"W. E. STOWE & CO., INCORPORATED"
At the suggestion of my attorneys, I decided to continue the business
as a corporation.
The reason for this was that I wanted to continue under the same
firm name and not as an agent, and while aside from Caine there were
no antagonistic creditors, it was deemed wise to provide against
any possibility of such appearing later on and jeopardizing the
new capital which I expected to raise without difficulty.
As a matter of fact no creditor except Caine ever assumed such an
attitude.
Under the laws of West Virginia a corporation was organized as W.
E. Stowe & Co., Incorporated.
The charter was made broad enough to cover every possible branch
of the business and the capital stock fixed at twenty-five thousand
dollars with liberty to increase to one million.
The organization was completed by electing as officers members of
my family, and the ten per cent required by law to be paid in was
raised in part by my wife by the sale of personal property and the
remainder by myself in a loan from a gentleman who was one of the
heaviest losers in the operations carried on for our friends.
My bankers, within certain reasonable limits and restrictions,
promised me their assistance, and I believed I would soon again be
on the highway to prosperity.
The first step was to raise the twenty-two thousand five hundred
dollars to complete the capitalization.
This seemed easy; why not? There was my friend Viedler; a man worth
several millions. He had been warmly sympathetic in his expressions
of regret at my misfortune. He and Mrs. Viedler had always shown a
cordial fondness for us, which we reciprocated. The social intimacy
had been close and always delightful.
At first I thought I would ask him for the entire amount, then
concluded to ask for five thousand dollars, really believing he
would comply with pleasure and offer more if wanted.
I wrote him asking for the money as a loan, telling him the purpose
for which it was wanted and offering to give him a lien on my
library, if he so desired, as security.
By return mail came a brief reply, typewritten and signed by his
secretary: "Mr. Viedler makes no more personal loans."
That was the sum and substance of the communication, and the first
intimation I had that another friend had deserted us. It was such
a surprise that I did not fully realize the fact until I had re-read
the letter.
Some months later I was informed, to my complete astonishment, that
Mr. Viedler had some feeling against me because I had not protected
him on that note for five thousand dollars he held and which it will
be remembered I gave to Banford in 1893 without any consideration
and solely as a matter of accommodation to him. The pearls which
I held as security for the money due me from Banford, had been, at
Viedler's request, consigned to him for sale, under an agreement
by which Banford was to pay out of the proceeds to Mr. Viedler the
amount of the note with interest. At the time of the consignment
I handed to Mr. Viedler's secretary an order on Banford directing
him to do this.
If Mr. Viedler had considered that note my liability it is most
singular he did not demand payment at its maturity early in 1894.
As soon as I learned of his feelings in the matter I wrote him on
the subject and asked for an interview that we might go into every
detail of the transaction. This he declined, and it became evident
to me he knew there was no cause for the feeling he claimed to
have, and his refusing to aid me was simply for the reason he did
not want to, which, of course, was his indisputable right.
Well; Viedler had failed me, who next?
On my desk, amongst the letters of sympathy received immediately
after my failure, was one from a prominent Wall Street man, whom
I had known for many years and who for a time had been one of
my neighbors at Knollwood. I wrote to him about the same as I had
written Viedler.
The return mail brought his reply, written personally, expressing
regret that he was "unable to assist me as he was a large borrower
himself."
All stock brokers are large borrowers in their business, but here
was an instance in which this universal custom was given as an
excuse for not making a loan of five thousand dollars to a friend
in trouble.
And who was this man? Here is what Thomas W. Lawson had to say of
him in one of the chapters of "Frenzied Finance":
J*** M*** deserves more than a mere passing mention here, for he was
at this time a distinguished Wall Street character and one of the
ablest practitioners of finance in the Country. During the last
fifteen years of his life, M*** was party to more confidential
jobs and deals than all other contemporaneous financiers, and he
handled them with great skill and high art. Big, jolly, generous,
a royal eater and drinker, an associate of the rich, the friend of
the poor, a many-times millionaire.
Another friend off the list--but there were many left. Now for the
next one. "The third time a charm"--perhaps.
Again I turned to the letters on my desk. This time I took up one
from a former mayor of New York. A man widely known, politically,
socially, and as a philanthropist.
His kind letter when received had been a pleasant surprise to me.
I had known him but a few years and could not claim a very close
intimacy, though he had always been most cordial and our families
were acquainted. As I re-read his letter it seemed to me as if it
invited me to address him under just such circumstances as then
existed.
Again, and for the third time, my messenger went forth seeking for
the friend who would help a man when he is down.
The reply came promptly enough and brought me the information that
my friend did not "desire to invest in any new business."
I had not asked him to; my request was for a loan, but his answer
was all-sufficient.
Despondency followed. Where is the use? I asked myself. "To succeed
is to win fame; to fail, a crime." "The world has no use for an
unsuccessful man." Thus I gave up the attempt to raise a sum of
money that, before I made the effort, seemed but a trifle, "light
as air."
During the summer two of our Connecticut friends, who had been
members of the syndicate, between them made me a loan of six thousand
dollars, and this gave me a capital of eighty-five hundred dollars.
With this I attempted to save what I could of the enormous business
I had built up. How absurd it seemed, and yet my courage was far
from gone.