Jay Gould

“ There was, perhaps, never a time in Jay Gould’s career when it was possible to estimate his wealth with anything approaching correctness. His secretive disposition stood in the way of a general acquaintance with the outcome of his many ventures. Long after he had gained control of the Wabash system of Railways, the Manhattan Elevated and the Western Union Telegraph Company, during a14 little flurry in Wall street, in which everybody thought the finger of Jay Gould was hidden, but nobody knew, a broker sagely observed, “Mr. Gould has many properties, but a brass band is not one of them.” ”

“ His Career When Jay Gould began business in this city he possessed $750,000, but the path he trod to earn it was rough and stormy, and his capital varied at different times from five dollars to ten cents. He was born in Roxbury, Delaware county, N.Y., May 27, 1835, of parents who worked a small farm and were people of strong sense and sturdy integrity. Jay was kept on the farm until he was 12 years old, but his father found him of small account. ”

“ CHAPTER X THE SECOND STAGE OF THE GOULD FORTUNE The first medium by which Jay Gould transferred many millions of dollars to his ownership was by his looting and wrecking of the Erie Railroad. If physical appearance were to be accepted as a gauge of capacity none would suspect that Gould contained the elements of one of the boldest and ablest financial marauders that the system in force had as yet produced. About five feet six inches in height and of slender figure, he gave the random impression of being a mild, meek man, characterized by excessive timidity. ”

“ Business has its fixed standard of hypocrisy; everything above or below that is to be denounced by the ministers of the gospel of God and business. Hence the howl about Jay Gould, who, with splendid, brutal frankness, exposed to the entire universe the real laws of business,—without any preaching at all,—and overrode society and law and became supreme. Wherefore I hold that a statue should be erected to him. Here we have been having a newspaper fight. All the missionaries are down on “that anonymous writer” as usual. ”

“ The greatest financial transaction ever consummated in America is believed by many people to have been the creation of the Union Pacific Railway Company by Jay Gould. By a stroke of financial genius at once bold and adroit, he consolidated into that corporation other great railroad companies, assuming control of all. It will be remembered that the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the Union Pacific Railway Company are two distinct corporations. ”

“ Jay Gould is a power. I was told in America that this man went to New York with only a few dollars in his pocket, and for some time earned a living by selling mousetraps. He now holds the American Stock Exchange in the hollow of his hand; instead of mice, he goes for bulls and bears, and stocks rise and fall at his whim. Other speculators are glad to pick up the crumbs that fall from his fingers. ”

“ Near by is the Gould birthplace, now a comfortable-looking farmhouse, glistening with a fresh coat of white paint. “Take away the porch and the back extension, and the top story and the paint,” said my driver, “and you will have the original ‘birthplace.’” He said that when he first began the livery business in Roxbury many people came to see the birthplace of Jay Gould, but no one mentioned Burroughs. Now it is just the other way, and the number of visitors increases yearly, all anxious to see the home of the famous philosopher. ”

“ In the neighborhood of these churches there must not be overlooked, in this part of Fifth Avenue, the residence of Helen Gould, a square-built house with an elaborate portico, at the corner of Fifty-seventh Street. This was originally the home of one of the most extraordinary men ever developed in New 54 York—Jay Gould. He was an orphan boy in Northeastern Pennsylvania, who became a clerk in a country store, a surveyor and map-maker, and finally was employed in a tannery, and to sell its leather first took him to New York. ”

“ The late Professor Clifford was an Atheist, and one of the gentlest, kindest, and tenderest men that ever lived. Jay Gould was a member of a Christian church and sometimes went round with the plate. He left twenty millions of money, and not a penny to any charity or good cause. Lick, the Freethinker, built and endowed the great observatory which is one of the glories of America.
I do not propose to follow Mr. Blomfield in his excursion into ancient history. I will only remark that if he thinks there was any lack of "religion" in the worst days of the Pagan world he is very much mistaken. ”

“ This meant that any criminal lawyer would have been bound to start an investigation by insisting that Gould had assurances from the White House or the Treasury, since none other could have satisfied him. To young men wasting their summer at Quincy for want of some one to hire their services at three dollars a day, such a dramatic scandal was Heaven-sent. Charles and Henry Adams jumped at it like salmon at a fly, with as much voracity as Jay Gould, or his âme damnée Jim Fisk, had ever shown for Erie ”

“ Sage enjoys the confidence and friendship of some of the leading operators, among whom are Jay Gould.
He is a man of marked ability, and honesty. He never fails to meet any of his obligations, nor will he allow others to neglect theirs. Of course, he is careful what he agrees to do, but always does just as he agrees, regardless of cost. For this reason he is known in Wall street as "Old Integrity." Russell Sage is a shrewd, close calculator, and is worth many millions, the result of improving his opportunities. ”

“ William M. Tweed was the political boss of New York City and was aiming to control the Legislature. The judges of the New York Supreme Court had been elected by manhood suffrage and one of them named Barnard was one of his creatures. Jay Gould, a financial adventurer of New York City, who died worth fifty millions of dollars, was then at the beginning of his career; one of his associates was a still more picturesque adventurer named Fisk. ”

“ Before his death the belief is that Gould and Fisk had substantially parted company. The New York World of that day gives an account of an interview between Gould and Fisk, in which the former asked Fisk for his resignation as vice-president and comptroller of Erie. Fisk is represented as saying to a friend who was about to leave for Europe: “I would like you to do me a favor. If you find in Europe a mean man who can do a meaner thing to his best friend or tell a bigger lie than Jay Gould, I want you to telegraph me at once.” After Fisk’s death, however, Gould acted handsomely by his widow. ”

“ Gould has been prominently before the public in financial operations, and his history is the history of Wall street. Opinions of Mr. Gould have been just as varied as his own pursuits. There are those who laud him to the skies for the success he had in creating his enormous fortune, and who think him the sum of all good things. There are many others who think of him as being simply a close-fisted, unscrupulous, selfish business man of undoubted ability, but with no thought except to add to his wealth by whatever means might be necessary at the expense of others. ”

“ Gould knew every one of them by name.
In another apartment was a wilderness of roses, pink and white, and gold and Guelder, Burgundy and Austrian in an endless tangle of color and a delirious, odorous atmosphere that would have enraptured the soul of a lotus eater. No wonder that Mr. Gould236 abandoned care when he entered the portals of his conservatory. He did not have many warm personal friends, yet surely a man can not be altogether bad who is a friend of the roses. There must be some good in the heart of a man whose eyes grow tender as he bends over a lily. ”

“ He then became a salesman for a Boston dry goods firm, his aptitude and energy eventually winning for him a share in the business. By his shrewd dealing in army contracts during the Civil War, and it is said by engaging in cotton smuggling, he accumulated a considerable capital which he soon lost in speculation. In 1864 he became a stockbroker in New York and was employed by Daniel Drew as a buyer. He aided Drew in his war against Vanderbilt for the control of the Erie railway, and as a result of the compromise that was reached he and Jay Gould became members of the Erie directorate. ”

“ Gould interposed no objection, and even approved the choice, declaring his pleasure that his son had selected a respectable woman who was able to earn her own living. Perhaps his devotion to his family was due in part to the fact that his public career placed him apart from other men and made him an object of fear and hatred. He was an exile from the sympathies of his fellowmen. But he uttered no complaint, and found in his family full solace for any loss of friendships he may have incurred. The members of his family were his only intimate friends.
Mr. Gould was never a robust person. ”

“ Gould’s philanthropical adviser,” said this remarkable man on one occasion in 1879; “whenever a really deserving charity is brought to my attention, I explain it to Mr. Gould. He always takes my word as to when and how much to contribute. I have never known him to disregard my advice in such matters. His only condition is that there shall be no public blazonry of his benefactions. He is a constant and liberal giver, but doesn’t let his right hand know what his left hand is doing. ”

“ Gould was ousted from Erie, he entered into that career of acquisition which made him the master of several of the most important railroads in the United States, of the Yale system of telegraph and of the chief line of transportation in New York city. In nearly all his railroad operations he repeated, to a greater or less extent, his career in Erie. His scheme was to buy up cheap and bankrupt roads, reorganize them, issue new stock and bonds, unload on some other road, or else, by the payment of dividends, get the public interested in the property and sell at big profits. ”

“ Morosini, speaking of his dead friend and former employer, with whom he had been associated for a longer period, and perhaps more continuously and in some respects more intimately, than any other man in New York, said:
“Mr. Gould was one of the most lovable men I ever knew. It was a pleasure to serve him. He was very appreciative, and never imposed a needless task upon any one. In the office he always took things easily and coolly. There was never any hurry or confusion. In his family he was the best of husbands,220 and I never knew a man who loved his children with such intensity as he did. ”

“ The prime necessity in great stock operations is to conceal one’s movements. Sometimes a part of the brokers might be selling and a part might be buying. Gould and Connor alone held the strings of the intricate operations. One of the first great successful movements the house undertook was in Kansas Pacific in 1879. The stock within a period of a few months shot up from 8 to 97, and the bonds from 10 to 110. Gould cleared nearly $10,000,000 by this operation. The most brilliant feat accomplished by the house was178 performed when Gould acquired Western Union. ”

“ Gould at this time actually posed as an anti-monopolist before the public. All his extraordinary acts as president of the Erie were defended on the ground that he was endeavoring to protect the system against consolidation or affiliation with other trunk lines, and there were some honorable persons who really put faith in this statement. “Gould,” said Mr. Adams, “posed as a public benefactor, with unspeakable effrontery.”
There was more fighting in the courts over Erie. Justice Sutherland vacated Barnard’s order making Gould receiver, and Noah Davis was made receiver. ”

“ Gould has been absolutely unrivaled in his position as a money-maker. Though he has met with reverses at times, and was once on the verge of actual bankruptcy, these have been due, in slight degree, to the action of his opponents in the market, but rather to some relaxation of his own energies, or some unforeseen combination of circumstances. The men who have been against him, with few exceptions, have lost while he has won. To be wealthy and to play with11 the Gould securities, it has been necessary to follow him, not to oppose. ”

“ Others of the men have achieved wealth and honorable names. It is interesting to note that at the time Gould first entered the street one of his fellow-boarders at the Everett House was James Gordon Bennett, the elder, with whose son and successor he became engaged in such bitter business and personal antagonisms.
Gould not only gambled in Wall street, but he defended the operation. “People,” he told a State Senate Committee which was investigating into stock and grain corners, “will deal in chance. Your minister, doctor and barber all have the same interest in speculation. ”

“ Scarcely a day would pass that the World did not contain an editorial or a news paragraph attacking Manhattan. The stock kept dropping two, three and five points at a time. With the beginning of July, 1887, suits were pending against the three elevated railroad companies in all of the state courts in which they could be brought. Mr. Gould became a stockholder in the Metropolitan company on the 1st of that month, 100 shares of stock having been transferred to him by Russell Sage. ”

“ Gould ever sought any physical relaxation in the way of sport or pastime. His whole mind, heart and soul lay between Wall street and his uptown home. Finally, however, money-making became an old story. Time and again he had milked Wall street dry, and his fortune had rolled up into the tens of millions. Then, observing an occasional smile on the faces of other millionaires, and hearing the laughter of light hearts all about him, he began to wonder if there were not other pleasures in the world outside of cent per cent. and the dull, eternal rows of figures that stood for stocks and bonds. ”