Fifty years in Wall Street
a grand mansion, on the corner of Fifty-second street and Fifth Avenue,
and a country residence at Islip, Long Island, where he usually summers.
He is about thirty-eight years of age. He is married to Miss Alva Smith,
the daughter of a wealthy merchant of Savannah. She is a leading lady in
society, considerably above the average in good looks, and possessed of
rare conversational powers, with an ample fund of wit and humor. They
have three children.
Frederick W. Vanderbilt, the third son of the late millionaire, seemed
to have had a greater desire for study than the two former, hence after
going through the ordinary course for boys at home, he went to Yale,
where he graduated in the Sheffield Scientific School. Thus equipped he
went into his father’s office, and made himself thoroughly acquainted
with the general routine of the whole business, in every department.
He married Mrs. Torrance, formerly the wife of his cousin. Young
Vanderbilt fell in love with her and married her in a year afterward.
She is an exceedingly attractive woman, and the union is a very happy
one. Mr. Vanderbilt gave Frederick the house at Fortieth street and
Fifth Avenue, in which he himself had resided prior to his removal to
the Fifth Avenue palace. This house was built by the old Commodore for
his son W. H. It was considered to be the finest residence in the city
at the time of its completion.
George W. Vanderbilt, the youngest of the four sons, is now about 25
years of age. He is not so robust as the others, but enjoys pretty good
health. He manifested a decided tendency at an early age for study and
reading.
He is said to be extensively read in literature for his age, and has
written some essays on various subjects, which give considerable promise
of success with perseverance in that line. He is a lover of the
fine-arts, knows the history of all the pictures in the great gallery
which his father collected, and like that revered parent, whose constant
companion he was during the last few years of his life, he is very fond
of the opera. His grandfather, the Commodore, left him a million
dollars, to which his father added another million on his twenty-first
birthday.
George W. has recently made a handsome present to the Bond street free
public library, donating thereto $40,000 to build a branch of that
institution at 251 West Thirteenth street. He bids fair to be a liberal
patron of letters, and no doubt his gifts in this way will be prudently
directed and made with good judgment. The man who can appreciate
learning, as George Vanderbilt has proved he can, will never be likely
to leave the terms of an endowment to a public library, for instance,
which he intended for the benefit of the whole community, so loose that
a clique of trustees can restrict all its privileges to a limited number
of ladies and gentlemen of leisure, by narrowing the hours of keeping
the institution open, as has been done with those two fine libraries
intended by the donors for the people at large, namely, the Astor and
the Lenox.
New York is comparatively poor in its libraries, even on the supposition
that these public trusts should not be tampered with, and their original
object defeated; but when the best of them are diverted from the purpose
originally intended by the philanthropists who presented them to the
public, a great wrong is inflicted on the citizens of New York.
There has been a great deal said and written during the past few years
about the Vanderbilt system of railroads being a great monopoly. I am
not in favor of monopolies. On the contrary, I have, in this book, as
well as through other mediums of reaching the public, and in interviews
published all over the country, denounced monopolies in very strong
terms. I regard the Vanderbilt properly, however, in the light of a
great trust, the four young men above referred to, with Chauncey M.
Depew, the President of New York Central, being the trustees, and I
question very much if that eminent team of honest and able reformers,
Henry George and the Rev. Dr. Edward McGlynn, with other minor lights of
the Anti-Poverty Society, could administer that trust with greater
benefit to the public, nor could they employ a greater army of
well-paid, easy-worked, and well-fed men by any State or National
supervision or management, or by breaking up the great corporation into
probably a hundred or more small companies.
The Vanderbilt system employs 200,000 people at better wages than they
can obtain elsewhere, any place in the world. It pays over $150 an hour
for taxes. The State is paid $1 for every $2.70 received by the
stockholders.
Nor can I think it possible that the paternal system of Government
proposed by the Socialists, with all the modern discoveries and
appliances of dynamite to aid them, could accomplish as much in a
century for the well-being and advantage of the people of this State and
of the whole country as the Vanderbilt system of railroads has done in
half that time. I see no reason, therefore, to regard the present
Vanderbilt regime as a grinding monopoly.
Until the Georgeites, the McGlynnites, and the Socialists demonstrate
that their untried systems will confer greater happiness on humanity
than honest enterprise in the best circumstances, under our present
social system, with all its defects, has developed, I shall be tardy in
subscribing my adhesion to the new order of things.
I don’t wish to be understood for a moment as implying that I am averse
to free thought, the highest development of humanity, mentally and
physically, and the most advanced evolution in the same direction. I aim
at keeping abreast of all these within the free exercise of my own
judgment, and it is thus that I can heartily applaud Dr. McGlynn for his
polite but firm refusal to visit the Eternal City for the purpose of
being corrected or regulated in regard to free thought and free speech,
as viewed from the American standpoint, by a foreign potentate, who
assumes the guardianship and governorship of all human affairs, both
from a spiritual and secular point of view.
The days of Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII.) are gone for ever, and Leo
XIII. should have sense enough to know it. McGlynn will never stand,
like Henry IV., shivering in his shirt at the door of the Vatican,
awaiting his sentence of penance to Canossa. Bismarck, however, came
pretty near repeating this little historical episode not long since, but
the great Chancellor of the German Empire, unlike McGlynn, did not have
the advantage of an American education, and the independence which it
confers. He may, therefore, to some extent be excused. I think, however,
that McGlynn will stick, and I admire his firmness. No church, no matter
how powerful its foreign allies may be, can suppress free speech in the
home of the brave and the land of the free.
So, in their battle for freedom of speech, I admire the pluck of the
George-McGlynn party, but as regards their social theories, I shall
remain in a waiting mood until I see them more fully demonstrated.
To return from this little digression, however, I wish to express the
hope that the young Vanderbilts will manage their vast estate so as to
inure to the public benefit in such a way that the most fastidious
Socialist will be unable to take exception to the benign results.
The young Vanderbilts have at intervals speculated in Wall Street, but
conservatively, with the exception of William K., who, in the past, has
made numerous and spasmodic turns, chiefly on the advice of older
operators, which have not always redounded to his interest. As a rule
these young men are shrewd and cautious financiers, and I think it is
safe to say that none of them will run the risk of losing his handsome
fortune in speculation.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE ROTHSCHILDS.
THE BEGINNING OF THE FINANCIAL CAREER OF THE GREAT HOUSE OF
ROTHSCHILD.—THE HESSIAN BLOOD MONEY WAS THE GREAT FOUNDATION OF
THEIR FORTUNE.—HOW THE FIRM OF THE FIVE ORIGINAL BROTHERS WAS
CONSTITUTED.—NATHAN THE GREATEST SPECULATOR OF THE FAMILY.—HIS
CAREER IN GREAT BRITAIN, AND HOW HE MISREPRESENTED THE RESULT OF THE
“BATTLE OF WATERLOO” FOR SPECULATIVE PURPOSES.—CREATING A PANIC ON
THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE—HIS TERROR OF BEING ASSASSINATED.—HIS
DEATH CAUSES A PANIC ON THE LONDON EXCHANGE AND THE BOURSES.
As the Rothschilds have indirectly made an immense amount of money in
Wall Street from time to time, a sketch of the famous house and its
methods of doing business will be of interest in this volume. The house
is represented in America by Mr. August Belmont, than whom there is no
banker more widely known and more highly regarded all the world over. It
is due to the wise and conservative management of Mr. Belmont that the
famous Rothschilds have reaped millions of profits from American
sources. The original name of Rothschild was Bauer. The family adopted
the name Rothschild (Red Shield) from the sign which the founder of the
house kept over his dingy little shop in Frankfort-on-the-Main, in the
odoriferous quarter called the Judengasse (Jews’ street). In this little
shop Mayer Anselm Rothschild, the founder of the house, discounted
bills, changed money, examined the quality of coins, bought cheap and
sold dear. “How do you get so rich, Mr. Rothschild?” said a friend of
his to old Anselm one day, as he leaned over his dusky little counter.
The original head of the great house said: “I buys ‘sheep’ and sells
‘deer.’” His knowledge of the quality of coins was marvellous. He could
detect a light coin the moment he took it in his hand, and there was no
imitation diamond or gem could escape his eye. He had the instinct of
genius in detecting everything in the form of money or jewelry that was
not genuine. He was a walking directory so far as the financial standing
of every commercial man in Frankfort and in several other important
cities in Germany was concerned. At the age of seventeen young
Rothschild took rank with the best, oldest and ablest financiers of
Frankfort. His father, who died when Mayer Anselm was thirteen years of
age, had intended to make him a Rabbi, but the coin had such attraction
for him, that it quickly drew him from the Talmud, and he established
himself in his father’s narrow quarters as a financier.
It is not generally known that Rothschild’s first great start in
financial life was given to him by the use of the twenty million dollars
which was paid to the Landgrave of Hesse, Frederic II., by George III.
of England, for 17,000 Hessians to help to whip George Washington and
retain the American Colonies. This blood money was the original basis of
the vast fortune of the Rothschilds. It was deposited with Mayer Anselm
by William IX., the successor of Frederic, whose example was followed by
other great ones of the earth, and in a few years the agents of the
kings and princes of Europe were flocking to Frankfort to negotiate
loans with Rothschild on behalf of their mighty patrons.
There is a very interesting story related, giving the reason why the
Landgrave passed by all the great bankers of Frankfort and entrusted
this large amount, together with a similar amount afterwards, to
Rothschild. The latter had occasion to visit Prince William at his
palace in Cassel, and found him playing a game of chess with Baron