things we think instead of the things that are.

Through all this turmoil and disorder the want of money by many large corporations and the difficulty of borrowing it was always an uppermost topic. It touched their weakest spot, and showed the insufficiency of their working capital.

All this was ammunition for the bears on the Stock Exchange, and they made the most of it by steadily and relentlessly hammering stocks down, so increasing the depression caused by the liquidation of both speculators and investors, and the loss of confidence in values.

But, like Oliver Twist, the bears still asked for more.

This want of confidence was mainly due to exaggerated apprehensions of the effect upon railway and industrial corporations and their stocks of the Government investigations and prosecutions, and the hasty action of the States against the railways in cutting down their rates.

Heavy fines inflicted on corporations fall finally on their stockholders, through a corresponding loss of dividend-paying power, and the lowering of market prices for their stocks.

The proper remedy is punishment behind iron bars.

As the stockholders are in no way responsible for delinquencies in management, it is unjust to make them suffer the consequences of these.

The foreign markets were closed to us, and wanted nothing American but our gold. Our speculative capitalists loaded down with these unsalable securities were severely handicapped.

From being giants, they had become cripples.

Their wealth was tied up instead of being in the liquid form of poorer men who had their money in savings banks, withdrawable at any time.

Here was wealth in a liquid form that our large Wall Street capitalists, like most of the large corporations, sadly lacked, and they well might have envied their poorer brethren who owned these deposits.

In proportion to their means, the poorer men were better off than the rich.

The fact is that our rich men undertook too much, both in the forming of syndicates to underwrite new bond issues and in attempting to control the stock market under adverse circumstances.

… could chew, and when the shoe pinched most severely in March, and again in August last, they had to sell stocks at a heavy sacrifice to pay off the loans that were called in by the banks, or to meet the calls for more margin.

For once they were really hard up.

This over-extension of Wall Street capitalists, with their efforts to unduly inflate prices, had its counterpart elsewhere, for such over-trading was by no means confined to them, but extended to, and was conspicuously shown by, railway and industrial corporations in their efforts to keep up …

These far exceeded in aggregate amount the capacity of our own investors to absorb them. Hence, hundreds of millions of these are still being carried by the banking syndicates that underwrote them, and of course they at present show a very heavy aggregate loss.

This kind of medicine is much disliked even by multi-millionaires.

Stimulated by the country’s enormous prosperity during the last few years, we have gone ahead too fast in all kinds of new and costly construction work and improvements. We have, in fact, gone ahead regardless of expense;

… gradually recovering, confidence somewhat restored, and many of both the bulls and the bears as unreasonably eager to buy as they before had been to sell, while the sentiment of the Street had changed from extreme depression and despondency to a cheerful and hopeful optimism.

Incidentally the bulls were hanging the hides of some of the bears on the fence.

When the fall in prices was greatest, new low records were reached for many of even the best stocks, not only for the year but for several or many years, as in the case of New York Central, which sold at 99½, or lower than …

But, of course, the actual losses sustained were comparatively small.

Wall Street as soon forgets its sorrows as its joys, and looks ahead.

When at their lowest prices—and I give them as specimen bricks—Amalgamated Copper stock had depreciated 43 millions, Union Pacific 51 millions, Northern Pacific 36 millions, Great Northern 34 millions, New York Central 25 millions, Pennsylvania 28 millions, and Southern Pacific 21 millions, while in the …

… Pacific 51 millions, Northern Pacific 36 millions, Great Northern 34 millions, New York Central 25 millions, Pennsylvania 28 millions, and Southern Pacific 21 millions, while in the Curb market Standard Oil stock suffered a shrinkage of 80 millions, and American Tobacco stock of 32 millions.

That much of oil seemed to have been cast upon the waters, and that much of tobacco to have gone up in smoke.

The partial recovery in the stock market and the gradual return of confidence were coincident with and in the face of a rising market for cotton.

… of one, and we carried over into the new crop year, which began on the 1st of September, a visible supply of 1,200,000 bales of American cotton, making a world’s supply of 2,300,000 bales, or nearly 540,000 more than at the same time last year.

These statistics may be dry, like a certain brand of champagne, but they tell their story in a nutshell.

I dwell on cotton because cotton is still king in the South, although less powerful in its sway than before the war, owing to the South’s development of its other resources and its more diversified financial and commercial interests.

… that the East, being richer than the West, and having much more invested capital, especially in stocks and bonds, is correspondingly more interested in the market for these than the West, and more disturbed by great depression in Wall Street, and the causes producing it.

The East is, therefore, much more likely to borrow trouble than the West or the South, especially when it cannot borrow money.

This borrowing of trouble took the usual form of fearing from day to day that worse consequences of the crisis awaited us than we had yet experienced, and it was increased among business men and corporations when they found their banks would no longer accept …

Wall Street is the great monetary clearing house of the country whose ramifications are co-extensive with the nation itself.

It does not create values, but it reflects everything affecting securities and commodities, and represents all material interests.

It is an unfailing barometer of values and the times. So those who say a heavy fall, or a panic, in stocks only affects Wall Street speculators shoot very wide of the mark.

This tremendous output of new securities had to be checked, for it not only glutted the market, and overloaded underwriting syndicates, but depreciated values and created distrust among investors.

It was piling Pelion on Ossa with a vengeance.

The collapse of last March in the stock market, and the more prolonged one of August, were obviously outbreaks of the same malady, the latter intensified by that twenty-nine-million fine.

To see them flaunting what they consider their ill-gotten gains exasperates men, and spreads discontent and unrest among the millions.

Envy and malice are easily cultivated.

It is an inequality of wealth that they resent because they believe it to have been created by rebating, stock watering, inside speculation, and tricks and devices by which other people’s money was got unjustly, and by various illegal and fraudulent practices and abuse of …

… made from time to time tended to confirm the people in this impression and prejudice, and President Roosevelt was only responding to their call when he urged the prosecution of the corporations known to have been among the most flagrant violators of the anti-rebate law.

These violators were not the corporations, which we all know have no souls, but their officers; yet the officers have gone thus far unwhipped of justice, much to the disgust of the masses of the people.

But in future this defect should be remedied, and rich and poor among the individual violators of the law should be prosecuted criminally, and upon conviction sent to jail like any other criminal.

They will certainly find that honesty is the best policy.

The cry against Mr. Roosevelt has been so indiscriminate that it would often be amusing but for its serious aspect.

If a corporation, firm, or individual fails in business nowadays, Mr. Roosevelt is blamed. If a man makes a bad investment in anything, or if his creditors press him for payment, or his creditors are slow to pay or go into bankruptcy, he blames Mr.

I should not be surprised if very soon even the ladies who have lost at the fashionable game of bridge will blame Mr. Roosevelt for their losses.

Everyone, nowadays, dumps his misfortunes upon Roosevelt, and attributes the cause to him.

I recently heard of a man who had been doing a thriving business on Long Island shore catching eels and selling them in the New York market.

Roosevelt for their losses. Everyone, nowadays, dumps his misfortunes upon Roosevelt, and attributes the cause to him. I recently heard of a man who had been doing a thriving business on Long Island shore catching eels and selling them in the New York market.

Lately the eels have stopped going into his pots to be caught, so he is now going about howling against Roosevelt for ruining his business.

That is no more ridiculous than many other things for which he is blamed, without having had anything to do with them. In thus complaining they overlook the long train of causes and events that led up to this year’s disturbances in Wall Street.

… by the courts, as in the case of Pennsylvania’s two cents a mile rate, for an unjust or vexatious law is abhorrent to justice—justice so well typified by that blind goddess who holds the scales on such an even balance in the world of art.

Corporations, as much as individuals, are entitled to a square deal, and a square deal for all is what President Roosevelt is working for.

As it is, most of the Western railways have, like the Southern lines, a double track traffic for a single track road, and there is abiding prosperity in this plethora of business.

Roosevelt, in which they have been the leaders, would gradually subside. Those who have been punished by the law are always very likely to have a bad opinion of it, and to retaliate by charging injustice.

Hence the old English saying, “No rogue e’er felt the halter draw with good opinion of the law.”

This reminds me that the two international congresses of socialists held in England and Germany in August, one at Cambridge and the other at Stuttgart, showed what large masses of the people there are laboring to overthrow the existing law and order of society by …

This determined policy, and refusal to finance anything that would take money out of the country, is intended to fortify the Bank of France and French investors against a possible crisis due to their colossal holdings of Russian bonds.

France is the guardian and watch dog of monetary Europe.

While the situation in Germany is strained, that country is taking the lead in European manufacturing enterprises, and it is forcing its trade in all parts of the world.

The city, the town, the village, the factory and the farm give equal and abundant evidence that all are sharing this boon of material prosperity, resulting from their own industry and the Southern country’s legitimate development.

You have, figuratively speaking, only to tickle the soil with a hoe, and it smiles with a harvest.

The South produced last year crops and other raw products valued at two thousand millions of dollars, or four hundred and fifty millions more than all the United States, outside of the South produced in 1880;

… both the South and the North, and your hospitality makes visitors from every quarter believe that, no matter where they hail from, Kentucky knows no North, no South, no East, no West, in the welcome she extends to strangers, or friends, from every sister State.

When, in after life, these visitors sing the old song, “There’s no place like home,” they will mentally add, “except Kentucky.”

I thank God that to-day we all know the United States as a United Country now and forever, which during the present generation has grown, and is growing, more united, more liberal, in a broader sense, and each section more just and generous in seeking …

Appearances, we all know, are often deceptive, yet they sometimes exert great influence. The visit of this squadron was a case in point.

It was a splendid “bluff,” at a very critical period in our history.

Its coming was all the more desired by Mr.

Whatever he has done he has done to promote the public good and the nation’s welfare, whether his speeches have helped to cause distrust or not.

He is an honest man, and an honest man is said to be the noblest work of God.

But, of course, as we cannot expect perfection even in honest men, they may sometimes make mistakes in their judgment of consequences, however good their intentions are. That we all allow for.

In corporate matters, if a manager or controlling capitalist breaks the law, justice should punish him, as it would anyone else.

The law should be no respecter of persons.

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because the people broke Nature’s laws;

Roosevelt has done in the way of reform, I confess I do not fully approve of his too oft repeated passionate utterances on the subject during the recent period of distrust. It undoubtedly has helped to unsettle the minds of timid investors and weak-minded depositors.

The President has probably been a little too outspoken at a time when silence would have been golden.

There are periods when the least said the better; still, I applaud his good intentions and his excellent deeds, which cannot fail to prove fruitful in the end. We should all be willing, therefore, to overlook his recent volubility and frequent reiterations.

Those who invest in railroad stocks, or stocks of Industrial corporations, risk only the cost of their investment, but the holder of record of a National Bank stock is liable for an additional amount equal to the par value of his holdings.

Publicity is the greatest safeguard of the prosperity of any corporate enterprise, and the best preventive of irregularities and frauds.

Many men will do in secret what they would fear and refuse to do under the public eye;

To show that he recognized the sensitiveness of certain corporation capitalists who are cast into a frenzy by his most common sense remarks, he once said:

“It has come to a point where my saying that honesty is the best policy is liable to lead to a run on the banks.”

In discussing the cause of the present panicky contraction and disturbance in the business and financial world, nothing, however, could be further from the truth than to charge it all to the great corporation exposures and prosecutions.

The banks in many instances, having already over-extended credits, were unable to provide the necessary funds, and new securities, owing to excessive supplies and other causes, ceased to find the ready market that they had enjoyed for so long a period.

Investors took wing.

Curtailment, therefore, in every direction became a necessity, so President Roosevelt can no more be blamed for the existing depression and panicky disturbance than he can be credited with all the great prosperity that preceded the crisis.

Yet all that his administration has done has been to unearth the wrongdoing.

It is impossible to cut out a cancer without making the patient feel temporarily worse than before.

It is a mistake, or a slander, to say that Theodore Roosevelt has made war against capital. He is only opposed to dishonest corporate methods, and dishonestly acquired wealth.

… George the Third’s time, and which was the prelude to the War of Independence—the victorious struggle of the old Thirteen Colonies to throw off the British yoke—was of no importance, owing to the country’s scanty trade and banking development, and the corresponding scarcity of credits.

It was a tempest in a teapot, this sequel to the Boston tea party.

The panic of 1812 was the first of much magnitude in the history of the United States, and it resulted from over-trading and undue expansion in all directions, but was precipitated by our war with England in that year.

The city was flooded with these personal evidences of debt for small amounts, issued by storekeepers, hotels, restaurants, saloons, barbers, and the rest of mankind, and many of these were passed from hand to hand till they became too dirty and dilapidated to be handled.

They were the worst kind of filthy lucre, and understood to be only redeemable on a return to cash payments by the banks.

But of course many of them never were redeemed. They ranged in amount from one cent to several dollars, and this sort of scrip was more or less extensively issued from Maine to Texas.

This showed that we controlled the Bank of England more than the Bank of England controlled us.

We were not assisted; we assisted ourselves, and neither asked nor received favors.

This important fact testified to the strength and wide sweep of our resources, both financial and commercial, and also to the solidity and soundness of our business position, and the foundation on which it rested.

Hence, perhaps we may say, with Shakespeare, all’s well that ends well, and, with the Bible, out of evil cometh good.

At least we have plucked the flower Safety from the nettle Danger.

This view of our country, and the situation, is shared by the banking community of the Old World, who also absolve President Roosevelt from blame or responsibility for the crisis. In this connection a leading London banker, Mr. H. H.

One thing is certain, that whatever its shortcomings there is no organized body of business men where the standards of integrity are higher and more fixed than on the New York Stock Exchange.

Its transactions are carried on chiefly by word of mouth; the spoken word being as sacredly kept as signed contracts.

Further, there is a Board of Governors to whom any complaint can be carried, whose purpose is to prevent all abuses within its power and to maintain the highest possible standards of business. All infractions of the rules are promptly punished.

Further, there is a Board of Governors to whom any complaint can be carried, whose purpose is to prevent all abuses within its power and to maintain the highest possible standards of business. All infractions of the rules are promptly punished.

Certainly, whoever begins throwing stones at the New York Stock Exchange should first look and see if his own window-panes are not in danger.

A great deal of nonsense is also heard about speculation. Now, speculation, like many other good things, may be carried to excess, and is then injurious and open to the severest criticism. But speculation within reasonable limits is most beneficial.

and who should complain if his own judgment leads him into losing transactions? Concerning speculation there is also another foolish misconception. Speculation is frequently confounded with gambling, although the two are radically different.

Speculation is based upon knowledge and facts, whereas gambling deals solely with chance.

It is a fallacy to suppose that any but a small percentage of transactions on the New York Stock Exchange come under the head of gambling.

and I am able from long personal experience and observation to testify to the integrity, soundness, and general good character of my fellow members and the banking community of Wall Street.

Therefore take my word for it that Wall Street is not as black as it is painted

, and that anyone’s money is as safe there as anywhere in business, if properly placed, and handled with good judgment. If any of it is lost it is by its owner, and he has only himself to blame for his ill luck.

The founders of your city chose wisely in selecting this spot for settlement, at the river’s junction, in the midst of rich deposits of coal and iron.

It seems rather odd that your two greatest products should be glass, which is brittle, and steel, which is tough.

You also excel in producing cork, which is light, and iron, which is heavy. Surely extremes meet in your city as well as rivers. Down our way we wonder what you do not produce when we learn of the diversity of your wares.

It seems rather odd that your two greatest products should be glass, which is brittle, and steel, which is tough. You also excel in producing cork, which is light, and iron, which is heavy.

Surely extremes meet in your city as well as rivers.

Down our way we wonder what you do not produce when we learn of the diversity of your wares.

Funds were almost unobtainable except at prohibitive rates at the time of our recent crop-moving period, and for causes already mentioned we could not look to Europe for help.

Usually Europe discounts New York securities bills for about $300,000,000 at this period, but last year Europe said: “No; we have troubles of our own.”

The California earthquake with losses of $350,000,000, and the Chili and other earthquakes of less importance and severity in various parts of the world were heavy blows at prosperity.

It cannot be denied, however, that the startling disclosures of wrongdoing on the part of many of the great railroad and industrial corporations disturbed the confidence of the public to the core, and paved the way to it.

Being now myself optimistic, I look on the sunny side and hope for the best. It is, however, a time for conservatism, and while trusting in Providence, it is well to keep our powder dry.

It is a good time to cultivate the virtue of patience, and make haste slowly until all the aftermath of the panic, in the way of liquidation and the elimination of unsound timber from business structures, is completed.

The builder who contracts to build you a home is a speculator; the manufacturer who agrees to deliver a thousand cases of cotton goods sixty days hence is dealing in futures, and all operations extending into the future are unavoidably of a speculative character.

Even marriage is often called a lottery.

It is quite impossible and thoroughly stupid to try to eliminate speculation, for it is an essential element in all business transactions, except those for cash.

Capital is proverbially timid, and until such attacks cease enterprise is sure to be more or less repressed. Of course there are abuses that need rectifying, but it is folly to carry restraint to the point of extinction.

Because a few individuals play golf to harmful excess, would any sane person suppress so wholesome a sport?

Yet that is precisely the policy of many of the reformers of the present day. Too frequently these reform movements savor of ignorance. Their purpose is frequently admirable; but the country sadly needs more sanity in their application.

Black sheep and exceptional wrongdoing should not be held up as examples of all and everything in Wall Street; and because unscrupulous men sometimes embezzle in order to get money to speculate with,

Wall Street should not be held responsible for their crime, any more than a river should be blamed for a man’s suicide because he jumps into it to end his troubles.

There is nothing illegal or against public welfare in a broker buying and selling stocks and bonds for his customers in conformity with the rules of the N. Y. Stock Exchange, nor can there ever be;

Y. Stock Exchange, nor can there ever be; and I know that such business is just as honorable and legitimate as the buying and selling of iron, dry goods or real estate on credit.

It is credit that keeps alive the business world.

The attacks on the financial center of this country are indiscriminate, and I am sorry that President Roosevelt, who has done so much good in other respects, should have nipped the bud of reviving confidence in the stock market in the way he did, for …

Without it there would be a sort of chaos of confusion and abnormal prices, for it is the speculator who is often the most keen and discriminating in judging the true value of securities.

The much maligned “bear” is the safety valve of the market.

He often prevents the manipulation of the price of a stock to an unfairly high figure by exposing the weak points in the situation, which is a protection to a prospective buyer.

Whatever defects remain, the business standards of Wall Street are upon a distinctly higher plane than existed some time ago. In spite of troubles and pessimism the world is growing better and better.

But so long as fools with money are to be found, just so long will there be sharpers ready to take the one and leave the other.

It is useless to expect the millennium. Human nature changes slowly, and the only means of checking abuses is to establish rules and standards of a high order, and to keep alive a public opinion that will insist upon their enforcement.

An alert and vigorous public opinion is often more effective in preventing evil than the punitive measures which are applied after the wrong has been done.

No king, on being crowned, was ever prouder or happier than I, when I first stepped on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as a newly elected member.

The pride that I felt at that time has grown and increased every year since that day, so long ago, as I have seen the Exchange grow in influence and moral power.

Almost everything in the country, yes in the world, has its influence in this great market.

The grains of wheat, the kernels of corn, the bolls of cotton, the chinch bug and the boll weevil: each has a vote.

The miner deep in the bowels of the earth and the crew on a swiftly moving railroad train, the track walker and the laborer are all exercising indirectly an influence.

Let them understand that in fomenting discontent of this sort they are intensifying the general depression, adding to the number of unemployed, driving capital into hiding and generally interfering with that recovery in commerce and industry which is now so earnestly desired.

The present antipathy to Wall Street savors largely of public hysteria, bogyphobia and political dementia.

Apparently, it is a disease which must run its course; if so, the best cure will be a period of reflection in which to cultivate calmer and more rational views.

In any event, the wants of eighty-four millions of our people must be supplied, and we are the most progressive nation in the world.

I therefore ask—Who’s afraid?

I am quite of the opinion that the time has arrived for calamity howling to cease; there is now no occasion for undue anxiety. Caution, however, may be necessary, especially in commercial operations.

The harder you have to struggle to complete your education, the better fitted you will be for that battle of life, for in your youth you will have attained victory over the obstacles which lie in the path of success.

Disappointments may embarrass you, but you must conquer them, instead of allowing them to conquer you.

Every victory, thus won, will be an incentive to further efforts and achievements, and will provide a stepping stone to success.

Right here, let me impress upon you that the foundation stones of real success in life are industry, honesty, and truthfulness. These are jewels which every man can possess, if he cares to.

Do not be honest because it pays, or as a matter of policy. Be honest because you are conscientious, and it is right to be honest and a reproach to be dishonest.

A man who is honest and truthful in all things is the highest type of manhood, and commands respect in every walk of life.

Whatever your calling may be, try to become your own master in your younger days.

Nothing will give you so much self-reliance as the habit of relying on yourself.

You may possibly fail at first, but great successes are often built on failures, if the one who fails will profit by the lesson. Bulwer Lytton tells us that in the bright lexicon of Youth, there is no such word as Fail.

See to it that you acquire some new point in knowledge every day that will be of future value to you.

This will mean 365 good ideas acquired in a year, and every one of these ideas will be like money out at interest, or like seeds planted in good soil.

They will blossom and bear fruit.

I tell you that the world is growing better every day, and good men are held in higher respect than ever.

Of course there are more rascals, and more thieves, than there were fifty years ago, but that is because there are far more people.

The percentage of bad to good is relatively smaller.

Be cheerful under adverse circumstances. Ella Wheeler Wilcox expresses what I mean when she says:

Whenever you see a chance to help a fellow-man who is not as well equipped as you are, give him a lift up.

If you do so, you may forget it, but he never will, and you will secure a friend who will be looking for a chance to do you a good turn.

Wherever you go, whatever you do, keep your eye on the star of Hope. Every man has his place in the world if he can only find it.

Opportunity knocks at every man’s door at some time during his early life. Look sharp and secure it when it knocks at yours, and grab it before it flies.

But, to all I would advise that when you have found occupation, whether it is in the professions, or not, strive to please. Don’t expect to sit in high places at once.

If you see no evidence of a position worthy of your hopes, do not hesitate to make a change. It is better to change several times while you are young than to waste your time by remaining where you cannot expect to achieve success.

One of the fundamental principles of business is that civility costs nothing and always pays good dividends, both in and out of Wall Street.

Very often the temptation will come to you in dealing with a nervous or cranky customer or client, to give vent to your wrath or impatience. My advice is don’t. That is also Punch’s advice to those about to marry.

Very often the temptation will come to you in dealing with a nervous or cranky customer or client, to give vent to your wrath or impatience.

My advice is don’t. That is also Punch’s advice to those about to marry.

To succeed in holding and pleasing such a customer is a high accomplishment, and sure to attract attention.

There is more in life than “filthy lucre,” although Wall Street prizes it immensely. A contented mind is more to be desired than great riches, and, if you are poor, be independently poor.

Andrew Carnegie says that to die rich is to die disgraced, so guard against that.

You are really now on the threshold of a new school—the school of Life.

You may often be temporarily discouraged by seeing success come to the dishonest and unworthy, but remember that such cannot command the respect of their fellows. There is more in life than “filthy lucre,” although Wall Street prizes it immensely.

A contented mind is more to be desired than great riches, and, if you are poor, be independently poor.

Andrew Carnegie says that to die rich is to die disgraced, so guard against that.

it rests with you to acquire the strength to climb to the top. You can do so if you have the will and the force to back you.

There is always plenty of room at the top.

The men now at the top have their minds and hands full, and are eager to delegate to smart assistants some of their work so as to ease the burden they bear.

Form the habit as soon as you become a money earner, or money maker, of saving a part of your salary, or profits. Put away one dollar out of every ten you earn.

The time will come in your lives, when, if you have a little money, you can control circumstances; otherwise circumstances will control you.

You may often have to practice self-denial to save ten per cent. of your earnings; but compel yourselves to do so and you will never regret it.

and the bears were driven to cover their contracts at a heavy sacrifice of their previous paper profits.

But, like the poor, the bears are always with us

, and their expressed views as to trade conditions and prospects are, of course, as pessimistic as those of the majority are the reverse. But the majority rule, and Wall Street never fails to discount the future.

It arouses some apprehension as to the lengths to which Labor will go, and how far its political influence may enable it to accomplish its purposes.

Politicians are ever ready to show subserviency to Labor, merely for the purpose of gaining votes for themselves.

We all want to see justice done to Labor, but we also want to guard against injustice being done to Capital by Labor, and Labor’s resistance to a reduction of wages to correspond in some degree with the decline in the earnings and profits of …