Dr. Norvin Green—Joseph Pulitzer—Chester A. Arthur—General Grant—The
Case of Fitz-John Porter
I
Truth we are told is stranger than fiction. I have found it so in the
knowledge which has variously come to me of many interesting men and
women. Of these Dr. Norvin Green was a striking example. To have sprung
from humble parentage in the wilds of Kentucky and to die at the head
of the most potential corporation in the world—to have held this place
against all comers by force of abilities deemed indispensable to its
welfare—to have gone the while his ain gait, disdaining the precepts of
Doctor Franklin—who, by the way, did not trouble overmuch to follow
them himself—seems so unusual as to rival the most stirring stories of
the novel mongers.
When I first met Doctor Green he was president of a Kentucky railway
company. He had been, however, one of the organizers of the Western
Union Telegraph Company. He deluded himself for a little by political
ambitions. He wanted to go to the Senate of the United States, and
during a legislative session of prolonged balloting at Frankfort he
missed his election by a single vote.
It may be doubted whether he would have cut a considerable figure at
Washington. His talents were constructive rather than declamatory. He
was called to a greater field—though he never thought it so—and was
foremost among those who developed the telegraph system of the country
almost from its infancy. He possessed the daring of the typical
Kentuckian, with the dead calm of the stoic philosopher; imperturbable;
never vexed or querulous or excited; denying himself none of the
indulgences of the gentleman of leisure. We grew to be constant
comrades and friends, and when he returned to New York to take the
important post which to the end of his days he filled so completely his
office in the Western Union Building became my downtown headquarters.
There I met Jay Gould familiarly; and resumed acquaintance with Russell
Sage, whom I had known when a lad in Washington, he a hayseed member of
Congress; and occasionally other of the Wall Street leaders. In a small
way—though not for long—I caught the stock-gambling fever. But I was on
the “inside,” and it was a cold day when I did not “clean up” a goodly
amount to waste uptown in the evening. I may say that I gave this over
through sheer disgust of acquiring so much and such easy and useless
money, for, having no natural love of money—no aptitude for making
money breed—no taste for getting it except to spend it—earning by my
own accustomed and fruitful toil always a sufficiency—the distractions
and dissipations it brought to my annual vacations and occasional
visits, affronted in a way my self-respect, and palled upon my rather
eager quest of pleasure. Money is purely relative. The root of all
evil, too. Too much of it may bring ills as great as not enough.
At the outset of my stock-gambling experience I was one day in the
office of President Edward H. Green, of the Louisville and Nashville
Railway, no relation of Dr. Norvin Green, but the husband of the famous
Hetty Green. He said to me, “How are you in stocks?”
“What do you mean?” said I.
“Why,” he said, “do you buy long, or short? Are you lucky or unlucky?”
“You are talking Greek to me,” I answered.
“Didn’t you ever put up any money on a margin?”
“Never.”
“Bless me! You are a virgin. I want to try your luck. Look over this
stock list and pick a stock. I will take a crack at it. All I make
we’ll divide, and all we lose I’ll pay.”
“Will you leave this open for an hour or two?”
“What is the matter with it—is it not liberal enough?”
“The matter is that I am going over to the Western Union to lunch. The
Gould party is to sit in with the Orton-Green party for the first time
after their fight, and I am asked especially to be there. I may pick up
something.”
Big Green, as he was called, paused a moment reflectively. “I don’t
want any tip—especially from that bunch,” said he. “I want to try your
virgin luck. But, go ahead, and let me know this afternoon.”
At luncheon I sat at Doctor Green’s right, Jay Gould at his left. For
the first and last time in its history wine was served at this board;
Russell Sage was effusive in his demonstrations of affection and went
on with his stories of my boyhood; every one sought to take the chill
off the occasion; and we had a most enjoyable time instead of what
promised to be rather a frosty formality. When the rest had departed,
leaving Doctor Green, Mr. Gould and myself at table, mindful of what I
had come for, in a bantering way I said to Doctor Green: “Now that I am
a Wall Street ingénu, why don’t you tell me something?”
Gould leaned across the table and said in his velvet voice: “Buy Texas
Pacific.”
Two or three days after, Texas Pacific fell off sixty points or more. I
did not see Big Green again. Five or six months later I received from
him a statement of account which I could never have unraveled, with a
check for some thousands of dollars, my one-half profit on such and
such an operation. Texas Pacific had come back again.
Two or three years later I sat at Doctor Green’s table with Mr. Gould,
just as we had sat the first day. Mr. Gould recalled the circumstance.
“I did not think I could afford to have you lose on my suggestion and I
went to cover your loss, when I found five thousand shares of Texas
Pacific transferred on the books of the company in your name. I knew
these could not be yours. I thought the buyer was none other than the
man I was after, and I began hammering the stock. I have been curious
ever since to make sure whether I was right.”
“Whom did you suspect, Mr. Gould?” I asked.
“My suspect was Victor Newcomb,” he replied.
I then told him what had happened. “Dear, dear,” he cried. “Ned Green!
Big Green. Well, well! You do surprise me. I would rather have done him
a favor than an injury. I am rejoiced to learn that no harm was done
and that, after all, you and he came out ahead.”
It was about this time Jay Gould had bought of the Thomas A. Scott
estate a New York daily newspaper which, in spite of brilliant writers
like Manton Marble and William Henry Hurlbut, had never been a
moneymaker. This was the _World_. He offered me the editorship with
forty-nine of the hundred shares of stock on very easy terms, which
nowise tempted me. But two or three years after, I daresay both weary
and hopeless of putting up so much money on an unyielding investment,
he was willing to sell outright, and Joseph Pulitzer became the
purchaser.
His career is another illustration of the saying that truth is stranger
than fiction.