Fifty years in Wall Street
the war. While in England, he mingled with the aristocracy, and became
strongly imbued with the idea that the North would not be successful in
the war, and that the National currency would become almost valueless.
He thought that the more the National currency depreciated, the more
railroad stocks and bonds would advance; in short, that whatever the
currency would buy would advance, while the currency itself would become
nearly worthless. He therefore became a rampant bull on stocks. He
bought almost the whole list, and also did a large business in buying
for others whom he succeeded in impressing with his own ideas. He had
many followers and made a tremendous inflation. Secretary of the
Treasury Chase was advised of this Morse speculation, which might prove
prejudicial to the National credit, and he announced that if the
inflation was carried any further, he would prick the bubble by selling
gold. Anthony W. Morse thereupon personally sent Secretary Chase a
dispatch saying that he would take all the gold that the United States
Government had to sell. Mr. Chase immediately ordered Assistant
Treasurer John J. Cisco to sell $10,000,000 of gold to the highest
bidders. The usual notice appeared in the morning newspapers, and a
panic at once followed. At 12 o’clock, or two hours after the opening of
the Exchange, it was announced from the rostrum that Anthony W. Morse
had failed. This terminated the career of Mr. Morse as a large operator
and manipulator, and with his downfall the death knell was sounded to
his imported theories. He straggled manfully for several years to regain
his footing, but his prestige was gone, and he failed in every effort to
push his way again to the front. His ill-success soured him. His health
failed, and he went to Havana to recuperate. There he died with
profanity on his lips, enraged at the failure of all his hopes. He paid
the penalty of disloyalty. His friends of the English nobility were
largely to blame for all his misfortunes. Their predictions of the
success of the South led him on to irretrievable ruin. He did not see
that their wish was father to the thought.
FORMER GIANTS OF THE STREET.
Henry Keep, once President of the Lake Shore road, and also of the New
York Central, was in his day a power in Wall Street. He was the first to
discover the intrinsic value of railroad property in the Northwest, and
manipulated Chicago & Northwestern stock, both common and preferred,
very successfully, making a great deal of money for himself and friends.
He died very wealthy. He came to New York city from Watertown, in the
interior of New York, and at first was an exchange broker, dealing
mainly in uncurrent money. He had previously served in some humble
position on a railroad. By careful and economical habits he was able to
leave a fortune of several million dollars, largely in common and
preferred Northwestern stock. The plot of ground on which William H.
Vanderbilt built his palatial Fifth Avenue home was once the property of
Mr. Keep, who originally bought it for about $250,000 for the purpose of
building a charitable institution, but changed his mind when the
property quadrupled in value. Then he concluded that charity should
begin at home. He sold the plot, extending for one block along Fifth
Avenue, to Mr. Vanderbilt for one million dollars. Still his original
intentions were good, and it was only after the real estate market, as
with Satanic malice, had in that locality advanced 400 per cent. and
taken him up into a high mountain of temptation, that his
philanthropical project turned awry and lost the name of action. While
Mr. Keep made a signally good President of the Lake Shore road and was a
great manipulator of stocks, he was a failure as President of the New
York Central, and he resigned that post having no confidence in the
future of the property. Commodore Vanderbilt, who believed in the
property, became his successor, and in a previous chapter I have given
the story of the rise of that remarkable man. It is of interest to
recall, by the way, that while President of the Lake Shore road Mr. Keep
went largely short of the stock. As the President he naturally had
inside information. Addison Jerome, a brother of Leonard Jerome, was a
big operator of the day, and undertook to corner President Keep. In
those days a great deal of stock was sold on seller’s option for thirty
and sixty days. Mr. Keep had sold largely in this way, and Addison
Jerome and his clique had bought heavily, expecting that the corner
would be complete when the options should mature. A surprise awaited
them. Mr. Keep made deliveries promptly in brand new shares. They were
really an over-issue by the Company. It was a Waterloo in a double sense
for Jerome and his fellow bulls. They were in over their heads. It had
such a dampening effect that they immediately threw up the sponge and
the stock came down with a crash. The issue of this new stock was
smoothed over by turning the avails into the treasury of the Company, a
fact, however, which did not prevent Mr. Keep from making a pretty good
turn on his shorts.
J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
J. Pierpont Morgan, known as the “Railroad Reorganizer,” and who has won
a place in the front rank among American financiers, is a son of the
well-known Junius S. Morgan, the head of the firm of J. S. Morgan & Co.,
of London, and the successor of George Peabody, the great philanthropist
in the banking business there. George Peabody, some years before his
death, visited this country, and, desiring a partner in his great
banking house, made inquiry in Boston for a suitable person. Junius S.
Morgan was recommended as a young man of exceptional business talents
and he was selected for the responsible post, the firm being known as
George Peabody & Co. On the death of the celebrated head of the firm,
the name was changed to J. S. Morgan & Co. The success of the father has
been repeated in the signally successful career of the son. During the
palmy days of the firm of Duncan, Sherman & Co., once renowned among the
financial strongholds of the country, J. Pierpont Morgan was one of the
clerks. It was there he graduated as a practical student of financial
achievements; it was there he won his spurs for the monetary campaigns
that awaited him. Leaving the house that was then a synonym for
invincible solidity, Mr. Morgan established the firm of Dabney, Morgan &
Co. Mr. Dabney was formerly one of the firm of Duncan, Sherman & Co.
After a few years the firm in which Mr. Morgan had thus first engaged in
business on his own account was dissolved. But the check, if it may so
be termed, was only momentary, and colossal feats of financiering were
to deck his career with triumphs. He formed a connection with the
wealthy Drexels, of Philadelphia, and a New York branch of their banking
house was established, under the name of Drexel, Morgan & Co., which has
for some years been largely engaged in the reorganization of crippled
railroads like the West Shore, Reading and many others. And they have
been very successful. They have been financial physicians, healing sick
corporate bodies; monetary surgeons, amputating needless expenditures
and reckless methods; or, in perhaps more happy figure, skilful pruners
of the vine, that the ultimate vintage might be more abundant.
Mr. Morgan is endowed with very positive traits of character. He has the
driving powers of a locomotive. He cares nothing for show; he is a plain
man of action. He strikes hard blows; he is naturally aggressive. In
speech he is candid to the verge of bluntness; in action he is short,
sharp and decisive. Like a true soldier, he is a man of acts rather than
words. Rugged as a Spartan in his nature, hating circumlocution, bombast
and palaver, going straight to the mark, yet with due caution and
prudence, he exhibits many of the best traits of the practical
financier.
I have asked Mr. Morgan for his picture for publication in this book,
but with natural personal modesty, he has recommended that his handsome
partner, Anthony Drexel, of Philadelphia, be selected in his place, and
with a view to encouragement in Wall Street of blushing modesty—that
century flower of the financial conservatory—I have complied with his
request.
THOMAS L. JAMES.
President of the Lincoln National Bank, has had a career in New York
brilliant in the service of the public, and marked in the practical
skill with which confidences and enterprises have been directed by him.
His training has contributed largely to his success as a financier. He
came from Utica in 1861 and entered the Custom House as Deputy, and
finally attained the position of Postmaster-General after a long and
successful term as Postmaster of the City of New York. Mr. James
directed the affairs of the Lincoln Bank so successfully that what
promised to be a small up-town bank has developed into a National bank
of considerable importance. He is one of the men of the times, one who
feels the tide of local affairs, a man of the people who acts from
wholly conscientious motives, and whose ambition has never exceeded his
sense of duty.
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CHAPTER LX.
JAMES B. AND JOHN H. CLEWS.
The subjects of this sketch, whose portraits adorn these pages, are both
members of my firm and I think this book would be incomplete without
putting in a few words in reference to them. As will be seen by the
sketches which follow, they both commenced their business careers in a
modest way and through perseverance and industry have attained positions
in the financial world which are in every way creditable to them. I have
made it a rule never to introduce a blood relative into my office for a
position of trust unless I believed him worthy of confidence and capable
of performing the duties assigned to him in an intelligent manner. To do
so would be an act of injustice, not only to him but to his associates
in the office, and generally causes ill feeling and bad results in the
end. Happily with my nephews I have had no such cause or ground for
complaint. On the score of merit alone they have succeeded in advancing
themselves to their present positions.
James Blanchard Clews was born in Dunkirk, N. Y., August 4, 1859. After
graduating from Chamberlain College, in this State, he entered the
general office of the Red Line Transit Company, in Buffalo, N. Y., where
he spent two years. He then accepted a position of responsibility in the
General Manager’s office of the Union Steamboat Company, also located in
Buffalo. Here his ability and his growing capacity for making a good
business man were further satisfactorily illustrated and recognized by
those officially over him. Realizing, however, that Wall Street offered
better opportunities for advancement, he resigned his position and
obtained one in my banking office as book-keeper. Commencing at the
bottom of the clerical staff, he displayed so much ability, coupled with
untiring energy in the performance of his duties, it was a pleasure to
promote him from time to time, whenever an opportunity offered, with the
result that after eight years of vigorous training through the
successive grades of Book-keeper, Cashier, and General Manager, he was
rewarded in 1890 by being made a member of my firm. It will thus be seen
that my nephew possesses a thorough and practical knowledge of the
inside workings of a banking house which is so essential to a successful