Fifty years in Wall Street
entitled to fair presentation. I shall, therefore, give it in full. It
is as follows:
“The first move my sister and I made in this direction was to establish
a banking and brokerage office in Broad street. This step we were
induced to take with the view of proving that woman, no less than man,
can qualify herself for the more onerous occupations of life. So
startling was this innovation that the whole city of New York was
aroused, and when we entered the precincts of Wall and Broad streets
they were blocked with crowds of people until the novelty wore away. But
to-day women can establish themselves in any business, enter any avenue
of life that they are qualified through education to fill, either
political, financial, scientific, medical or mechanical, so great is the
advance. At that time, as some of the New York papers said, everything,
to the external view, was at the height of prosperity. But we exposed,
in our _Weekly_, one nefarious scheme after another when we realized
that companies were floated to work mines that did not exist, or that,
if they did exist, had nothing in them, and to make railways to nowhere
in particular, and that banks and insurance societies flourished by
devouring their shareholders’ capital. The papers of 1872 said that in
one year we had exposed and destroyed nearly every fraudulent scheme
that was then in operation—railroad swindles and the banking houses
which were palming them off on the public. Life insurance companies were
reduced from forty to nineteen for the whole country; the Great Southern
bonds and the Mexican Claim bubbles collapsed. More than one tried to
buy our silence, and when their money was refused they turned and
charged us with levying blackmail, and, losing in their rage and fear
all sense of honor, said that we were immoral women or we would not have
commenced such an undertaking. Other papers took up the warfare. It
brought about a great revolution in financial matters, but it made us
many bitter enemies, for we were the first to put ourselves into the
breach.”
I shall make no attempt to contradict the bold statement of the lady,
but simply quote it for what it is worth, leaving the inference to the
reader, as the novelistic phrase goes, but I do hold that the very
result of the experiment to which she alludes is one of the strongest
and most cogent arguments in favor of my theory, that women are not
qualified by nature for the speculative and financial operations in
which so many men have made their mark. Even the few apparent exceptions
to the rule have been sad failures compared with the achievements of the
male sex in this department of human enterprise. “Jennie June,” the able
and accomplished wife of Mr. Croly, the well-known journalist, has
essayed the speculative role, but she has not been very successful. When
women such as these have failed what can the ordinary female expect?
Well, I think they had better abide by the advice of St. Paul in regard
to women speaking in the church. Let them say or do nothing in the
peculiar line for the pursuit of which they are evidently disqualified,
but if they want to know anything, “ask their husbands at home.” Those
who have not yet obtained husbands may ask their fathers, brothers or
lovers, and if they do so they will often be saved a world of trouble.
There has recently been a curious craze in the ranks of young ladies as
well as among married women for speculation, many of them thinking they
could make a fortune in a few days, weeks or months, and it is nearly
time that this speculative mania should be checked or stopped. Maidens
of uncertain age have probably been foremost in leading this movement,
and through their influence many estimable ladies have been induced to
bring financial trouble upon their husbands and families. Many of the
woman’s righters think that it would be a glorious thing to follow in
the footsteps of Victoria Woodhull ——, whom they imagine to have been a
success in that line of business; whereas she was a sad failure. Women
as brokers have singularly failed in every known instance of experience.
Victoria W. has been much more successful as an investor than a
speculator, and the best investment of her life was that of her last
marriage. There she made a decided hit. Perhaps, her Wall Street
experience may have assisted her, in a great measure, to accomplish this
feat. Compared with her two former marriages, however, her happy union
with the foreign banker is a decided success. It is probably only in the
matrimonial line that women can become successful speculators.
Now, I shall attempt to give some reasons, with all due respect to the
fair sex—and without trying to lower them in the estimation of men—why
those dear creatures, so necessary to our happiness in many other
respects, are not by nature, nor even by the best possible education,
qualified to become speculators. Women are too impulsive and
impressionable. Although they often arrive at correct conclusions in the
ordinary affairs of life with amazing rapidity, they don’t reason in the
way that is indispensable to a successful speculator. They jump to a
conclusion by a kind of instinct, or it may be a sort of inspiration, on
a single subject or part of a subject, but they are entirely unable to
take that broad view of the whole question and situation which the
speculator has to seize at a glance, in the way that Jacob Little, the
elder Vanderbilt, or Daniel Drew could have done, as I have described in
other chapters. Gould possesses many of these qualities, though he has
never been a speculator like the others, in the ordinary and true sense
of the term, but, as I have clearly shown in another place, made his
great fortune by putting two or more wrecked railroads together and
making others believe they were good, and selling out on them
afterwards, and not by legitimate speculation or investment.
Women who have hitherto engaged in speculation have not yet shown that
they are capable of generalizing the causes which affect the market as
these kings of finance have done, nor have they illustrated that they
are possessed of the ability to foresee financial events in the same
way. Some people may think that Mrs. Hettie Green may be an exception to
the rule, but, without attempting to detract from the abilities of this
eminent and wealthy lady, I hardly think she has the mental power of any
of the great operators whom I have named, and though it must be admitted
that she has done some fine work in manipulating Louisville & Nashville,
I am of the opinion that she would fall very far short of leading a bear
attack on the market like any of those for which the late Charles F.
Woerishoffer was famous, and in organizing a “blind pool” she would
stand no show against Gould, Major Selover, Addison Cammack or James R.
Keene.
Lady Claflin Cook, formerly Tennie C. Claflin, or “Tennessee,” as she
was baptized, though she had not the intellectual ability of her sister
Victoria, appeared to exercise more influence over Commodore Vanderbilt
on account of her greater capacity as a spiritualistic medium. In his
latter days, as is well known, the Commodore was an implicit believer in
Spiritualism, and considered it expedient to consult mediums in the same
way that the ancient Greeks and Romans went to their oracles, before
engaging in any great enterprise. It is not generally known that the
fallacy of Tennie’s mediumistic powers was exposed by the Christian
Brothers, and her usefulness to the Commodore considerably impaired
thereby in his estimation. This came about through the influence of Mrs.
Claflin, the mother of the celebrated sisters. Her superstition ran so
high that she imagined her daughters were possessed of evil spirits
through the power of Colonel Blood, Victoria’s second husband. The holy
men received due credit for exorcising the spirits, thus freeing the
sisters from this mysterious thraldom, and Victoria from Blood. Her
great prosperity and that of her sister began from this date, and at the
beginning of the celebrated case on the part of “young Corneel” to break
the Commodore’s will the sisters suddenly took a trip to England, lest
they might be called as witnesses. It was a lucky day for them, and
their speculative career is probably now closed. This is the kind of
speculation for which women are best fitted. The introduction to this
great “deal” came through Wall Street indirectly, but it does not prove
by any means that women can be successful operators in speculative
transactions and financial investments. It simply shows that they are
excellent in adventures where their emotional feelings are brought to
bear upon the weaker characteristics of men.
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CHAPTER XLII.
WESTERN MILLIONAIRES IN NEW YORK.
EASTWARD THE STAR OF WEALTH AND THE TIDE OF BEAUTY TAKE THEIR
COURSE.—INFLUENCE OF THE FAIR SEX ON THIS TENDENCY, AND WHY.—NEW
YORK THE GREAT MAGNET OF THE COUNTRY.—SWINGING INTO THE TIDE OF
FASHION.—COLLIS P. HUNTINGTON.—HIS CAREER FROM PENURY TO THE
POSSESSOR OF THIRTY MILLIONS.—LELAND STANFORD.—FIRST A LAWYER IN
ALBANY, AND AFTERWARD A SPECULATOR ON THE PACIFIC COAST.—HAS ROLLED
UP NEARLY FORTY MILLIONS.—D. O. MILLS.—AN[**AN?] ASTUTE AND BOLD
FINANCIER.—COURAGE AND CAUTION COMBINED.—HIS RAPID RISE IN
CALIFORNIA.—HE MAKES A FORTUNE BY INVESTING IN LAKE SHORE
STOCK.—PRINCES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE.—MACKAY, FLOOD AND FAIR.—THEIR
RISE AND PROGRESS.—WILLIAM SHARON.—A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF HIS GREAT
SUCCESS.—WM. C. RALSTON AND HIS DARING SPECULATIONS.—BEGINS A POOR
NEW YORK BOY, AND MAKES A FORTUNE IN CALIFORNIA.—JOHN P. JONES.—HIS
EVENTFUL CAREER AND POLITICAL PROGRESS.-“LUCKY” BALDWIN.—HIS
BUSINESS ABILITY AND ADVANCEMENT.—LUCKY SPECULATIONS.—AMASSES TEN OR
FIFTEEN MILLIONS.—WILLIAM A. STEWART.—DISCOVERS THE EUREKA PLACER
DIGGINS.—HIS SUCCESS AS A LAWYER AND IN MINING ENTERPRISES.—JAMES
LICK.—ONE OF THE MOST ECCENTRIC OF THE CALIFORNIA MAGNATES.—REAL
ESTATE SPECULATIONS.—HIS BEQUEST TO THE AUTHOR OF THE “STAR SPANGLED
BANNER.”—JOHN W. SHAW, SPECULATOR AND LAWYER.
Not a few Western men of wealth have in recent years taken up their
abode in New York. This is partly, and doubtless largely, due to the
influence of ladies. The ladies of the West of course have heard of
Saratoga, the far-famed spa of America, and as the fortunes of their
husbands mount higher and higher into the millions, they become more and
more anxious to see this great summer resort of wealth and fashion.
Their influence prevails, and at the height of the gay season they may
be seen at the United States or the Grand Union. They are in practically
a new world. There is the rustle and perfume, the glitter and show, the
pomp and circumstance of the more advanced civilization of the East, and
the ladies, with innate keenness, are quick to perceive a marked
difference between this gorgeous panorama and the more prosaic
surroundings to which they have been accustomed. As people of wealth and
social position, they are naturally presented to some of the society
leaders of New York, whom they meet at Saratoga, and who extend an
invitation to visit them in their splendid mansions in the metropolis.
In New York the Western ladies go to the great emporiums of dry goods
and fancy articles of all sorts, to the famous jewelry stores, and other
retail establishments patronized by the wealthy. They form a taste for
all the elegancies of metropolitan life, and this is revealed in a
hundred little ways.
They have been accustomed, for instance, to wearing two buttoned gloves,
but now, in emulation of their New York sisters, they must have them up