THE LIFE OF A WALL STREET KING.
While it is true that the story of Jay Gould’s career in Wall street is
closely allied with his outside operations, a full account of which has
already been given, there still remain many other incidents connected
directly with his work on the street of unusual interest. Out of this
mass of material but two or three incidents of the most commanding
interest can be used.
[Illustration: GOULD’S BIRTHPLACE, AND HIS PALACE ON THE HUDSON.]
The most dramatic of these was the pommeling of Jay Gould by Major A.
A. Selover in August, 1877. Selover was a Californian, a six-footer,
a blond, muscular and vigorous. He first attained prominence in Wall
street when James R. Keene came East after his successful mining
operations in San Francisco, by which he achieved a fortune of
$8,000,000. Keene was a daring, almost foolhardy stock gambler. He
always played for big stakes and took enormous chances. His success
in San Francisco had been so great that he entered Wall street with
the idea of clearing all before him. He tackled Gould as the biggest
animal in the arena, but found to his sorrow that he had to deal with
a man more able than he, scarcely less daring but far more cautious.
In a few short years Keene’s wealth had dwindled away, and early in
1884 he failed, owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the shape
of “puts,” “calls” and “straddles.” He dropped at the rate of about a
million dollars a year in Wall street, and no small proportion of this
found its way into the pockets of Gould. Yet Keene at one time was
thought to have outmatched Gould. Selover introduced Keene to Gould,
and acted as go-between for them in certain operations in which both
were interested. Early in 1877 the two men combined forces in one deal.
That is to say, they joined in one enterprise and fought each other
behind each other’s back. It was a case of diamond cut diamond. Keene
formed a big pool, and, beginning to fight Gould, finally went over to
him, being led into this change largely through the instrumentality
of Selover. Both Keene and Selover then operated on an understanding
with Gould, but soon found, as they charged, that Gould was secretly
selling them out. Gould and Keene had a stormy scene in Russell
Sage’s office, when the latter is said to have brandished a pistol
in Gould’s face. The deal had been mainly in Western Union, which
Gould did not then control, and Atlantic and Pacific, which he did
control. Gould’s double-dealing not only made Keene very mad, but made
Selover very desperate. He had placed reliance in Gould’s statements
and had suffered loss, and resolved upon revenge. Accordingly, on the
2d of August, 1877, while walking down Exchange place from Broadway,
Selover, meeting Gould walking up to the office of Belden & Co., No.
80 Broadway, of which he was then a partner, first engaged him in
what appeared to be an amicable conversation, but soon resulted in an
assault. Selover first struck Gould in the face and then dropped him
over an areaway at No. 65 Exchange place, which was seven or eight feet
deep. Mr. Gould was a good deal shaken up, but not seriously injured.
Selover left to go to his brokers and Gould proceeded to transact his
business as usual. He was assisted from the areaway, singularly enough,
by George Crouch, who has been identified with several incidents in
Gould’s career from the days of Erie and Black Friday to the Kansas
Pacific criminal prosecution, and who was one-third artist, one-third
newspaper man and one-third speculator. The Selover incident created
an immense sensation at the time, and the newspapers printed columns
about it. Selover became quite a hero, for while there was nothing very
courageous in his assault from a physical point of view, as he was more
than a match for timid Mr. Gould, yet to attack Gould was considered
by many an act of moral bravery. Selover declared that he had attacked
Gould because Gould had been guilty of fraud, lying and duplicity.
Gould, he said, had made arrangements with him to go short on Western
Union, and while he (Selover) was selling accordingly in good faith
he discovered that Gould was buying heavily. When he learned of this
he determined to punish him the first time he met him, and so he had
charged him with the fraud and slapped his face. “I attacked him on my
own account alone,” he added, “and regardless of the fact that he had
played Jim Keene the same trick. He is notoriously treacherous, and
this is not the first time he has been punished for the same offense.”
Poor Mr. Selover never amounted to very much in Wall street after this,
though he continued to be seen there daily. Gould, after this incident,
rarely appeared in the street unless accompanied by stalwart G. P.
Morosini.
It is related that not long after this Keene came near getting his
revenge on Gould. The latter was putting all his energies into Union
Pacific, and carrying $22,000,000 of the stock, mostly in margins.
Keene organized an opposition party and nearly succeeded in breaking
Gould. Sage, however, came to the latter’s assistance with $2,000,000
of much-needed cash, and Gould was saved. Keene’s purpose was to drive
Gould from the street forever, but he not only failed, but in a few
years he was himself a bankrupt, with Gould more powerful and richer
than ever.
Rumors of Gould’s death and of his impending bankruptcy were not
infrequently circulated in Wall street. Rumors of death could be easily
disproved, but once, at least, the street was firmly convinced that
Gould was in financial difficulties, and Gould was obliged to exhibit
his wealth in order to prove that he was solvent. On March 13, 1882,
Gould exhibited to Sage, Field and Frank Work his box of securities,
to show that he was not only solid, but also had not been a seller of
stocks. He exhibited to the astonished vision of these associates
$23,000,000 of Western Union, $12,000,000 of Missouri Pacific, and
$19,000,000 of other stocks. Russell Sage said: “There is not another
man in America except Vanderbilt who could make such a display of stock
as that.” In 1884 Gould made another exhibition of his securities to
John T. Terry and others, and the display was even bigger than two
years before.
The panic of 1884 is believed to have caused Mr. Gould much anxiety.
It came suddenly and without warning. There had been earlier in the
year, it is true, the collapse and resignation of Henry Villard, soon
followed by the failure of James R. Keene, but these disasters would
not have produced the financial earthquake that shook Wall street
in May. The failure of the Marine Bank and Grant & Ward, with the
revelations which followed of embezzlement on a scale never before
witnessed in the street, and the suspension on the memorable 13th
and 14th of the month of the Metropolitan Bank, George I. Seney and
seven or eight prominent banking-houses in this city and two banks
in Brooklyn and Newark, caused a panic like that of 1869 and 1873,
and from the depressing effects of which the street did not rally
for several years. Gould’s fortune melted like snow in the decline
of values which accompanied this panic. He came out of it probably
$20,000,000 poorer than when it began. But this loss, it is true, was
chiefly on paper. He was able to hold most of his securities, the value
of which afterward increased. But it is believed that he was at one
time very hotly pressed. His associate, Russell Sage, lost millions
in the decline by his operations in puts and calls. His office was
besieged by a mob clamorous for their profits. The old man reluctantly
paid up, and, badly scared and sick at heart, retired from the street
for a while, hoarding the $40,000,000 or $45,000,000 which was still
left to solace him.
The men who chiefly profited by the great decline were Charles F.
Woerishoffer and Addison Cammack, the leaders of a small but powerful
bear party, which for several years had been preparing for this
depression, and by all the bear tactics, of which they were masters,
assisting in the downward movement. They were two men of mark.
Woerishoffer was the superior in mind and nerve. When he died in 1886,
while under forty years of age, he was worth, it is said, $8,000,000 to
$10,000,000, the result of his daring speculation. He was probably the
ablest stock speculator Wall street has ever seen, not excepting Gould,
whose principal success, it should be remembered, was in operations
outside of the street. Woerishoffer was by birth a German, and was the
son-in-law of Oswald Ottendorfer. Some of the most successful men in
Wall street, it may be remarked, are Germans or of German descent, as
for instance Villard, who after his collapse in 1884 had recovered in
1888 the ground he had lost; August Belmont, the banker, the Wormsers
and the Seligmans. Cammack was a man of much coarser nature than
Woerishoffer. He came originally from the South, and the Wall street
tradition was that he had been a slave-driver by profession. Gruff
in his manner, uncouth in his language, he yet had qualities as a
speculator which made him a power in the street. These two men, with
their following, are believed to have very nearly driven Gould to the
wall in 1884, and the story is that Gould might have gone down if
Cammack, of all men, had not relented. This story, like many others
told in Wall street, probably has a mixture of truth and fiction. In
1887 and 1888 Cammack was very evidently in alliance with Gould in
stock operations.
Gould was not a member of the Stock Exchange, though he was often the
biggest customer the institution had. He was, however, almost always
in general or special partnership with some member of the Exchange and
thus obtained all the advantages of personal membership. After the
dissolution of the house of Smith, Gould & Martin, Gould became the
silent partner in the firm of William Belden & Co. This was succeeded
by the famous house of W. E. Connor & Co., which lasted about ten years
and which engineered some of Mr. Gould’s most successful deals. At
the time Mr. Gould retired from the firm, in 1886, it was composed of
himself as special partner and of Washington E. Connor, G. P. Morosini
and George J. Gould, the great operator’s eldest son. Mr. Connor was
the ideal broker and perhaps the most valuable lieutenant Mr. Gould
ever had. Not overscrupulous in carrying out the interests of his
master, he was faithful to the last minute to him. Tempting offers
were made to buy him off at various times, and he might have made
several fortunes in betraying the confidences of his chief, but it is
believed he was always true. Like Morosini, he allied his interest
to those of Gould and profited by the connection. When the firm
dissolved, Gould said of his partners: “Both are very rich men. Mr.
Connor is worth at least a million and Mr. Morosini two or three times
as much. The new firm will have my heartiest good will in whatever it
undertakes. Between Mr. Connor, Mr. Morosini and myself there has never
been an interruption of good feeling.”
Mr. Connor was not only faithful, but quick and shrewd in his
judgments. Upon him rested nearly all the details of the best
operations of the house. These operations often required the assistance
of fifty or sixty brokers. Often these brokers did not know that they
were working for the same client. Sometimes they were ignorant even
of the fact that Gould was their client. The prime necessity in great
stock operations is to conceal one’s movements. Sometimes a part of the
brokers might be selling and a part might be buying. Gould and Connor
alone held the strings of the intricate operations. One of the first
great successful movements the house undertook was in Kansas Pacific
in 1879. The stock within a period of a few months shot up from 8 to
97, and the bonds from 10 to 110. Gould cleared nearly $10,000,000 by
this operation. The most brilliant feat accomplished by the house was
performed when Gould acquired Western Union. Mr. Gould for a long time,
as has been related, had been an uncompromising bear on the stock. The
whole street was aware that he and his firm were heavily short of the
stock. Suddenly the stock began to rush up. Gould was caught for once,
it was said. The truth was that Connor had engineered the movement and
Gould had not only bought in all his shorts but purchased enough stock
to give him control of the company. It was also this house that pushed
Western Union up from 78 to 91 and pushed Henry Smith and other bears
to cover their shorts at a heavy loss. It also handled the elevated
railway deals.
While Gould and the Beldens were in partnership at No. 80 Broadway,
Connor had a small office in the rear. He was bright, sharp, sagacious,
reticent and nearly as well informed as Gould himself. Gould was
drawn to Connor naturally, and when the former fell out with the
Beldens he and Connor formed a co-partnership. Mr. Morosini for many
years had been Mr. Gould’s man Friday, and was invariably seen with
a large canvas bag following his employer to the safe deposit vaults
and protecting him against any repetition of the Selover attack.
Morosini went into the new firm, whose limitation only ran from year
to year. Connor and Morosini put in $100,000 each, and Gould, as
special partner, $250,000. George Gould was admitted in 1881, but
without paying in a cent. Although the nominal capital of the house at
all times has been $450,000, the actual capital, at times of great
activity on ’Change, ran up into the millions.
But Mr. Connor was not Gould’s only broker. Charles J. Osborn was for
years one of Gould’s closest lieutenants and associates, and a more
dashing broker never stepped into the Stock Exchange. William Heath,
“the antelope of Wall street,” as he was called because of his long
legs and slender body, was also long a favorite with Gould. Heath was
a master at keeping secrets. None of his customers could ever learn
what his other customers were doing. His faithfulness, experience and
ability, however, availed him little in the end. He assisted Gould in
Black Friday and helped him in many a risky transaction. When Heath
failed with Henry N. Smith in 1885, Mr. Gould, though, with Morosini,
the principal creditor, did not come to his assistance. It was thought
that Gould would put him on his feet again, but he did not do so, and
Heath--alone, broken in spirit and in fortune--died shortly after in
Staten Island, but not until he had been lodged for a while in Ludlow
street jail, a prisoner for debt.
On the dissolution of W. E. Conner & Co., Dec. 31, 1885, Mr. Gould
announced his permanent retirement from the street. That perhaps was
his intention (though he was as prolific in retirements as Charlotte
Cushman), but it was not long before his presence was again felt in the
Stock Exchange.
Gould had other personal encounters besides the one with Major Selover.
Once, while lunching in Delmonico’s, a lawyer named Marrin addressed
him and asked him to accompany him to a private room. Mr. Gould
declined. Marrin struck him in the face, saying: “If you have no time
to see me, take that!” Mr. Gould quietly continued his lunch. Mr.
Marrin was summoned before a magistrate and compelled to give $500
bonds.
It was his habit to have duplicated reports from corporation officers
before the originals were presented. He was now and then cheated, but
not often. On one occasion a leading editorial severely animadverting
on him and Fisk was shown to him before any considerable part of the
paper’s edition had gone to press. He handed the party who brought him
the paper $10,000 in greenbacks and the edition appeared without the
disturbing criticism. His enemies were numerous, not that he hated any
one himself, but his operations necessarily involved men of small means
and often ruined them outright.
Congressman John B. Alley is said to have remarked of him at
twenty-four: “I won’t go into anything with that lad. He is the only
person I ever saw who inspires me with fear.” Vanderbilt said, “His
face is a scoundrel’s.” He was often accused of “milking the street,”
“forcing quotations,” “washing,” and “covering his shorts,” but on the
other hand, when he agreed to enter a pool he acted squarely with his
associates unless he caught them at treachery, and then he quietly
waited for an opportunity to pay them off. He was a special partner
in several firms of brokers and carefully concealed from each his
operations with the others.
[Illustration: JAY GOULD’S DEATHBED.]