“Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.”
It was October when Morning arrived in New York City. Steel had been
prompt in shipping the gold not covered with copper, and Morning’s bank
accounts in New York now amounted to sixteen millions of dollars, while
the fame of the Morning mine as a producer of four millions of gold bars
per month had already created a marked sensation in financial and
business circles, and in the newspaper world, but none suspected the
immense actual production.
Morning visited Washington, and bought a stone warehouse near the foot
of Sixth Street. He purchased a similar building in Philadelphia, near
the Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot, and he bought a third warehouse
alongside the track of the New Jersey Central at Hoboken. He caused
switches to be constructed into each of these warehouses, and provided
each of them with heavy iron shutters and doors. He employed four
watchmen for each building, divided into day and night-watches of six
hours each. He arranged that the copper-pigs containing gold should be
loaded on the cars at Tucson by his own men, who were themselves unaware
that they were handling anything but copper, and the cars locked and
sent in train-load lots through, without change or rehandling, to New
York, Philadelphia, and Washington, where they were run into his
warehouses and there unloaded. It was given out that he was at the head
of a copper syndicate, and was storing the surplus product of the mines
for higher prices. His plans worked with perfect smoothness, and his
wealth accumulated openly at the rate of four millions per month, and
secretly at the rate of one hundred millions per month, with a vast
amount of newspaper comment concerning the four millions, and no
suspicion anywhere as to the real sum.
The advocates of free coinage of silver, who were defeated in the
Congress of 1889–90, renewed their contest in the Congress of 1891–92,
and in February, 1892, a free coinage law passed, but it was vetoed by
President Harrison. The silver men carried the fight into the
presidential election of 1892, and were so far successful that Congress,
in February, 1894, enacted a law the text of which was as follows:—
“From and after July 1, 1894, any person may deposit at the treasury of
the United States in Washington, or at either of the sub treasuries in
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St Louis, New Orleans, Denver,
or San Francisco, gold or silver bars of standard fineness, and receive
the coined value thereof in United States treasury notes. The secretary
of the treasury is authorized and directed to prepare and keep on hand a
sufficient amount of treasury notes to comply with the provisions of
this act.”
The influence of Morning as the largest single producer of gold in the
world, as the owner already of thirty millions of dollars, and, if his
mine should hold out for five years, of a sum that would cause him to
outrank any millionaire in the world, was very great, and that
influence, legitimately exercised in behalf of free coinage, proved very
potent with senators and representatives, and did much to reconcile the
adherents of a single gold standard to the overthrow of their system.
It was argued that if the gold supply of the world was to be increased
forty per cent per annum by the yield of the Morning mine, that would
diminish relatively the production of silver, and the ancient parity of
the metals might be restored “without danger to our financial interests,
Mr. Speaker.”
Thus reasoned the Honorable Senile Jumbo, who represented a New England
district in the House. Jumbo was a banker at home, and because he was a
banker was supposed to know something about finance, and was, in
consequence, accorded a leading position on the House Committee on
Banking and Currency.
In fact, Jumbo only knew a good discount from a poor one. His definition
of a banker would have been that of the Indiana editor, who described
such a functionary as “a gentleman who takes the money of one man
without interest, and loans it to another upon interest, and places both
depositor and borrower under obligations.”
By his small shrewdness Jumbo had gained a large fortune, and secured a
seat in Congress; but of the laws which govern finance in its
politico-economic relations he had no more knowledge than has a
locomotive fireman about the law of dynamics, or a drygoods clerk about
the culture of the silkworm. Yet the Honorable Senile Jumbo looked wise,
and talked from the pit of his stomach, and respected the views of other
rich men, and as a congressman he averaged with his colleagues.
What strange distortion of brain is it that causes men conspicuously
unfit for public life, to seek elevations which can only expose their
intellectual poverty? One who does not comprehend the French tongue or
know anything about science, would be laughed at for seeking to be
elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences, yet senatorial togas
and congressional seats are constantly sought by gentlemen whose
previous pursuits have unfitted them to “shine in the halls of high
debate,” and who, indeed, would be puzzled to put together, while on
their feet, ten sentences of grammatical English.
The great and growing wealth of Morning caused his society to be
courted, and many a managing mamma was not unmindful of the fact that
the “Arizona Gold King,” as he began to be called, was a bachelor. This
man did not “wear his heart upon his sleeve,” and did not proclaim that
his bachelorhood was confirmed, or had any special reason for its
existence, but all plotting against him was in vain, for the Ellen lost
to him was the constant companion of his thoughts, and to all movements
and plans and purposes of life he applied instinctively the test, “What
would she think of it?”