Fifty years in Wall Street
in many other ways were princely, but perhaps his memory is greener in
the minds of those who, through his great private charity, were lifted
above want.
These great latter day fortunes have not often failed, in this country,
in being administered by men whose conception of life, and of duty
toward their fellow men has turned the duty into a pleasure. This is a
very great tribute to American citizenship and should not be forgotten
or lost sight of by our sometime critics.
The passage of the Currency bill in March, 1900, undoubtedly did much to
increase Europe’s faith in our monetary stability and, furthermore, the
result of the Presidential election of 1900, the triumph of the party of
sound money seems to preclude the recurrence of any attacks upon the
financial honor of this country. There has been a campaign of education
going on in this country ever since the advocate of the free and
unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 first promulgated
his doctrines. The benefit to the people of this knowledge of public
affairs is clearly apparent. They will have none of false theories and
suicidal experiments, they will not go after false financial gods, they
will not bow the knee to the Baal of repudiation and confiscation.
While the modern method of commercial development is open to criticism
in some respects, still I take it that the evils complained of are not
those of very existence but are rather those of circumstance, and are
open to correction by the will of the people. How often have we heard
that these combinations stifle competition—but for how long? Does not
their existence excite competition? Furthermore, their management calls
for the very highest ability and creates a keen intellectual competition
which cannot fail to be of educational value at large. It remains for
ensuing years to provide correction for those defects which are bound to
appear in any new and untried system.
We end the century that almost covers our national existence with a past
record and prospects unparalleled. We enter the new century full of
faith in our institutions, that have stood severe tests even in our
short life, and full of hope for even greater national achievements. We
are fast taking the lead in the affairs of nations as well as in the
affairs of commerce and finance, and have need of great steadiness of
character, and fixity of national honor, which now seems assured for all
time. It augurs well that we begin the twentieth century, which displays
such vistas of greatness, at peace with all the world.
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CHAPTER LXII.
BOOMS IN WALL STREET.
Wall Street has lately been enjoying quite a boom in some respects
differing from any in its previous history. Probably the most
interesting feature about this boom is that it is not in any sense
spectacular. In that respect it is unique. Prices of many stocks are
higher and intrinsic values greater than they have ever been before. The
market has all the qualities that normally would cause intensest
excitement and focus the attention of the entire country on the Stock
Exchange. Yet in spite of these conditions, the Street is in a normal
state of mind, and it is doubtful if the general mass of the people, who
get their information from the newspapers are fully aware that there is
even an ordinary boom in Wall Street. This unusual condition is due, I
believe, to the fact that the boom we are enjoying is built on a
foundation that reaches clear to the bowels of the earth. There is
nothing unnatural or artificial about it. Wall Street is simply one of
the centres that reflects the general prosperity throughout the country.
Farmers, merchants, mechanics, mill workers, and miners are all so
intent in keeping pace with the progress in their own pursuits that they
have no time to cast eyes our way. The same conditions that are booming
stocks, are booming everything else in the country at an equal rate, so
that we are in nowise singular or deserving of special attention.
Another factor too, has developed in the Street that prevents the usual
excitement and hurly burly incident to a rising market. This is the
absence of a pronounced central figure, or controlling force. Usually a
boom centres about some one man who stands boldly out in the open, or
whose hand it is known is manipulating values. At present the
manipulation is being carried on in a method that is as quiet as it is
novel and unusual. That the market is being manipulated, is apparent
enough even to the most casual observer. But the source of this
manipulation is probably known only to a few; all others are but
students in the Street. They know that a new order has come, and that
this order is due to the most powerful and resistless influence that has
ever manifested itself in Wall Street. This influence is very largely
composed of the Standard Oil Combination, who have introduced in their
Wall Street operations the same quiet, unostentatious, but resistless
measures that they have always employed heretofore in the conduct of
their corporate affairs. Beside this group, every other man or
combination of men that has ever operated in the Street are materially
belittled by comparison. The heretofore conspicuously big operators that
have flashed up and across the horizon, appear comparatively small
beside the men who are running things for us now.
At his best, Jay Gould was always compelled to face the chance of
failure. Commodore Vanderbilt, though he often had the Street in the
palm of his hand, was often driven into a corner where he had to do
battle for his life, and so it has been with every great speculator, or
combination of speculators, until the men who control the Standard Oil
took hold. With them, manipulation has ceased to be speculation. Their
resources are so vast that they need only concentrate on any given
property in order to do with it what they please. And that they have so
concentrated on a considerable number of properties outside of the
stocks in which they are popularly credited with being exclusively
interested is a fact well known to every one who has opportunities of
getting beneath the surface. They are the greatest operators the world
has ever seen, and the beauty of their method is the quiet and lack of
ostentation with which they carry it on. There are no gallery plays,
there are no scareheads in the newspapers, there is no wild scramble and
excitement. With them the process is gradual, thorough and steady, with
never a waver or break. How much money this group of men have made, it
is impossible even to estimate. That it is a sum beside which the gains
of the most daring speculator of the past were a mere flea bite, is
putting the case mildly, and there is an utter absence of chance that is
terrible to contemplate. This combination controls Wall Street almost
absolutely. Many of the strongest financial institutions are at their
service in supplying accommodations when needed. With such power and
facilities it is scarcely conceivable what these men must be making,
what they can do on either side of the market. So far, fortunately,
their manipulations have all been one way, upwards, and in conjunction
with the general prosperity it has resulted in making large sums of
money for nearly everybody in the Street.
Here and there we have heard of losses, some of them fairly large, but
in comparison with the general money making these are hardly to be taken
into consideration.
The last preceding boom that Wall Street enjoyed was as different from
the present as it is possible to imagine. It had all the elements which
this one has not. It centred about one man who stood out in the
lime-light clear and distinct. It kept the Stock Exchange in a constant
state of ferment. It filled the newspapers with column upon column of
sensational stories. It made millions for an army of retainers, on
paper, and it kept the market jerking up and down for months. Roswell P.
Flower, ex-governor of the State of New York, was the leader of the
boom, and a more picturesque figure has never been seen in Wall Street,
which is saying a great deal. Mr. Flower was an individual of very plain
exterior. He often used language that was noticeable more for its force
and directness and emphasis, than it was for polish. He had an ambling
gait and looked like a well-fed farmer. He was rarely seen without a
huge quid of tobacco that almost filled the left side of his mouth.
Spittoons were an essential part of the furnishings of his office. His
clothing hung on his person not unlike meal sacks. His hat was rarely
brushed, and for days at a time, apparently, he forgot to shave.
Altogether he was the last person, in appearance, who might be expected
to lead in a district that is famous for its well groomed men. His
education was certainly not collegiate; doubtless all his peculiar
traits the ordinary man would have judged a handicap, still they were
Mr. Flower’s strongest aids. The lack of artificial polish gave people
confidence in his statements. His limited education enabled him to think
clearly along certain lines without being hampered with mental
digressions, which would probably have come with a higher original
mental culture.
As the administrator and manager of the estate of his brother-in-law,
Henry Keep, he came into the Street twenty or twenty-five years ago. He
in that way controlled a large amount of funds, which by conservative
direction he increased very substantially. He scarcely ever figured in
the speculative field to any great extent, until after he had completed
his term as Governor of New York State. When he returned to the Street
from Albany, he naturally came with a considerable prestige.
Ex-governors of the Empire State are not very plentiful in and about the
Stock Exchange. He also brought with him a large political following. In
both of the great parties in New York State there are many men of
standing and influence who like to take a flyer in Wall Street. Almost
to a man they associated themselves with Mr. Flower, who, during his
term at the capital had made hosts of friends with Republicans and
Democrats alike, and this, though his party loyalty had never been
questioned. He also had close associations with most of the big
capitalists. After he had settled down to business, on leaving politics
behind, Mr. Flower picked out several stocks as his specialties, Chicago
Gas, Federal Steel and Rock Island being some of these. Under his
manipulation all these properties went up and soon began to show a big
advance, unusual strength and great activity. The bears made frequent
assaults on his position and now and then pushed him towards the wall,
but he always fought his way to the front again, and came out master in
every encounter. When he had himself pretty well entrenched in the
specialties he was handling, he suddenly plunged into Brooklyn Rapid
Transit, and for months he kept things stirred up in a way that even
Wall Street has not seen very often., He picked up the stock commencing
at six dollars a share, and in an incredibly short time ran it up to
over 138. Almost every politician in the State made a fortune on paper.
Mr. Flower was immensely popular with the Wall Street news reporters,
who helped his boom along through the glowing accounts they wrote from
day to day.
Under the impetus of the swirl in Rapid Transit, practically every
property in the Street went flying upward, until the end did not seem to
be in sight. The bears were beaten to a standstill every time they
showed their heads, the only result of their attacks being that Flower