Jay Gould : the greatest financer and the most powerful Robber
Baron in American history
By David M. Beach
Copyright ã International
Bond & Share Society 2001
I love Jay Gould !
That seems a strange statement to make about
someone who has been dead for over hundred years, and who has, without doubt,
one of the most tarnished, yet misunderstood reputations of any Giant of
American History. There was a time four or five years ago when I wasn’t really
interested in Jay Gould. His autograph was not difficult to obtain on the Missouri,
Kansas and Texas railroad stock certifictae, and, like most people, I didn’t
take the time to understand the enormity of the man, and his true place in
history. Then I began to read about him, and I became utterly fascinated with
his amazing life and career, and I started to collect every document that I
could find that he wrote or signed.
I discovered the truth about collecting Gould documents. Yes, MKT certificates
were available, but virtually everything else was extremely rare, and indeed
most other documents were just one or two of a kind known. However, after
acquiring several letters that Gould wrote, I began to appreciate this man even
more; realising that these letters truly revealed Gould in a new light, I
intensified my efforts to learn more. Since that time I have built what is probably the largest collection of Jay Gould
material in private hands. I have uncovered many previously unknown (or, at
least, unpublished) personal letters written by Gould, which reveal his
character not to be the ‘Evil Incarnation of doom’, as the press portrayed him
to the American public.
It is true that he wasn’t a saint. However, at
the time he operated, there were no laws against much of what he did. He just
knew the angles, and thought of them before anyone else did. He was simply
smarter than those around him, and, while some of his deeds could be considered
unethical by some, compared to the ethics of many others in the last half of
the 1800s, Gould should not be singled out for vilification. However, on Wall
Street, for every winner there is always at least one loser; since Gould did
not often lose, there was always someone to bad-mouth him, and frequently
distort the truth. He was crucified in the press as a wrecker of companies, but
in reality he was a great builder, as you will soon discover.
John D. Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, Commodore
C. Vanderbilt and others were great !, and in my collection I have
wonderful documents signed by them as well as by other legends of American
financial history. However, I really believe that, in many respects, Gould
stands out above all of them. While Rockefeller and Flagler were the Barons of
Oil, and Vanderbilt stayed in New York, controlling his vast shipping interests
and running his New York railroads, Jay Gould was building and expanding all
over the country. He travelled tens of thousands of miles, personally
inspecting and supervising massive projects, even though he was in generally
poor health. While others were the greatest in one field, Gould was the greatest
in many. He has been described as the most powerful person in America during
the period 1870-92.
Among his accomplishments :
-
In
1867, along with Jim Fisk and Daniel Drew, he fought Commodore Vanderbilt for
control of the Erie Railroad, and won. This ‘Erie War’ captured the attention
of the entire nation.
-
In
1869 Gould and Fisk attempted to corner the gold supply of the United States;
the scheme, which touched even the Presidency of General Grant, caused a
massive depression in the country, which lasted several years.
-
He
controlled the communications of the entire United States through the ownership
and/or control of Western Union and several other telegraph companies, the
overseas cable, the Associated Press, and several major newspapers, including
the New York World. Klein’s book states it well : ‘Independent newspapers
depended on Gould’s telegraph, as did businessmen, bankers, brokers and
stock-exchanges. His command over the flow of information enabled him to rig
the market, confound business adversaries, promote his enterprises, tear down
rivals, and punish organs which opposed him’.
-
Gould
owned and controlled the system of New York elevated railways.
-
He
controlled over 10,000 miles of railway track in the U.S., including the Erie,
Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Colorado Central, St. Louis Southwestern,
Texas & Pacific, Denver Pacific and Central Pacific, and this list is far
from complete. Grodinsky states that Gould’s life was a progression. ‘He began
as a speculator, a stockmarket manipulator. At the end, he was building
railroads, not with a printing-press but with steel, and seeing himself, as
perhaps essentially he was, not as a pirate, not as a conniving president selling his own stock short, not as a man who
was running a railroad into the ground in defiance of the bondholders, but as a
builder of railroads’.
Jay Gould died in 1892, at the age of only 57.
One can only imagine what he might have accomplished had he lived longer.
Recommended reading :
Klein :
‘Jay Gould, the Life and Legend’, 1986.
Ackerman : ‘The gold Ring, Jim Fisk, Jay Gould and black Friday, 1869’,
1988
Gordon : ‘The scarlet Woman of Wall
street, Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Erie railway Wars and
the birth of Wall Street’, 1988
O’Connor : ‘Gould’s Millions’, 1962
Warshow : ‘Jay Gould, the Story of a Fortune’,
1928
Hoyt : ‘ The Goulds, a social History’
Grodinsky : ‘Jay Gould, his business Career
1867-92’, 1957
Mott : ‘Between the Ocean and the Lakes,
the Story of Erie’, 1900.
Copyright ã INTERNATIONAL BOND
& SHARE SOCIETY 2001
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