Upton Sinclair

“ Men were screaming from a hundred places: "One thousand at one fifty-six and a half! Thirty-five hundred at one fifty-six! one fifty-six! one fifty-five and a half!"
And van Rensselaer, mad, drunk, and blind with passion, shook his hands in the air and screamed in frenzy, "Down! down with them! Down! Jump on them! Pound them! Go on! go on!" He knew now that it was victory; he could feel it in the air—the panic, the wild, raging, mad tornado that uproots all things on its way. ”

“ Robert van Rensselaer's palatial steam yacht, the Comet, was about to start on a trip down the coast of Florida, when he was called to Hungerville by an urgent telegram, saying that the crisis was at hand.
And truly there was some bad feeling—even the president could see that; when one walked about the streets of Hungerville, he saw pale, sickly children, bent and haggard women, and men glaring at him from under lowering brows. He saw houses out of repair, and starving people being turned away from them. He saw angry crowds harangued by wild-eyed men, in Polish and other strange tongues. ”

“ The cigars of Robert van Rensselaer were, like everything else that he used, of his own importation; the aroma of them was a thing ambrosial, and so our friend half closed his eyes and felt very happy indeed. With the wine stirring in his blood, and his stomach purring contentedly, what more could a civilized man desire? ”

“ Mr. van Rensselaer had drunk a great deal of his own precious wine.
There were those who did not see the idyllic side of this affair, who did not think of Miss Paragon as the tender, soft-hearted young person, but who believed that she knew quite well what she was doing. Certainly Robbie was not going in with his eyes shut, having argued the subject out with his father. Miss Paragon was hardly up to his standard, financially; but then Robbie argued that he was by this time wealthy enough himself to count beauty as something. ”

“ You old Wall Street rounders are like vultures about a carcass—people will only have to see you hobbling down town, and they'll know there's a smash-up coming; and if you whisper you're selling T. & S. it'll come right then."
"There's something in that," admitted the old gentleman, after some hesitation.
"But that's not the thing I want to see you about," laughed Robbie. "The main thing is still to come. It is that you're going to make me a present right away of a couple of million dollars."
Mr. Chauncey van Rensselaer bounced slightly in his chair, and his eyes were very wide open. ”

“ Robert van Rensselaer is a mother of two children, and a proud and majestic social queen,—a grande dame,—wearing serenely the crown of her exalted station; and that Mr. van Rensselaer is more than ever a power in the financial circles of the country, a man able to make governors and senators by the signing of his pen. His affairs have prospered steadily, fortunes springing up at his command like fruit trees beneath the hand of a Hindoo conjurer. He has organized a great corporation of the rivals of his Company for the preventing of ruinous competition ”

“ No one knew that van Rensselaer was the man who was causing the trouble to T. & S., so our historian goes on to assure us. One of his qualities was his mastership of concealment: he had brokers all over Wall Street, and often they were bidding against each other without knowing it. Those on the outside saw merely that T. & S. had gone up in a way that beat all telling, and that then it had found a steady price and was marvellously active; those on the inside knew a little more; they knew that somebody was selling short, but who it was, there was only one man in the world that knew. ”

“ The mad frenzy had gone on until van Rensselaer could no longer bear the strain, and backed out of the crowd and sat down and laughed and sobbed like an overwrought child. It was half an hour before he could command himself again; and then T. & S. was at seventy-six, and finding takers at last! That meant that the "shorts" were "covering," buying the stock they needed, and reaping their rewards; and so the awful panic at last was coming to an end. Van Rensselaer had estimated the true value of T. & S. at ninety, and so he sought out his brokers and bade them buy all there was to be had. ”

“ But the instant the boat touched the water, he struck one of the men out of the way and leaped in. Several followed, and there was a cry, "Enough!" and they pushed off, and were whirled away from the yacht. An instant later a breaking wave struck [135] them a glancing blow, and over they went.
Van Rensselaer came to the surface, strangling and gasping, still in his frenzy of fear. The boat was near, and he struck out and caught it. There was another man close to him, a sailor, stretching out his hands to him; as the waves tossed them about he touched van Rensselaer's foot and gripped it. ”

“ In the first place Robert van Rensselaer had distrusted the T. & S. people, knowing some inside facts about them. Then he had studied the future of the line, its management, its plans, its huge issues of stock, which men whispered must be watered even while they bought it up like mad; and then from certain secret information about conferences, of which no one was supposed to know, from certain suspicious movements in the market as well, van Rensselaer became sure that the T. & S. financiers were prepared for a great boom in the stock. ”

“ Also there were many beautiful women who did their best to make Robbie happy. Robert was always a favorite with the girls, being a generous-hearted boy; he always paid for what he got, and paid the very highest prices in the market. He hired a pretty little yacht and took his [16] friend and some congenial ladies for a beautiful trip upon the Mediterranean; and the sky was blue and the air warm, and Robbie stretched himself upon the deck, and basked in the sunlight and imbibed the soft fragrance of cigars and perfumes, and opened his heart and was happy as never in his life before. ”

“ I'm going to be the richest man in New York City to-morrow at about two minutes past eleven o'clock in the morning. I'm going to have every cent that the T. & S. people and Smith and Shark can beg or borrow, and the bank accounts of several hundred lambs besides, including my aged and beloved daddy!"
The aged and beloved daddy was gasping for breath. "You're lost, Robbie!" he cried. "It can't be! How can you do it without money?"
"I've just arranged a syndicate," laughed Robbie. ”

“ But all through the long panting summer the giant mills toiled on, turning out their tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of tons of steel every day. The delegations could no longer see the president, for the Aurora, the magnificent single-sticker built for Robert van Rensselaer at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was in those days electrifying the country by her wonderful performances at Newport. ”

“ You might as well quit your nonsense and understand this,—that the Hungerville Mills belong to Robert van Rensselaer, and not to a union, or to anybody else; and that they're going to be run the way Robert van Rensselaer chooses they shall be run; that they're run for his profit, that the wages they pay are the wages he chooses to pay, and that anybody who doesn't like it is welcome to go wherever else it happens to suit him! ”

“ The Hungerville Mills Company was one of the creations of the financial genius of van Rensselaer senior; the mills had existed before, but they had been run by several rival companies, which were always at war with each other, with the consequence that their stock was a by-word among men. ”

“ There were thousands of men flying this way and that, wild-eyed and shrieking. Van Rensselaer caught a phrase here and there,—"freight rates—ruin them—the van Rensselaers—Shrike." And meanwhile he was hurrying on his way to the board-room. He was a member and was admitted to the bedlam, to the edge of that writhing, hysterical mass of men who were crushing each other, breathless in their efforts to reach the trading-post. Van Rensselaer gazed at the figure of the stock—it was 157! ”

“ The struggle opened slowly, the two giants sparring and feeling each other's strength. The syndicate brokers called loudly for T. & S., but van Rensselaer waited and watched. Some was sold, but it was not his; he was waiting to see if the price would not go up yet higher, to make his enemies bolder, and himself safer. And about eleven o'clock it did start. T. & S. had opened at 155, and trading brisk; five thousand shares had been sold, and then the price went to 1551⁄2 to 1561⁄2. ”

“ It was several hours before those four gentlemen went out of van Rensselaer's office. They talked the situation over in all its phases: the weak points about the T. & S. road, and the rumors that might be used; the impossibility of their being caught in a corner; the fact that thousands of stockholders were hoping for a rise, and trembling in uncertainty and terror at the thought of a fall; the resources of Smith and Shark and the T. & S. financiers; their own resources, and the weight of their names. ”

“ For a strange change came over Robbie. I do not know how I can better explain the phenomenon than by his father's words already quoted—that he was learning that the life of man is a battle. Formerly all that he had known had been the play side of it. When one goes in for a game of golf, he lays out all his cleverness and skill, and [25] gets nothing but a silver cup and some newspaper clippings for the trouble; but when he plays at stocks, he gets real prizes of hard cash and negotiable securities.
Mr. Robert van Rensselaer had set to work to learn the rules of this new game ”

“ There are so many people ready to believe evil about a wealthy man; and besides, there were hundreds who had known about Daisy. To be sure, they never thought of it, at this late date; but how long would it take them to put two and two together, and to have the whole town gabbling and winking? And if he were to turn the matter over to private detectives, he would lay himself equally open [46] to suspicion. One can never tell about such men, he mused—they might find out the story, and then anything could happen. ”

“ Then he said: "I wrote Jones and Co. yesterday to turn three millions over to my brokers. See that it's done. And tell the brokers to sell T. & S., and sell it just as [113] fast as they can, until it's every cent gone. And then you come back here, and don't let any one into this room—not a soul, mind you, not a soul. Do you understand?"
"I understand," said the man, and went away, lost in wonder. The first thing he did was to order his own broker to cover some T. & S. of his own; the secretary had never seen van Rensselaer lose his nerve before. ”

“ If a man could see deeply enough, and bear only unsound stocks and over-produced commodities, he might be considered as a useful servant of society—and what would be no less pleasant, the eternal laws of the universe would work with him in all his trading.
The story of the great Transatlantic and Suburban Railroad battle—the most sanguinary of all the conflicts of our hero, and one which Wall Street men will never forget while they live—the reader may find narrated in Jabbergrab, p. ”

“ That's every young fellow's right, and you haven't gone beyond the limit. I have always meant to give my son everything a gentleman ought to have; but now I think it's about time you'd had enough—don't you?"
"Um-m," said Robbie, meditatively, "I hadn't thought about it."
"You know," said van Rensselaer père, "the life of man isn't all play. We have some serious duties in the world—we owe something to society."
"Yes," said Robbie, "I suppose so. ”

“ What one man can live on, another cannot. What if the workingmen spend much of their wages in intemperance, and then tell me they cannot live? What—" But then the president stopped, and frowning with annoyance, went on in a different voice: "But there is no use arguing about such questions as that! I have tried to explain to you the state of the market, and just what the Company can do. I can do nothing more. You must remember that we have trials, also, and that ruin is possible for companies, too. The laws of economy apply to companies just as well [35] as men ”

“ For events moved swiftly in that part of the town; and even before the Kalamazoo Airship corner had been settled Robert van Rensselaer was busily planning the great coup of his life,—the smashing of Transatlantic and Suburban. About that desperate and historical campaign it is necessary that the reader should be told in detail.
There are men in Wall Street, gamblers pure and simple, who will bull or bear any stock out of which they think they can get [79] anything; and again there are also legitimate manipulators. ”

“ Robert van Rensselaer were one of the problems of metropolitan society; he got them from abroad, from an unknown estate of his own—if indeed he did not get them by means of a compact with the devil. Suffice it to say that a man or woman in New York would give up any other engagement for some of the wine of the president of the Hungerville Mills Company ”

“ Robbie's father was president and chief stockholder of a certain vast manufacturing establishment; he was also a capitalist of national reputation, and a man whose hand was often felt by the stock markets of the world. Robbie knew about these things vaguely, and was not uncurious to know more; and so he took to rising at ten o'clock in the morning, and to turning his automobile down-townward ”

“ Lynch; certainly, at any rate, Mr. Van Rensselaer had imagined it. But one of the disadvantages about some of the pleasant things of life is this fact that, when we wish to forget them, they are not always willing to forget us.
Who had written the letter and what was the purpose of it was a problem which our hero pondered for many hours,—hours which he spent either in pacing up and down the room, or in sitting motionless in a chair, with hands clenched and eyes fixed upon vacancy. ”

“ Van Rensselaer knew that the ticker was some minutes behind the market, and he cursed with impatience. Then he took a pencil and began figuring, as well as he could, with his trembling hands.
He had put twenty-seven million dollars into this thing; he had bought the margins of something like a million and three-quarters shares. That was more shares than were in existence, actually; but under Wall [117] Street's systems of speculating that is a common enough state of affairs. ”