CULMINATION OF CONSPIRACY--BLACK FRIDAY.
September is the memorable month of the gold conspiracy in Wall street.
Between the 20th of August and the first of September, Gould, in
company with Woodward and Kimber, two large speculators, made a pool
to raise the premium on gold, and some ten or fifteen millions were
bought, but with very little effect on the price.
[Illustration: “BLACK FRIDAY” IN WALL STREET.]
An event now took place which would have seemed to justify the implicit
belief of an Erie treasurer in the corruptibility of all mankind.
The unsuspicious President again passed through New York, and came
to breakfast at Mr. Corbin’s house on the 2d of September. He saw no
one but Mr. Corbin while there, and the same evening at ten o’clock,
departed for Saratoga. Mr. Gould declared afterward, however, that he
was told by Mr. Corbin that the President, in discussing the financial
situation, had shown himself a convert to the Erie theory about
marketing the crops, and had stopped in the middle of a conversation
in which he had expressed his views and written a letter to Secretary
Boutwell. In regard to this letter, Secretary Boutwell testified as
follows:
“I think on the evening of the 4th of September I received a letter
from the President, dated at New York, as I recollect it; I am not sure
where it was dated. In that letter he expressed an opinion that it was
undesirable to force down the price of gold. He spoke of the importance
to the West of being able to move their crops. His idea was that if
gold should fall, the West should suffer and the movement of the crop
would be retarded. The impression made on my mind by the letter was
that he had rather a strong opinion to that effect. Upon the receipt
of the President’s letter, I telegraphed to Judge Richardson, ‘Send no
order to Butterfield as to sales of gold until you hear from me.’”
Mr. Gould had therefore succeeded in reversing the policy of the
National Government, but this was not all. He knew what the government
would do before any officer of the government knew it. Mr. Gould was
at Corbin’s house on the 2d of September, and it seems certain that
he saw Corbin privately, unknown to the President, within an hour or
two after this letter to Mr. Boutwell was written, and that it was at
this interview, while the President was still in the house, that Mr.
Corbin gave him the information about the letter, perhaps showed him
the letter itself. It was immediately at this time that Gould bought
$1,500,000 worth of gold for Corbin.
No time was lost, and from this day Gould bought largely of gold. He
did everything to give the public the impression that the government
was behind the “deal.” An article written by Corbin was published as
an editorial in the _Times_ and attracted attention, as the editor,
John Bigelow, had just had a conversation with the President and was
supposed to speak with authority. Notwithstanding the authorship of the
article, it is just to say that the _Times_ detected the odor of Wall
street about it and quarantined the article before making it public.
Its effectiveness for Gould was much lessened. Gould wrote to Boutwell
with a view of obtaining an official statement from him, but received
a reply that said little and that diplomatically. Meanwhile Gould
had been buying millions in gold and had formed a pool that bought
millions more. That the movement was fictitious is shown by the fact
that the impression on prices was comparatively small. Fisk looked on
incredulously. “The country is against you,” was his criticism of the
scheme.
Down to this moment Jim Fisk had not appeared in the affair. It was
not until after September 10th that Gould appears to have decided that
there was nothing else to be done but to take him into confidence. Fisk
immediately bought seven or eight millions and the market began to
respond slowly to these enormous purchases.
“Meanwhile Mr. Gould had placed another million and a half of gold
to the account of Gen. Butterfield and notified him of the purchase;
so Mr. Gould swears, in spite of Gen. Butterfield’s denial. The date
of this purchase is not fixed. Through Mr. Corbin a notice was also
sent by Gould about the middle of September to the President’s private
secretary, Gen. Porter, informing him that half a million was placed
to his credit. Gen. Porter instantly wrote to repudiate his purchase,
but it does not appear that Butterfield took any notice of Gould’s
transaction on his account. On the 10th of September the President had
again come to New York, where he remained his brother-in-law’s guest
till the 13th, and during this visit Mr. Gould appears again to have
seen him, although Mr. Corbin avers that on this occasion the President
intimated his wish to the servant that this should be the last time Mr.
Gould obtain admission.
“Things were now so managed that the President was placed in a position
that his honor was seriously in danger of being compromised, yet so
ably was the matter engineered that he was perfectly unconscious of
the designs of the plotters. He was prevailed upon to go to a then
obscure town in Pennsylvania, named Little Washington. The thing was so
arranged that his feelings were worked upon to visit that place for the
purpose of seeing an old friend who resided there. The town was cut off
from telegraphic communications, and the other means of access were not
very convenient. The President set out on his journey on the morning of
the 13th, and there he was ensconced to remain for a week or so, about
the time the Cabal was fully prepared for action.
“Gould then said to Fisk: ‘This matter is all fixed up. Butterfield
is all right. Corbin has got Butterfield all right and Corbin has got
Grant fixed all right, and in my opinion they are all interested
together.’
“This was patriotism with a vengeance. Just think of the audacity of
it! Gould enters into a scheme to place the President in a position
where he could not interfere with the plan of getting a ‘corner’ on
gold, and then he turns around and accuses the first magistrate of the
republic with being privy to a plot that was calculated to create a
panic and cause widespread disaster in business circles and make him an
object of universal contempt.”
Some of the members of the pool got frightened and sold out, but Gould
continued to buy. “I had to buy,” testified Gould afterward, “or show
the white feather. The other fellows deserted me like rats.” Gould had
the material aid of the Tenth National Bank, an institution which he
owned and which he used as an adjunct to his speculative operations.
The extent to which he used it in the gold conspiracy was shown by the
fact that it in one day overcertified Gould’s checks to the amount
of $7,500,000. Garfield called this bank “a manufactory of certified
checks.”
As Gould bought the bears sold “short” and the battle became intensely
exciting.
Fisk’s assistance was as valuable as Gould expected it to be. He took
no stock in the crop theory, but the idea of making the administration
a partner in the diabolical enterprise seems to have attracted him.
“Nothing,” said Garfield in his report to Congress, “nothing but the
scent of corruption could sharpen the appetite of Fisk for the game
his leader (Gould) was pursuing. The compounded villainy presented by
Gould and Corbin was too tempting a bait.” So Fisk was drawn into the
movement when his aid was most needed. This corner was a glittering
edifice built on a foundation of deceit and corruption. It could not
long stand. The most that Gould and Fisk could do was to frighten the
“shorts” into covering before Grant awakened to the realization of how
he was being used and issue orders to sell gold. Wall street was soon
filled with rumors that the administration was in the deal and the
excitement ran high.
“The malign influence,” says the Congressional report already quoted,
“which Cataline wielded over the reckless and abandoned youth of Rome
finds a fitting parallel in the power which Fisk held in Wall street
when, followed by the thugs of Erie and the debauchees of the opera, he
swept into the gold-room and defied both the street and the Treasury.”
The magnitude of the conspiracy is shown by the fact that before Black
Friday Gould had employed fifty to sixty brokers to make his purchases,
and $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 of gold had been bought by William Heath
& Co., Woodward, H. K. Enos, E. K. Willard, and others of the brokers.
He required all this to advance the price of gold from 135½ to 140½.
Fisk’s entrance into the game was a powerful help to Gould, for it
not only furnished another purchaser for gold, but directed public
attention from himself to Fisk. The ex-peddler loved to bask in the
sun of public notoriety. Gould was timid, but Fisk had the brazen
courage of a courtesan.
Gould and Fisk now became exceedingly nervous over the firmness of the
President’s policy. He induced Mr. Corbin to write a letter directly
to the President himself. This letter, written on the seventeenth,
under the influence of Gould’s anxiety, was instantly sent away by a
special messenger of Fisk’s, who rode twenty-eight miles on horseback
from Pittsburg, and delivered it in person to the President. He read
the letter, and had his suspicions at once aroused. He said laconically
to the messenger: “It is satisfactory; there is no answer.” He began
to see through the game, and at once desired Mrs. Grant to write to
Mrs. Corbin requesting her husband to have nothing more to do with the
Gould-Fisk gang.
The messenger telegraphed “All right” to the conspirators.
“We now come to the week which was to witness the explosion of all this
elaborately constructed mine. On Monday the 20th, gold again rose.
Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, Fisk continued to purchase without
limit and forced the price up to 40. At this time, Gould’s firm of
Smith, Gould & Martin, through which the operation was conducted, had
purchased some $50,000,000, and yet the bears went on selling, although
they could only continue the contest by borrowing Gould’s own gold.
Gould, on the other hand, could no longer sell and clear himself, for
the reason that the sale of $50,000,000 would have broken the market to
nothing. The struggle had become intense. The whole country was looking
on with astonishment at the battle between the bulls and the bears. All
business was deranged and all values unsettled. There were indications
of a panic in the stock market; and the bears, in their emergency,
were vehemently pressing the government to intervene. Gould now wrote
to Mr. Boutwell a letter so inconceivably impudent that it indicates
desperation and entire loss of his ordinary coolness:
“Sir: There is a panic in Wall street, engineered by a bear
combination. They have withdrawn currency to such an extent that it is
impossible to do ordinary business. The Erie company requires $800,000
to disburse. Much of it in Ohio, where an exciting political contest
was going on and where we have about ten thousand employed, and the
trouble is charged on the administration. Cannot you consistently
increase your line of currency?”
From a friend, such a letter would have been an outrage, but from a
member of the Tammany ring, the principal object of detestation to the
government, such a threat or bribe, whichever it may be called, was
incredible. Mr. Gould was, in fact, at his wits’ end. He dreaded a
panic and felt that it could no longer be avoided.
The conspirators interpreted the telegram from their messenger, reading
“all right” to mean a favorable answer to the letter, and they were
much elated. But the President, supposing that the messenger was
only a clerk from the post-office, had said “all right” merely to
indicate that he had received the letter and required his presence
no longer. His suspicions were aroused after the messenger had left,
when he ascertained that he had brought the letter at post-haste all
the way from New York. That night Mrs. Grant wrote to Mrs. Corbin a
note stating that the President had heard that Mr. Corbin was engaged
in Wall street speculations, and if it were true he desired that he
should immediately dissociate himself from them. This letter filled
Gould with consternation. He and Corbin sat in the latter’s house
all night reading and rereading the note and endeavoring to grasp
the meaning between the lines. “If you show that note,” said Gould,
finally, “I am a ruined man.” Corbin said he must obey orders and leave
the street, but he insisted Gould should first take up the gold held
in Corbin’s name and pay him the profits. Corbin had already received
a check for $25,000. But Gould had already all the gold he wanted, and
after standing for a while in silence by the door, his brow black with
mystery, he left the house.
The game was up. One stroke of a woman’s pen had punctured the dazzling
bubble. A word from the President was sufficient to collapse the
biggest corner on record. How to save himself? That was the question
which, with knit brow and lips compressed with hidden excitement, Gould
debated as he returned home that night. No thought for others who
were deep in the game with himself. No thought for Fisk, his friend
and associate. His mind labored for himself alone. He soon reached
a conclusion. While there was yet time he would dump his heavy load
of gold on the market and let others take what he could not carry.
His only capital now was the early information he possessed of the
President’s aroused suspicions; of his change of purpose. He did
not tell even Fisk of Mrs. Grant’s letter to Mrs. Corbin, but let
Fisk continue his purchases in ignorance of the real situation. He
only remarked to Fisk that Corbin was getting weary and wanted his
profits, or something to that purpose. Thursday--the day preceding
Black Friday--Gould began his dumping process. “I sold that day,” he
testified afterward, “and only bought enough to make the street think I
was still a bull.”
Here is Mr. Clews’ story of days immediately preceding the fatal Friday.
“On Wednesday, the 22d of September, two days preceding ‘Black Friday,’
the clique, it is believed, owned several millions more gold than
there was in the city, outside the vaults of the sub-treasury. Belden
bought about eight millions of gold on that day, while Smith, Gould,
Martin & Co. were also heavy purchasers. The clique held a caucus in
the office of Wm. Heath & Co. in Broad street and concluded that it had
gold enough to put the price to 200 if it could carry the gold without
lending and compel the shorts to purchase. But the idea of finding a
market for over thirty millions of gold was also a gigantic problem,
and they felt the risk of being ground between the upper and the nether
millstones of their scheme.
“On the morning of Thursday another council of war was held in the
office of Belden & Co., on Broadway. At this meeting, Gould, Fisk,
Henry N. Smith and William Belden were present. The proceedings of this
meeting were kept a profound secret, but one result of it was that
Belden gave his clerk the famous order to put gold to 144 and keep it
there. On that day Belden purchased about twenty millions of gold, the
price opening at 141½ and closing at 143½.
“The chiefs of the Cabal had another private meeting up town that
evening. The great question of closing up the transactions on the
following day was the chief topic of discussion. These operators held
contracts for over $100,000,000 in gold. Gould said that the ‘short’
interest was $250,000,000. The total amount of gold in the city did not
exceed $25,000,000, and the difference between this and the aggregate
amount of the contracts of the clique was the enormous amount that
would have to be settled in the event of a ‘corner.’
“Fisk proposed that the clique show its hand, publish the state of
affairs, and offer to settle with the shorts at 150. His plan was
rejected by his brother conspirators.”
And now opens that remarkable day in September, 1869, known as “Black
Friday.” Wall street has passed through other days of excitement and
calamity, but even the panic days of 1873 and 1884 pale before the
awful passion and fury of Black Friday.
The New York _World_ of September 25, 1869, thus describes the day:
“The scene during the conflict almost beggars description and exceeds
anything ever before witnessed in Wall street. It was a tussle of
enormous magnitude, fierce and desperate. It was a day long to be
remembered and not easily forgotten by those who witnessed it or were
caught in the maelstrom that carried everything before it.”
The conspirators were early in the street, and the offices of Smith,
Gould & Martin, Fisk & Belden and William Heath & Co. were the center
of enormous excitement. William Belden, who was Fisk’s partner,
played a conspicuous part in this day’s history. He was a man cool
and daring--the fit companion of such men as Gould and Fisk. The day,
however, left a stain on his record that could never be obliterated,
and when, in 1888, Belden formed a co-partnership with a member of the
Stock Exchange, the governing committee of the institution stated that
unless the member severed his partnership with Belden he must leave the
Exchange.
Gould, Fisk, Belden and their brokers held a counsel of war and laid
out the work of the day. Heath was to look after this, Willard was
to attend to that, Belden was to direct this and Fisk was to direct
that, while “Gould”--the language of the Congressional report is now
quoted--“Gould, the guilty plotter of all these criminal proceedings,
determined to betray his own associates, and silent and imperturbable,
by nods and whispers directed all.” “I determined,” said Mr. Gould
afterward, “not to open my mouth that day, and I did not.”
What a study for a dramatic painter Gould would have made that day!
There was undoubtedly some secret understanding between Fisk and Belden
to which Gould was a party, by which all the orders given that day
could be repudiated if the market went against them. A ready tool was
found in Albert Speyer, who accepted verbal orders from Belden in the
presence of Gould and Fisk to buy, and who went into the board-room and
did buy immense quantities of gold at the highest prices. The street
was filled with the wildest rumors. Prices rapidly advanced to 165.
The shorts trembled before the rising tide that seemed about to sweep
over them. Many were frightened into covering their contracts. Gould
continued to sell. Fisk and Belden continued to buy. The excitement
rose point by point to the wildest pitch. Old operators lost their
heads, men rushed hatless and half crazy through the streets, their
eyes bloodshot, their faces pale with anxiety, their brains on fire.
There came rumors of contemplated selling of gold by the Treasury,
and the street went mad. Where these rumors started no one ever knew,
but they were the forerunners of actual fact. James Brown, the Scotch
banker, appeared in the board and began to offer gold at declining
figures. Then the earthquake started, and the golden edifice built by
Gould began to tumble. Soon the Treasury order to sell $4,000,000 of
gold appeared, and then the terrible collapse. Prices fell from 165
to 133½. The board-room was the scene of contending furies. Albert
Speyer completely lost control of himself; his hair is said to have
turned white that night after he went home a ruined man. Wall and Broad
streets were filled with men wild with excitement. Infuriated mobs
surrounded the offices of Fisk & Belden and Smith, Gould & Martin.
Threats of violence were made. Speyer went about saying: “Some one has
threatened to shoot me. Let him shoot.” The Gold Exchange Bank was
obliged to suspend operations. Its clearances that day amounted to
over $300,000,000 of gold. Trading was stopped in the Gold Board. Fisk
& Belden suspended and their contracts were repudiated. The fortunes
of hundreds were swept away in that day’s battle. Several firms were
driven to the wall and announced their failures. The administration was
involved in suspicion which it took years to remove. The nation was
disgraced and its credit was broken.
But Gould, “the guilty plotter of all these criminal proceedings,” went
home saved. What he made or what he lost in that struggle is unknown,
but though he had involved others in ruin and had betrayed others, he
had saved himself from overthrow. To have gone down in the fight would
have been a display of heroism. To save himself alone from the wreck
was dishonor.
It is not strange that in his sworn autobiography delivered to the
Committee on Labor and Education, Mr. Gould omitted all mention of
Black Friday, but when as a witness before the Committee on Corners
he was asked about the Black Friday panic, he calmly said that it
was the “result of overtrading,” and that its real cause was “the
fluctuations in the price of gold caused by the war!” It is a singular
coincidence that exactly twenty-two years after Black Friday, on the
very anniversary of the day in 1891, Gould caused another big flurry in
Wall street. After several years of depression, a “boom” in stocks was
in progress, when the sudden announcement was made that the Missouri
Pacific, of which Gould was president, would pass its dividend. The
announcement caused a revolution in prices and the “boom” completely
collapsed.
Mr. Clews tells a graphic story of what he saw:
“On the morning of the fatal day, Belden and William Heath had an early
breakfast together at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and repaired immediately
to their offices. Belden announced that gold was going to 200. ‘This
will be the last day of the Gold Room,’ he added. Moved by Belden’s
threat, a large number rushed to cover. In the language of Henry N.
Smith, ‘They came on with a rush to settle.’ He was settling in the
office of Smith, Gould & Martin, at 150 to 145, while Albert Speyer,
acting as broker for Fisk and Gould, was bidding up to 160 for a
million at a time. It was only when the price came down to 133 that
Speyer realized the humorous absurdity of his position. He had then
bought 26 millions since morning at 160.
“A voracious demand for margins about midday brought the work to a
crisis. The scene at the office of Heath was indescribable when Belden
went there to see Gould and his confederates, to find out what was
to be done next with the frenzied purchasers. An eye-witness thus
describes the scene at Heath’s office: ‘I went outside while Belden
went in. I walked up and down the alley-way waiting for him to come
out. Deputy sheriffs, or men appearing to be such, began to arrive and
to mount guard at Heath’s office to keep out visitors. After waiting
a prodigious long time, as it seemed to me, Jay Gould came creeping
out of the back door, and looking round sharply to see if he was
watched, slunk off through a private rear passage behind the buildings.
Presently came Fisk, steaming hot and shouting. He took the wrong
direction at first, nearly ran into Broad street, but soon discovered
his error and followed Gould through the rear passage. Then came
Belden, with hair disordered and red eyes, as if he had been crying. He
called: ‘Which way have they gone?’ and upon my pointing the direction,
he ran after them. The rear passage led into Wall street. At its exit
the conspirators jumped into a carriage and fled the street.”
They did not fly the street, however, but went to the Broad street
office of Smith, Gould & Martin, where the crowd assembled, evidently
with riotous intent, apparently bent upon an application to Judge
Lynch for justice; and had any of the gentlemen appeared outside the
confines of the front wall, the chances were that the lamp-post near by
would have very soon been decorated with a breathless body. To insure
their safety inside, however, a small police force kept guard outside,
which made the barricade complete. These gentlemen remained under
this shelter until the small hours of the morning, busily endeavoring
to find out where they stood in the result of the gold deal; and the
more they pondered over it, the greater grew the doubt in their minds
whether they were standing on their heads or their heels.”
The story told by Mr. Adams is also worthy of repetition as a graphic
description of the terrors of the day. Beginning with the morning
before, he says:
“It was the morning of Thursday, the 3d; Gould and Fisk went to Broad
street together, but as usual Gould was silent and secret, while Fisk
was noisy and communicative. There was now a complete separation in
their movements. Gould acted entirely through his own firm of Smith,
Gould & Martin, while Fisk operated principally through his old
partner, Belden. One of Smith’s principal brokers testifies: ‘Fisk
never could do business with Smith, Martin & Gould very comfortably.
They would not do business for him. It was a very uncertain thing, of
course, where Fisk might be. He is an erratic sort of genius. I don’t
think anybody would want to follow him very long. I am satisfied that
Smith, Gould & Martin controlled their own gold and were ready to do
as they pleased with it without consulting Fisk. I do not think there
was any general agreement. None of us who knew him cared to do business
with him. I would not have taken an order from him nor had anything
to do with him.’ Belden was considered a very low fellow. ‘I never
had anything to do with him or his party,’ said one broker employed
by Gould. ‘They were men I had a perfect detestation of; they were no
company for me. I should not have spoken to them at all under ordinary
circumstances.’ Another says, ‘Belden is a man in whom I never had any
confidence in any way. For months before that I would not have taken
him for a gold transaction.’
“And yet Belden bought millions upon millions of gold. He himself
says he had bought twenty millions by this Thursday evening, and this
without capital or credit except that of his brokers. Meanwhile Gould,
on reaching the city, had at once given secret orders to sell. From the
moment he left Corbin he had but one idea, which was to get rid of his
gold as quietly as possible. ‘I purchased merely enough to make believe
I was a bull,’ says Gould. This double process continued all that
afternoon. Fisk’s wild purchases carried the price up to 144, and the
panic in the street became more and more serious as the bears realized
the extremity of their danger. No one can tell how much gold which
did not exist they had contracted to deliver or pay the difference in
price. One of the clique brokers swears that on this Thursday evening
the street had sold the clique one hundred and eighteen millions of
gold, and every rise of one per cent, on this sum implied a loss of
more than one million dollars to the bears. Naturally the terror was
extreme, for half Broad street and thousands of speculators would have
been ruined if compelled to settle gold at 150 which they had sold at
140. It need scarcely be said that by this time nothing more was heard
in regard to philanthropic theories of benefit to the western farmer.
“Mr. Gould’s feelings can easily be imagined. He knew that Fisk’s
reckless management would bring the government upon his shoulders,
and he knew that unless he could sell his gold before the order came
from Washington he would be a ruined man. He knew, too, that Fisk’s
contracts must inevitably be repudiated. This Thursday evening he sat
at his desk in the Erie offices at the opera house, while Fisk and
Fisk’s brokers chattered about him. ‘I was transacting my railroad
business. I had my own views about the market and my own fish to fry.
I was all alone, so to speak, in what I did, and I did not let any of
those people know exactly how I stood. I got no ideas from anything
that was said there. I had been selling gold from 35 up all the time,
and I did not know till the next morning that there would probably come
an order about twelve o’clock to sell gold.’ He had not told Fisk a
word in regard to Corbin’s retreat nor his own orders to sell.
“When the next day came, Gould and Fisk went together to Broad street
and took possession of the private back office of a principal broker,
‘without asking the privilege of doing so,’ as the broker observes
in his evidence. The first news brought to Gould was a disaster. The
government had sent three men from Washington to examine the bank which
Gould owned, and the bank sent word to Mr. Gould that it feared to
certify for him as usual, and was itself in danger of a panic, caused
by the presence of officers, which created distrust of the bank. It
barely managed to save itself. Gould took the information silently,
and his firm redoubled sales of gold. His partner, Smith, gave the
orders to one broker after another--‘Sell ten millions!’ ‘The order
was given as quick as a flash, and away he went,’ says one of these
men. ‘I sold only eight millions.’ ‘Sell, sell, sell! do nothing but
sell!--only don’t sell to Fisk’s brokers,’ were the orders which Smith
himself acknowledges. In the gold-room Fisk’s brokers were shouting
their rising bids, and the packed crowd grew frantic with rage and
terror as each successive rise showed their increasing losses. The
wide streets outside were thronged with excited people; the telegraph
offices were overwhelmed with messages ordering sales or purchases of
gold or stocks; and the whole nation was watching eagerly to see what
the result of this convulsion was to be. All trade was stopped, and
even the President felt that it was time to raise his hand. No one who
has not seen the New York gold-room can understand the spectacle it
presented; now a perfect pandemonium, now silent as the grave. Fisk, in
his dark back office across the street, with his coat off, swaggered
up and down, ‘a big cane in his hand,’ and called himself the Napoleon
of Wall street. He really believed that he directed the movement, and
while the street outside imagined that he and Gould were one family,
and that his purchases were made for the clique, Gould was silently
flinging away his gold at any price he could get for it.
“Whether Fisk really expected to carry out his contract, and force
the bears to settle or not, is doubtful, but the evidence seems to
show that he was in earnest and felt sure of success. His orders were
unlimited. ‘Put it up to 150,’ was one which he sent to the gold-room.
Gold rose to 150. At length the bid was made--‘160 for any part of
five millions,’--‘162 for five millions.’ No answer was made and the
offer was repeated--‘162 for any part of five millions.’ A voice
replied, ‘Sold one million at 62,’ The bubble suddenly burst, and
within fifteen minutes, amid an excitement without parallel even in the
wildest excitements of the war, the clique workers were literally swept
away and left struggling by themselves, bidding still 160 for gold in
millions which no one would any longer take their word for, while the
premium sank rapidly to 135. A moment later the telegraph brought the
government order from Washington to sell, and the result was no longer
possible to dispute. Mr. Fisk had gone too far, while Mr. Gould had
secretly weakened the ground under his feet.
“Gould, however, was saved. His fifty millions were sold; and although
no one yet knows what his gains or losses may have been, his firm was
now able to meet its contracts and protect its brokers. Fisk was in a
very different situation. So soon as it became evident that his brokers
would be unable to carry out their contracts, every one who had sold
gold to them turned in wrath to Fisk’s office. Fortunately for him it
was protected by armed men whom he had brought with him from his castle
of Erie; but nevertheless the excitement was so great that both Mr.
Fisk and Mr. Gould thought it best to retire as rapidly as possible to
a back entrance leading into another street, and seek the protection of
the opera house. There nothing but an army could disturb them; no civil
mandate was likely to be served without their permission within these
walls, and few men would care to face Fisk’s ruffians in order to force
an entrance.
“The subsequent winding up of this famous conspiracy may be stated
in few words. But no account could possibly be complete which failed
to reproduce in full the story of Mr. Fisk’s last interview with Mr.
Corbin, as told by Fisk himself. ‘I went down to the neighborhood of
Wall street Friday morning, and the history of that morning you know.
When I got back to our office, you can imagine I was in no enviable
state of mind, and the moment I got up street that afternoon I started
right around to old Corbin’s to rake him out. I went into the room and
sent word that Mr. Fisk wanted to see him in the dining-room. I was too
mad to say anything civil, and when he came into the room, said I, ‘You
damned old scoundrel, do you know what you have done here, you and your
people?’ He began to wring his hands, and ‘Oh!’ he says, ‘this is a
horrible position. Are you ruined?’ I said I didn’t know whether I was
or not; and I asked him again if he knew what had happened? He had been
crying, and said he had just heard; that he had been sure everything
was all right, but that something had occurred entirely different from
what he had anticipated. Said I, ‘That don’t amount to anything; we
know that gold ought not to be at 31, and that it would not be but
for such performances as you have had this last week; you know damned
well it would not if you had not failed.’ I knew that somebody had run
a saw right into us, and said I, ‘This whole damned thing has turned
out just as I told you it would.’ I considered the whole party a pack
of cowards, and I expected that when we came to clear our hands they
would sock it right into us. I said to him, ‘I don’t know whether you
have lied or not, and I don’t know what ought to be done with you.’
He was on the other side of the table, weeping and wailing, and I was
gnashing my teeth. ‘Now,’ he says, ‘you must quiet yourself.’ I told
him I didn’t want to be quiet. I had no desire to ever be quiet again,
and probably never should be quiet again. He says, ‘But, my dear sir,
you will lose your reason.’ Says I, ‘Speyers’ (a broker employed by
him that day) ‘has already lost his reason; reason has gone out of
everybody but me.’ I continued, ‘Now what are you going to do? You have
got us into this thing, and what are you going to do to get out of
it?’ He says, ‘I don’t know. I will go and get my wife.’ I said, ‘Get
her down here.’ The soft talk was all over. He went up stairs and they
returned, tottling into the room, looking older than Stephen Hopkins.
His wife and he both looked like death. He was tottling just like that.
(Illustrated by a trembling movement of the body.) ‘I have never seen
him from that day to this.’
“This is sworn evidence before a committee of Congress, and its humor
is perhaps the more conspicuous because there is every reason to
believe that there is not a word of truth in the story from beginning
to end. No such interview ever occurred, except in the unconfined
apartments of Mr. Fisk’s imagination. His own previous statements make
it certain that he was not at Corbin’s house at all that day, and
that Corbin did come to the Erie offices that evening and again the
next morning. Corbin himself denies the truth of the account without
limitation; and adds that when he entered the Erie offices the next
morning, Fisk was there. ‘I asked him how Mr. Gould felt after the
great calamity of the day before.’ He remarked, ‘Oh, he has no courage
at all. He has sunk right down. There is nothing left of him but a heap
of clothes and a pair of eyes.’ The internal evidence of truth in this
anecdote would support Mr. Corbin against the world.
“In regard to Mr. Gould, Fisk’s graphic description was probably
again inaccurate. Undoubtedly the noise and scandal of the moment
were extremely unpleasant to this silent and impenetrable intriguer.
The city was in a ferment, and the whole country pointing at him with
wrath. The machinery of the gold exchange had broken down, and he alone
could extricate the business community from the pressing danger of a
general panic. He had saved himself, it is true; but in a manner which
could not have been to his taste. Yet his course from this point must
have been almost self-evident to his mind, and there is no reason to
suppose that he hesitated.”
“His own contracts were all fulfilled. Fisk’s contracts all except
one, in respect to which the broker was able to compel a settlement,
were repudiated. Gould probably suggested to Fisk that it was better
to let Belden fail, and to settle a handsome fortune on him than to
sacrifice something more than $5,000,000 in sustaining him. Fisk,
therefore, threw Belden over, and swore that he had acted only under
Belden’s order. One of the first acts of the Erie gentlemen after the
crisis was to summon their lawyers and set in action their judicial
powers. The object was to prevent the panic-stricken brokers from using
legal process to force settlements and to render the entanglement
inextricable. Messrs. Field & Shearman came and instantly prepared a
considerable number of injunctions, which were sent to their judges,
signed at once, and immediately served. Gould then was able to dictate
the terms of settlement, and after a week of complete paralysis, Broad
street began at last to show signs of returning life.
“The fate of the conspirators was not severe. Mr. Corbin went to
Washington, where he was snubbed by the President, and at once
disappeared from public view, only coming to light again before the
congressional committee. General Butterfield, whose share in the
transaction is least understood, was permitted to resign his office
without any investigation. Speculation for the next six months was at
an end. Every person involved in the affair seemed to have lost money,
and dozens of brokers were swept from the street. But Mr. Jay Gould and
Mr. James Fisk, Jr., continued to reign over Erie, and no one can say
that their power or their credit was sensibly diminished by a shock
which, for the time, prostrated all the interests of the country.”