CHAPTER XX.

A CHAPTER OF ANECDOTES.

While it is true that Gould loved to envelope his transactions in mystery, and was a master of the art of keeping silence, and though during most of his life he was engaged in financial intrigues and occult speculations, yet the main facts of his life can be found in the official records of law cases and the numerous legislative and congressional investigations that were held on many of his transactions. The facts of this volume are not to be understood as doing Mr. Gould an injustice, for almost the worst things that are said about him are the ones to which he himself testified under oath.

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. The former was the original company.

It was in 1873 that Gould went into Union Pacific. He bought about $10,000,000 of the stock, had it bound into a book and put it in a safe, as he told a friend at the time, “for his wife and family as an investment.” In 1878 Gould conceived the idea of a grand _coup_, and this was carried out so successfully that in sixty days he had made terms which netted him about $21,000,000 in profits.

He first ran over to Amsterdam from London, arriving there late in the morning. At 10 A. M. that day he notified the Dutch bondholders of the Denver Pacific that he would be pleased to meet them at 11 o’clock. Promptly at that hour he met them, and at 12 he left Amsterdam with his gripsack full of the securities of the Dutch bondholders. By this means he captured control of the Denver Pacific. Inside of ten hours he bought out Commodore Garrison’s interest in the Missouri Pacific. He bought out ex-Governor Ames’ interest in the Central Branch of the Union Pacific, and he had previously formed a pool by which he acquired control of the Kansas Pacific.

One day the Union Pacific directors awoke to the alarming discovery that Mr. Gould had dropped out of their organization and was surveying a line from Denver to Salt Lake City. The Kansas Pacific was utterly worthless, the Central Branch had not earned any money for years, the Denver Pacific had been in very bad shape; but when the Union Pacific directors discovered the extent of Mr. Gould’s combinations they lost no time in boarding a special car in Boston and rushing over to New York to see him about it. They went up to Mr. Gould’s house and were there gathered in by him on the consolidation of the three roads, all of their stock being exchanged at par and merged into the new Union Pacific Railway Company as distinguished from the Union Pacific Railroad Company.

This incident formed one of the subjects of inquiry committed to the Pacific Railroad Commission in 1887. The members of the commission appointed by President Cleveland consisted of Gov. Pattison, of Pennsylvania; E. Ellery Anderson of this city, and David Littler, of Illinois.

The Union Pacific railroad and the Kansas Pacific railroad companies had received government subsidies in bonds and lands. The bonds were received upon the stipulation that the companies would pay at par and accumulated interest upon their maturity. The first of these bonds will mature in 1895. An application had been made by the Pacific railroads to Congress to extend the time of payment, and this commission was appointed to report upon that matter and incidentally to furnish Congress with information relative to these deals which had affected the status of the corporations.

The commission began its sittings in this city, at No. 10 Wall street. A large number of railway magnates intimately connected with the Pacific railroads were first examined, including Russell Sage and Sidney Dillon. They were examined particularly with a view to finding out exactly what had taken place when the Union Pacific railway was created. They seemed to know nothing about the matter. At every point the well-directed questions of the inquirers were adroitly turned aside. The witnesses did not know or could not remember. No light had yet been thrown upon the subject under examination. But the great witness of all was reserved for the last. This was Jay Gould. He knew it all, but the great question was, “Would he tell?” Nobody believed that he would tell voluntarily the facts relating to his connection with the government interest in the matter, but it was believed that a severe and searching cross-examination would compel him to divulge some of the facts.

An immense amount of labor was gone through with in anticipation of the time when Jay Gould should take his seat in the witness chair. Men on the inside and familiar with the lines along which the inquiry should be directed devoted weeks to the study of figures and the procurement of papers upon which to base the questions which should be asked of Mr. Gould. Dozens of questions on the same subject were prepared. If he answered one question one way he was to be asked a certain question, and if he answered another way he was to be asked another question. In this way it was believed when Mr. Gould took his seat that the beginning of a long struggle was at hand.

That was on May 17, 1887. Mr. Gould wore a plain pepper and salt suit and a shabby silk hat. The examiners, all ready to level their batteries of questions at him, were dumbfounded when the first questions were asked and Mr. Gould blandly stated his willingness and desire to afford all the information in his power. He seemed anxious to withhold no facts, to evade no questions, and to help the members of the commission in their work.

There being some uncertainty as to the exact route of some of the roads in question, Mr. Gould even took out of his pocket a little map and kindly enlightened the members of the commission as to the various localities, and said: “I had anticipated that possibly you might want to know what had been my holdings of various securities relating to this transaction, and so I instructed my bookkeeper to draw off a statement, which I now submit to you.” He then produced a little memorandum covering about sixteen lines of writing, which covered all the facts and gave the cue to every feature of the transaction. Mr. Gould said he had kept books of all his transactions.

Q. Where are the books? A. I have them.

Q. Where? A. In my possession.

Q. Are they at the service of the commission? A. If they desire them, with the greatest of pleasure.

This willingness to show the books created a profound sensation. Railway magnates worth many millions and controlling thousands of miles of road had one after another followed each other to the stand only to show that Gould was the one who pulled the strings, that they did not know what his intentions were in regard to the commission, and that he made up his mind upon a certain line of policy without consulting them. Many of these magnates were in the room and they sat with open mouths and plainly evinced their astonishment when they saw Mr. Gould giving up the hitherto carefully guarded facts. Nothing more plainly showed the absolute mastery of Jay Gould over all the other railway magnates of the country.

Mr. Gould had several “doubles” who were constantly being mistaken for him.

Broker Sam Leopold, of No. 84 Broadway, for several years was known as Gould’s double, but about a year ago he got tired of the distinction and had his beard cut to a point. During the campaign of 1884 he was offered $20,000 to impersonate Mr. Gould. Conspiring brokers proposed that he smear blood on his face and roll on the sidewalk near the corner of Broad and Wall streets. Confederates were to be on hand to keep the crowd back till an ambulance arrived, and to say at intervals: “That’s Jay Gould; he’s fatally injured.”

Further details of the plan were to have a carriage near Chambers street hospital for the purpose of taking “Mr. Gould” to his house. Of course Leopold’s remarkably close resemblance to Gould would be sufficient to make the scheme work well, especially as a man was to have been posted at Irvington to telegraph that the millionaire was in his country home. Then the telegraph wires were to be “grounded” for a few hours. The tremendous excitement would naturally depress the Gould stocks, and, in sympathy, about everything would go down with a rush. The schemers were to take advantage of this by selling short, and they expected to have at least from 10 to 2 o’clock in which to work this peculiarly daring manipulation of the market.

By the time the truth would be known the bold plotters would turn and go long of the market, on the recovery from the temporary shock, and at least two or three good-sized fortunes were expected to be realized by the double deal. Sam reluctantly declined the tempting offer. Although he wanted the $20,000 awfully bad, he feared that he might be mobbed after the fright was over, and so the scheme fell through.

Leopold knew Gould very well, and they delighted to meet and look at each other. It is related that whenever Sam discovered a new gray hair in his whiskers he would hurry to Mr. Gould, only to find that the millionaire was also keeping tab on his white hairs, and the two accounts tallied exactly.

Some years ago Mr. Gould went to the Rocky mountains, where he wanted some surveying done in the neighborhood of Black Hawk in Colorado. He employed a surveyor and described the work he wanted done. The Indians were rather troublesome at that time and the surveyor said:

“I will have a good chance of getting scalped.”

“Well,” replied Mr. Gould, “I want this work done, and I want to know if you will do it.”

“It will be a bad thing for my family if I am killed,” said the man, “but I’ll undertake the work.”

“How much money would it take to make you independent out here?” asked Mr. Gould.

“I’d be well off if I had $5,000,” replied the surveyor.

The surveying was done, and one day, some months later, Mr. Gould asked Mr. Morosini what the surveyor’s name was and directed him to send the man a check for $5,000, with the remark:

“We’ll make him the richest man in Colorado.”

One of the stories told of Mr. Gould to illustrate his determination to die a rich man whatever happened was this: In 1884, when it was ascertained that Mr. Gould was in financial danger, he took from his safe $11,000,000 worth of stock of the Manhattan and the Missouri Pacific railroads and stowed it away in an iron box, which he locked and sealed.

He resolved that that box should never be opened until after his death, and that no matter what happened the securities should not be touched. He carried the box, it was said, to the vaults of a safe deposit company, where it was locked up, and the particular vault in which it was placed was sealed, too. Instructions were given to the officers of the company that the seal on the vault was not to be broken until after his death, and then only in the presence of all of his executors.

Ex-Judge John F. Dillon knew Mr. Gould intimately. He first met the financier in 1879, and was his legal adviser in many of his undertakings.

“There were many distinct characteristics about Mr. Gould,” said Mr. Dillon. “I never knew him to utter a profane word, and he was as delicate and sensitive in temperament as a woman. Mr. Gould wrote and spoke capital English, but he never wrote a word that was not necessary. Judge Usher, who was Secretary of the Interior under Lincoln, an able and great lawyer, once said to me that he had bought a railroad for Mr. Gould, or in his interest, and had written out a contract covering two or three pages of foolscap. The judge, in telling of the incident, said: ‘I sent the contract, which I considered a thorough document, to Mr. Gould, and he almost immediately returned it written out on a half page of paper of the same size. When I got the document and found it perfect in its condensed form, I felt ashamed of myself.’ Mr. Gould was so self-reliant that he had little use for lawyers. He was his own negotiator and contract maker. When he bought the Iron Mountain road he showed me, the next day, a contract for that great purchase. It was a contract written out in his own handwriting on less than two pages of social note paper.

“He concluded the contract of the purchase of the Missouri Pacific without consulting his lawyers. When shown the contract the next day, his counsel told him he had bought a big lawsuit, and that title to the whole property was in question in the Supreme Court of the United States. He simply said, ‘I have given my check for $3,700,000, and the thing is closed. The seller would laugh at me if I went back and expressed a desire to rescind.’ He thereupon directed his attorneys to take charge of the case and try to sustain the title of the property bought, which after years of litigation they did.

“But great as Mr. Gould was as a financier and railway manager, he would, if bred to the bar, have made a greater lawyer. That is a fact. I have seen him greatly provoked, but never saw him lose his temper or utter a threat. Nevertheless, he had a good memory, both for benefits received and injuries done. He was probably, in the language of Dr. Johnson, ‘a good hater without loquacity and pomposity.’”

A popular error about Jay Gould is the notion that he was invincible. In 1866 a promissory note for $500 with his name went a-begging round Wall street at a heavy discount, yet he left a fortune estimated at $100,000,000. If Gould had died poor, what would have been the general verdict on his career? And yet, only eight years ago he was on the verge of failure. This was after the panic of May, 1884, one of the few times that he was tempted into the stock market as a speculator in order to hold up the price of stocks with which he was burdened.

The late Charles F. Woerishoffer, Henry N. Smith, and other operators were united in a combined effort to bear the securities which Gould was carrying. He had supported them for a time by obtaining sterling bills, giving his securities as collateral and then converting the bills into cash. But sterling loans, like all others, come to maturity; the bears were as unscrupulous as himself, bold and skillful and persistent. Gould’s Western Union fell to 49 and his Missouri Pacific to 62. He was beaten. One morning he had his lawyers execute an assignment of his property, and on the following day--a beautiful Sunday morning--his yacht went down to Long Branch, where the bear operators were summering. Gould’s emissaries landed and held a conference with his foes. They bore his ultimatum--a copy of the assignment and the statement that unless the bears made terms with him he would on the following morning file the assignment and give public notice that he was unable to meet his engagements.

At that time he was supposed to be borrowing some $20,000,000, and his failure would create a bigger panic than the one the street had just passed through. Many of the firms with which the bear combine had “short” contracts outstanding would doubtless fail, and in the general crash the successful bears themselves might be heavy losers. After a protracted conference the bears agreed to “let up” on Gould on condition that he should turn over to them 50,000 shares of Western Union at the current market price, $50 per share. This enabled them to make delivery of the shares they had sold at high prices. In speaking of this “deal” the following day, one of the bears expressed his confidence that Gould would have to fail anyhow--the help he received would be transient in its effect as a glass of brandy given to a dying man.

He was wrong. He underestimated the fertility of resource in Gould and his associates.

Many of the men in the financial quarter of New York City the day of his death devoted their time to forming estimates of Mr. Gould’s character as a man and relating anecdotes of his life. In reference to the general subject under discussion, Col. Henry T. Chapman, the art connoisseur of the Stock Exchange, said:

“Gould’s art collection was little known, for he rarely ever figured personally in buying pictures, and went so little into social life that the public had no knowledge of his gallery. It is very choice, however, consisting of about one hundred paintings. Many of them are representative works of the Barbizon and modern French school. He has one of the finest examples of Corot in the country, and masterpieces by Rousseau, De Neufville and others.

“I purchased for him at the Stewart sale the finest example of Knaus in the country. It is a famous work known as ‘Knaus Children,’ and cost $25,000. Works by that artist have brought higher prices in this country, but no one has a finer example. This illustrates one thing that I would like to say about Mr. Gould. He did not buy a painting on account of its price, but because he appreciated its beauties. He had a fine, a highly cultivated artistic sense, and showed a wonderful appreciation of color, tone and treatment in a picture.

“He knew the inspirational works of an artist from the mediocre productions, and showed a nice discrimination in his selections. He never bought a picture for a household decoration nor to fit a recess in the wall, but for the love of the art it displayed and the enjoyment it gave him. His was the true artistic spirit.”

“The quality for which I most greatly respected Mr. Gould,” said an acquaintance, “was his consideration for others. This may seem a strange quality to attribute to a man who is esteemed a ‘wrecker’ by nine-tenths of Wall street men, but it was the thing that I often remarked in a long personal acquaintance with the man.

“It was once my pleasure to accompany him and some members of his family to Florida. His son George and a young companion were of the party. When we arrived at Palatka, Fla., Mr. Gould found that a suite of apartments had been reserved in Orvis’ hotel for each member of the party.

“This was not unusual on the trip, but it happened that at Palatka there were many tourists arriving by the same train who were unable to obtain accommodations in consequence of the allotment of rooms to the Gould party. Mr. Gould took in the situation at once. ‘See here,’ said he to the proprietor, ‘why do you give me all these rooms? Others need accommodation as well as I.’ ‘But,’ said the man, I----’ ‘That’s all right,’ replied Mr. Gould, ‘I know all about that. These people need rooms and should have them, and if there are not enough here for the ladies just send those boys of mine over to the barn.’

“George Gould and his companion,” said the man in conclusion, “slept that night in an outbuilding, scarcely a barn, but little better.”

“Mr. Gould,” said President Norvin Green, of the Western Union Telegraph Company, “was a man who, while he governed a corporation carefully, was always ready to reward merit and the faithful performance of duty. I remember at one of our annual meetings one of our department men, in making his report, appended thereto a request that his salary be raised. He asked for a large increase--fifty per cent. I think, from $2,400 to $3,600 a year. The Committee on Expenses was not inclined to grant the request. They were willing to give him a slight increase, but nothing like he asked.

“There was something peculiar about his work--I don’t recollect what now--but it led to a somewhat long debate. This was terminated by Mr. Sage, who said as he always did when in doubt: ‘Well, we will leave the matter to Mr. Gould.’ When Mr. Gould came in the matter was referred to him with the explanation of the debate and the points of difference. Mr. Gould took up the report and read it through. Then he read the request for an increase. When he had finished he turned and said: ‘Gentlemen, is there any of you who would like to do the work that man has done for $2,400 a year?’

“Every man shook his head. ‘Neither would I,’ remarked Mr. Gould. ‘If he can do all this work he is certainly entitled to this $3,600 he asks, and we get off cheaply at that in having a faithful, honest and most capable employe.’”

Among other stories told of Mr. Gould are the following:

Some years ago he was tendered the nomination of Rex, the king of the Mardi Gras carnival in New Orleans. He declined this, of course, and when asked jokingly by a friend why he had put ambition away, remarked dryly:

“Well, I don’t think the nomination was entirely disinterested or that I would have reigned supreme. I have always heard that there was ‘a power behind the throne,’ and in this case I am sure of it.”

With this he thrust his hand into his pocket and drew forth the letter notifying him of his selection to the high office. Enclosed in it was a bill for $1,000, the price of the honor. The functions of Rex that year were performed by a St. Louis brewer.

Mr. Gould could never accustom himself to take with equanimity the criticism and abuse that were heaped upon his head. He was exceedingly sensitive of ridicule and loathed the term “Little Wizard,” by which he was not infrequently designated by the Wall street men and the papers. He often heard himself most grossly abused. Once, it is related, during a particularly vexatious series of delays to a crowded elevated railroad train in which Mr. Gould happened to be, a tall, muscular individual broke out into a torrent.

“It’s ridiculous,” he shouted. “The accommodations on this road. Absurd! Scandalous! That man Gould won’t put on an extra car. Valuable franchise for a song, but an extra train means a dollar less or so in profits. It’s a shame, and I’d like to have that little rat Gould here to tell him and then pull his nose.”

Mr. Gould stood by the blusterer’s side almost crushed in the crowd. He said nothing, however, and the man continued his outburst until he reached a station, where he left the car, after pronouncing a final malediction upon Gould’s head.

“Well, well,” said Mr. Gould, turning to an acquaintance, “that was hot, wasn’t it? I was very much annoyed at the delays and crowds myself and I did want to tell the man that I was not responsible for the limited number of trains. If he had not been so abusive, I would have told him that it was all Sage’s doings. He advised taking the extras off and I suffer for it. I do wish Sage could have been here, for I think I would have told that fellow all about it and let Sage get his deserts.”

An illustration of the rush and hurry of Jay Gould’s life is told among the Pennsylvania mountaineers in the region round about Gouldsboro.

Mr. Gould’s father was superintendent of the tannery at Canadensis, which was the property of his son, and received therefor the salary of $20 per week, which in those parts placed him high up in the category of the well to do. Canadensis is four and a half miles from the railroad station at Cresco on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western railroad, and the road between is a rough mountain road not fitted for fast speeding.

When the old man died Jay Gould was summoned by telegraph. He reached Cresco in a great hurry. Business matters were pressing and he had no time to waste. He hired a rig and told the owner to drive him over to Canadensis and back in time to catch the next train back to New York.

The owner shook his head.

“Go ahead,” said Gould. “I’ll pay the damage.”

The horse was put to its utmost speed and Gould had just one hour and a half to devote to preparations for his father’s funeral. Then he drove back to Cresco and caught his train, but he drove so fast that the horse died from overexertion. Gould made good the value to the owner without complaint.

Pacific Mail was always one of Mr. Gould’s speculative favorites. He had been more or less directly identified with it ever since the time when A. B. Stockwell was its picturesque controller. Stockwell is the historic gentleman who, in reciting the story of his Wall street career, has graphically put in this way:

“When I first came to Wall street I had $10,000, and the brokers called me ‘Stockwell.’ I scooped some profits, and it was ‘Mr. Stockwell.’ I got to dealing in a thousand shares at a time, and they hailed me as ‘Captain Stockwell.’ I went heavily into Pacific Mail, and folks lifted their hats to ‘Commodore Stockwell.’

“Then one day Jay Gould came along, smash went Pacific Mail and I went with it. They did not call me ‘Commodore Stockwell’ after that. Then it was: ‘The red-headed son of a gun from Ohio.’”

In the course of his Pacific Mail campaigning Mr. Gould was much more frequently a bear, than a bull. He used to say he had never found but one unerring bull point on Pacific Mail, and that was to report that the company had lost one of its ships. Perhaps his biggest drive at this stock was when he discomfited Leonard Jerome and played smash with the uptown corps of speculators who made up what was a dozen years ago known as “the Fifth Avenue Hotel party.”

Just after that famous clean-out Leonard Jerome went abroad. In the course of his meanderings he came upon the famed Temple of Karnak.

“There, Mr. Jerome,” quoth a companion, “are the most remarkable ruins in the world.”

“No; oh, no; don’t tell that to me,” answered Leonard Jerome feelingly; “you ought just to have seen Pacific Mail last summer!”

Mr. Gould did not have any of that quality which descriptive persons call “presence.” No stranger would have ever been impressed by any mere look at him that he was much of a man. He was courteous always. In public he was never known to get mad, or, indeed, even to say a rude thing, except it be on one occasion, when, with more or less quietness, he remarked to an ambitious young gentleman who more recently became a figure in Wall street:

“You make me feel very sorry that I am so busy. If I had time I’d really enjoy taking a day off to send you to State prison.”

Of course, Mr. Gould was in lots of scenes where passion ran high. Everybody in Wall street recalls the historic day after Black Friday when Mr. Gould’s old partner, Henry N. Smith, shaking his finger in Mr. Gould’s face, shouted:

“I’ll live to see the day, sir, when you have to earn a living by going around this street with a hand organ and a monkey.”

“Maybe you will, Henry, maybe you will,” was the soothing response. “And when I want a monkey, Henry, I’ll send for you.”

In the book of Mr. Clews quoted before, is found the following: “There is a story told with several variations, in regard to a sensational interview between Mr. Gould and Commodore Vanderbilt. The scene is laid in the parlor of the commodore’s house. It was about the time that the latter was making desperate efforts to get a corner in Erie, and at that particular juncture when having been defeated in his purpose by the astute policy of the able triumvirate of Erie, Gould, Fisk and Drew, he had applied to the courts as a last resort to get even with them.

“They had used the Erie paper-mill to the best advantage, in turning out new securities of Erie to supply the Vanderbilt brokers, who vainly imagined that they were getting corner in the inexhaustible stock. Mr. Vanderbilt was wild when he discovered the ruse, and had no remedy but law against the perpetrators of this costly prank. These adroit financiers usually placed the law at defiance, or used it to their own advantage, but this time they were so badly caught that they had to fly from the state, and take refuge in Taylor’s hotel in Jersey City.

“It seems that during their temporary exile beyond the state, Gould sought a private interview one night with the commodore, in the hope of bringing about conciliatory measures.

“The commodore conversed freely for some time but in the midst of his conversation he seemed to be suddenly seized with a fainting spell, and rolled from his seat onto the carpet, where he lay motionless and apparently breathless.

“Mr. Gould’s first impulse was to go to the door and summon aid, but he found it locked and no key in it. This increased his alarm and he became greatly agitated. He shook the prostrate form of the commodore, but the latter was limp and motionless. Once there was a heavy sigh and a half-suffocated breathing, as if it were the last act of respiration. Immediately afterward the commodore was still and remained in this condition for nearly half an hour. Doubtless this was one of the most anxious half hours that ever Mr. Gould has experienced.

“If I were permitted to indulge in the latitude of the ordinary storyteller, I might here draw a harassing picture of Mr. Gould’s internal emotions, gloomy prospects in a criminal court and dark forebodings. His prolific brain would naturally be racked to find a plausible explanation in the event of the commodore’s death, which had occurred while they were the sole occupants of the room; and at that time, in the eyes of the public, they were bitter enemies.

“I can imagine that, in the height of his anxiety, he would have been ready to make very easy terms with his great rival, on condition of being relieved from his perilous position. It would have been a great opportunity, if such had been possible, for a third party to have come in as a physician, pronouncing it a case of heart disease. No doubt Mr. Gould would have been willing to pay an enormous fee to be relieved of such an oppressive suspicion.

“The object of the commodore’s feint was evidently to try the courage and soften the heart of Mr. Gould, who never seemed to suspect that it was a mere hoax. His presence of mind, however, was equal to the occasion, as he bore the ordeal with fortitude until the practical joker was pleased to assume his normal condition and usual vivacity. If Mr. Gould had been a man of common excitability, he might have acted very foolishly under these trying circumstances, and this doubtless would have pleased his tormentor intensely.

“There is a humorous story told of Mr. Gould’s first yachting experience, which was recently published in the Philadelphia _Press_, and its veracity vouched for by a living witness to the event. It is characteristic of Mr. Gould in some special respects, and runs as follows:

“At the residence of a club man, whose reputation as a _raconteur_ is nearly as great as that of his Burgundy, I noticed a pretty model of a jib and mainsail yacht. Replying to my admiring inquiry the club man explained:

“‘That is the model of a boat upon which were passed some of the sunniest hours of my life. She was owned by one of the Cruger family, of Cruger-on-the-Hudson, and has an added interest from the fact that upon her Jay Gould acquired his first yachting experience, and so eventful a one that I’ll bet he remembers it to this day.

“‘Crugers--one of the oldest and best known families in the state, intermarried as they are with other Knickerbockers like the Schuylers, Livingstons and Van Rensselaers--owned all the land in the neighborhood of the station subsequently named after them. A portion of this property consisted of a brick-yard, which was rented to the son of old Schuyler Livingston. It was in 1853 or 1854, and Jay Gould had just failed in the tannery business in Pennsylvania.

“Young Livingston’s leased brick-yard wasn’t paying, and he concluded that he needed a shrewd business man at his head. He advertised for a partner, and one day there appeared in response a small, dark gentleman, looking scrupulously neat in his black broadcloth. He gave his name as Jay Gould. Pending negotiations, Mr. Gould became the guest of the Crugers at the old mansion on the hill. Every effort was put forth to entertain him during his stay, the more as he seemed to regard favorably a partnership with their young friend.

“One day Mr. Cruger invited Gould to a sail to Newburgh, and got ready his yacht, of which that model is the reduction. Several of us youngsters were taken along to help work the boat. Eugene Cruger, a nephew of the yacht’s owner, was one of us. Peekskill was reached, and the whole party went up to the hotel.

“All the way up the river we had noticed that Mr. Gould was uneasy, shifting about constantly on the deck, where he sat, and squirming and twisting as if to find a softer spot. Nothing was said about it, of course, but when we landed Mr. Gould himself furnished the explanation. From the heat of the sun, the yellow paint on the boat’s deck had become baked and chalky, and it was not long before the little man discovered that the dry powder was coming off on his trousers. Hence his uneasiness. He concluded by saying that he was afraid his broadcloth nether garments would be, if they were not already, ruined, and was determined to abandon the trip and return by rail. This Mr. Cruger would not hear of, and promised to obviate the difficulty. We all adjourned to a general store, and Cruger bought for two shillings and a half, a pair of jean overalls. These Mr. Gould put on when we went aboard the boat, and expressed his unqualified satisfaction with the result.

“On our trip back from Newburgh, we again called at Peekskill, and once more the party started for the hotel. This time Mr. Gould declined the invitation to take something, and preferred to remain on board. About an hour was spent in the hotel, when suddenly Mr. Cruger remembered that he wanted some white lead, and young Eugene Cruger and I went with him to the store to carry it down to the boat.

“‘How’d the overalls work, Mr. Cruger?’ was the salutation of the storekeeper. Then before answer could be returned, he added, admiringly: ‘That friend o’ yourn is purty shrewd.’

“‘Who, Mr. Gould? Yes, he appears to be a thorough business man.’

“‘Well, I sh’d say so! He can drive a mighty sharp bargain.’

“‘Drive a sharp bargain?’ repeated Cruger, all at sea. ‘What do you mean?’

“‘Why, don’t you know he was in here ’bout three-quarters of an hour ago and sold me back the overalls you bought for him?’

“‘Thunder, no!’ roared Cruger in astonishment.

“‘Well, sir, he jest did that. He kem in here, tole me he’d no fu’ther use for ’em, that they was as good as when I sold ’em, an’ after we’d haggled awhile he ’greed ter take two shillin’ fur ’em, which I paid him. Here’s the overalls.’

“I can shut my eyes now,” went on the jolly club man, with a hearty laugh, suiting the action to the words, “and call up Mr. Cruger’s face with its mingled expression of amazement and incredulity. He left the store in silence. Not until we had nearly reached the boat did he speak. Then he only said, ‘Boys, I’ll fix him for that!’ We reached home without any reference to the incident. On the way back Mr. Gould sat upon his pocket handkerchief.

“The same night Mr. Cruger perfected his plan. Next day Mr. Cruger proposed a fishing party. Mr. Gould declined to go. He had concluded, he said, not to take an interest in young Livingston’s brick-yard, and would return to the city on the afternoon train. A business engagement, involving quite a sum of money, had to be kept. His host argued with him, but for a time to no purpose. The saturnine little man had a tremendous amount of determination in his composition. Finally a compromise was effected, it being agreed that he should put Gould off at a station in time to catch the train. That he must catch it without fail, he most emphatically declared.

“The day passed on and we were off Sing Sing, when we saw the smoke of the coming train. We had been running free before the wind, but immediately Mr. Cruger, who was at the stick, shoved it down; we hauled in on the sheets and headed for the Eastern shore. Mr. Gould was by this time on his feet, clinging to the windward coaming, the deepest anxiety pictured on his face. Just there the water shoals rapidly. We were within fifty feet of the shore, opposite the railroad depot. The time had now come for Mr. Cruger’s revenge.

“‘Let go the main and jib sheets!’ he shouted. ‘Down with your board!’

“Never was order more eagerly obeyed. The sheets whizzed through the blocks, ready hands slipped out the pin and jammed down the centerboard, and in a second the yacht, with a grating shock and shaking sails, came to a stand, fast on the sandy bottom. There she was bound to stay until the obstructing board was lifted again.

“‘What’s the matter?’ exclaimed Mr. Gould, anxiously. Of course he had not detected the ruse, for he knew no more about the working of a yacht than a sea cow does about differential calculus.

“‘I’m afraid we’re aground,’ replied Mr. Cruger, with a fine assumption of sadness. ‘Boys, get out the sweeps and push her off.’

“We struggled with the long oars in a great show of ardor, while Gould watched us in breathless suspense, between hope and fear. But as we had taken care to put the sweeps overboard astern, the harder we shoved the faster we stuck. The little man’s suspicions were not in the slightest degree aroused and he turned in despair to Mr. Cruger.

“‘What shall I do!’ he almost wailed. ‘I’ve got to catch that train!’

“‘Then,’ replied the joker, solemnly, ‘you’ll have to wade or swim.’

“Already the train was in sight, two miles away, and whatever was to be done had to be done quickly. As I have said, there was plenty of grit in the embryo railroad king, and quick as a wink he was out of his sable clothes and standing before us clad only in his aggressively scarlet undergarments. Holding his precious broadcloth suit above his head, he stepped into the water, which, shallow as it was, reached to the armpits of the little gentleman. Then he started for the shore, his short, thin legs working back and forth in a most comical fashion as he strove to quicken his pace. The station platform was crowded with people, and very soon the strange figure approaching them was descried. A peal of laughter from 500 throats rolled over the water to us, the ladies hiding their blushes behind parasols and fans. The men shouted with laughter. Finally the wader reached the base of the stone wall, and for a moment covered with confusion and but little else, stood upon the rock, one scarlet leg uplifted, looking for all the world like a flamingo on the shore of a Florida bayou, while the air was split with shrieks of laughter, in which we now unreservedly joined. Then came the climax of the joke, which nearly paralyzed the unfortunate victim.

“‘Haul on your sheets, boys, and up with the board!’ was Cruger’s order. As the yacht gathered headway and swept by within ten feet of the astonished Mr. Gould, we laughingly bade him good-bye, advising a warm mustard bath when he got home.

“Then his quick mind took in the full force of the practical joke that we had worked upon him, and his dark face was a study for a painter. But the train had already reached the station, taken on its passengers, and the wheels were beginning to turn again for its run to the city. As Gould scrambled up the wall, his glossy black suit still pressed affectionately to his bosom, the ‘All aboard’ had sounded and the cars were moving. Every window was filled with laughing faces, as he raced over the sand and stones, and was dragged by two brakemen onto the rear platform, panting and dripping. The last glimpse we caught of him was as the train entered the prison tunnel. Then, supported on either side by the railroad men, he was making frantic plunges in his efforts to thrust his streaming legs into his trousers, as the platform reeled and rocked beneath him.”

It was once suggested to Mr. Gould that he had been fairly successful in life, and the inquirer wanted to know if Mr. Gould wouldn’t tell the secret of it.

“There isn’t any secret,” said Mr. Gould. “I avoid bad luck by being patient. Whenever I am obliged to get into a fight I always wait and let the other fellow get tired first.”

Any student of the history of Mr. Gould’s career in the corporation world will appreciate how again and again he found this quality of patience a prime investment. He never seemed to be in a hurry about anything. One of his enemies has remarked that during the last twenty years Jay Gould spent $1,000,000 hiring lawyers and paying court fees to accomplish nothing except to have lawsuits postponed.

And now the great man is dead. For days after his demise the public press was full of tales of his career. On every editorial page have been resumes of his life, and judgment upon him, either for or against. Much has been found to say of him that was good, and much that was evil. As a fitting close to this biography, it is good to quote from the New York _World_, which has published much of interest regarding him. The paper indeed was not his friend, but we have had much from his friends, and this opinion probably agrees with that of more persons than does any other:

“Look back upon his wonderful career. As sometimes an assassin is tracked by his footsteps in the snow or by the drops of crimson that have fallen from his fingers, dripping with the life blood of his victim, so the life of Jay Gould can be traced by the dark, deep stains it has left on the records of his time. We see him leaving his father’s farm a penniless but determined lad, clerking in a country store by day and studying mathematics at night. We follow him as he becomes a map-maker and goes forth to survey his own and adjoining counties. We see him hungry and unable to purchase a meal, kneeling down by the roadside and repeating his sister’s prayer. We see him strike his first bargain. We see him win the confidence of Zadock Pratt, the tanner. We follow him into the forests of Pennsylvania and hear the sound of his ax as he fells the first tree for a great tannery. We see him scheming for the control of the property and finally forcing out of the concern the man who had set him up in the business. We follow him in his partnership with Leupp, the old-fashioned and honorable merchant, of New York, and see him again scheming to gain control of the entire business. We see him entering, even at this early day, into wild speculations that involved his partner and threatened him with ruin. We hear the click of the pistol with which Leupp in his despair shot himself. We see Gould still scheming and endeavoring to drive a sharp bargain with Leupp’s daughters and heirs. We see him leading a gang of ruffians to drive out of the tannery the men who were endeavoring to protect it in the interests of Leupp’s daughters. We hear the groans of those who were wounded in that battle. We follow the young adventurer to New York. We see him buy his first railroad on credit and clear a handsome fortune out of the operation. We follow him into Wall street, where for twenty years he was to reign as a king and master. We see him in Erie, first as a follower of Daniel Drew and afterward as president. We see him at Albany bribing senators. We see him in New York purchasing judges, defying the law, issuing millions of securities, not a dollar of which represented legitimate expenditures. We see him plundering the great property of which he was nominally the trustee. We see him and his companion, James Fisk, Jr., the gambler and defaulter in a series of wonderful stock operations, cornering even their former leader, Daniel Drew, and fighting with desperation Commodore Vanderbilt. We see him organizing the greatest and most dastardly financial conspiracy the world has ever seen, laying its foundation in the actual bribery of a member of the President’s family, and in an attempt to involve in the speculation the President himself--America’s greatest captain. We hear the awful crash of Black Friday’s earthquake, from which Gould, the arch conspirator, saved himself, but in which hundreds were involved in ruin and the nation in dishonor. We see him now driven out of Erie by the indignant stockholders, headed by Gen. Sickles, Gen. Dix and Gen. McClellan. We see him arrested for appropriating the property of the company of which he was president, and to save himself we see him make a pretended restitution of the misappropriated millions. We see him cornering Northwest and raking in the wealth of his recent Wall street partner. We can see him now fastening his fingers on the great Union Pacific railroad, which for ten years he controlled. We can see him betraying his trust as trustee for Kansas Pacific mortgages, for which he was obliged years after to plead the statute of limitations in order to save himself from prosecution. We see him securing control of the Pacific Mail, the chief American steamship line. We see him buying for a few million dollars from Commodore Garrison the Missouri Pacific, ‘just as a plaything,’ but which he afterward developed into a great railroad system covering thousands of miles of territory. We see him repeating his old Erie tactics in Wabash and we can hear the stinging words of an unpurchasable judge as he turns his dummy receivers from power. We see him organizing an opposition against Western Union until, the favorable moment arriving, he secures control of the company and by a series of extraordinary consolidations make himself the head of a telegraph monopoly with a system covering the United States and crossing the Atlantic Ocean. We hear the crash of another panic. There are moments when we think the great speculator will fall--when, lo! we see him calmly exhibiting his millions of securities to his friends. Others fail, among them men who had been his partners and agents, but he is safe. We see him living in a palace on the Hudson and ploughing the waters of the river and the ocean with the most splendid yacht ever constructed. We see him at home, the personification of domestic honor and purity, a faithful husband and a kind father, and we see him abroad, hated, feared and detested. Despite his record, we find the power of his millions and of the great properties he controlled felt in every direction. He is a factor in elections. Candidates seek him for favors. He dictates appointments to high offices. Honorable men who would not repeat his methods sit with him in boards of direction and are identified with some of his enterprises. Nothing that the fertile imagination of Balzac, Dumas or Gaboriau ever conceived equals in dramatic incidents and sensational developments the career of this extraordinary man.

“It will be observed that there were two Goulds--Gould the man of affairs and Gould the man of family. In all his domestic relations his life was pure, his nature affectionate. No criticism can touch him in his home life. There he was above reproach. Toward the end of his life his dual nature seemed to blend into one. He became more conservative in business, more solicitous, apparently, of the good will and good opinion of his fellowmen, more careful to keep within the bounds of strict business morality, less audacious in his methods. For should it be forgotten that however much Gould’s public career may be justly subject to criticism, much that he did was indirectly for the public benefit? For instance, he developed properties that enriched wide sections of the country. No review of his career would be complete without this acknowledgement.”

Jay Gould will be remembered not for the good that he has done, not for the happiness he has given, but for the enormity of the fortune that he acquired. If his heirs apply to better ends than he did, the wealth that they have received from him, they may be better remembered. If they should dissipate the fortune, it might then fall into the possession of those who would do good with it. As it has been before, the life and fortune of Jay Gould have been a constant example always in readiness to be brought forward by those who find evil in our financial system. It is to be hoped that better things will now come from it.

FINIS.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, but several remain unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.

Page 68: “The ‘legal account, was of an india-rubber character” was printed that way, with a single quote mark and a comma. Transcriber believes the comma may be a misaligned closing single quote mark.