M. Louis Blanc, therefore, while showing himself much more enlightened than the old school of levellers and democrats—inasmuch as he recognizes the connection between low wages and the over-rapid increase of population—appears to have fallen into the same error which was at first committed by Malthus and his followers, that of supposing that because population has a greater power of increase than subsistence, its pressure upon subsistence must be always growing more severe. The difference is that the early Malthusians thought this an irrepressible tendency, while M. Louis Blanc thinks that it can be repressed, but only through a system of Communism. It is a great point gained for truth when it is recognized that the tendency to over-population is a fact which Communism, as well as the existing order of society, would have to deal with. And it is encouraging that this necessity is admitted by the more considerable chiefs of all existing schools of Socialism. Owen and Fourier, as well as M. Louis Blanc, admitted it, and claimed for their respective systems a pre-eminent power of dealing with this difficulty. However this may be, experience shows that in the existing state of society the pressure of population on subsistence, which is the principal cause of low wages, though a great is not an increasing evil; on the contrary, the progress of all that is called civilization has a tendency to diminish it, partly by the more rapid increase of the means of employing and maintaining labor, partly by the increased facilities opened to labor for transporting itself to new countries and unoccupied fields of employment, and partly by a general improvement in the intelligence and prudence of the population. This progress, no doubt, is slow; but it is much that such progress should take place at all, while we are still only in the first stage of that public movement for the education of the whole people which, when more advanced, must add greatly to the force of the two causes of improvement specified above. It is, of course, open to discussion what form of society has the greatest power of dealing successfully with the pressure of population on subsistence, and on this question there is much to be said for Socialism; what was long thought to be its weakest point will, perhaps, prove to be one of its strongest. But it has no just claim to be considered as the sole means of preventing the general and growing degradation of the mass of mankind through the peculiar tendency of poverty to produce over-population. Society as at present constituted is not descending into that abyss, but gradually, though slowly, rising out of it, and this improvement is likely to be progressive if bad laws do not interfere with it.
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CHAPTER LVI.
STOCK EXCHANGE CELEBRITIES.
HOW WALL STREET BANKERS’ NERVES ARE TRIED.—FINE HUMOR, JOCULAR DISPOSITIONS, AND SCHOLARLY TASTE OF OPERATORS.—GEORGE GOULD AS A FUTURE FINANCIAL POWER.—AMERICAN NOBILITY COMPARED WITH EUROPEAN ARISTOCRACY.—HOW THE IRISH CAN ASSIST TO PURGE GREAT BRITAIN OF HER BILIOUS INCUBUS OF NOBILITY.—THE NATURAL NOBILITY OF OUR OWN COUNTRY, AND THEIR DESTINY.
Among the well-known members of the Stock Exchange not elsewhere mentioned are James D. Smith, who is now in his second term as President, and who is also President of the New York and Exchange clubs and Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, a man of a genial nature and everyone’s friend; Brayton Ives, twice President of the Stock Exchange, the colonel of a cavalry regiment under General Sheridan in the civil war, and later a Brevet-Brigadier General; a graduate of Yale, and a member of the Union League, Century, Athletic and University clubs; Charles Johnes, the King of board room traders, once a clerk for Henry Clews & Co., now worth a million, and a Prince of good fellows, as bright and quick as he is popular; Louis Bell, a daring and successful operator, a son of the well-known Isaac Bell, and who was at one time a clerk with Brown Brothers & Co., the bankers; John Kirkner, another plucky operator, keen in forecasting the market, and tenacious of his opinions, whether contrary to generally accepted views or not; Eugene Bogert, Wm. B. Wadsworth, William Henriques and James Raymond, also successful traders; John Slayback, Edward Brandon, James Mitchell, Vice-Chairman Alexander Henriques, ex-President J. Edward Simmons, Secretary Geo. W. Ely, Donald Mackay, Thomas B. Musgrave, Frank Work, the Wormsers, R. P. Flower, John T. Lester, Frank Savin, Charles Schwartz and A. E. Bateman, are all worthy of special notice. Some of the foregoing have a large following, more particularly the large room traders, like Messrs. Johnes, Bell, Bogert, Kirkner and Wadsworth. There are eleven hundred members of the Stock Exchange, and it is seldom that a black sheep is discovered among them. There are some lambs, perhaps, who receive a spring and fall shearing, but if they have pluck the wool comes back again, and they push up the thorny and brambly path to wealth, leaving, it is true, a little fleece here and there in the struggle, but generally “getting there,” nevertheless. It is, however, a mistake to suppose that all the members of the Stock Exchange are wealthy. They have their ups and downs like everybody else, and some are in very moderate circumstances.
The strain on a Wall Street broker is so great, the tension of the nerves, in one of the most trying vocations known in the business world, is so severe, that joking and in fact boyish pranks constitute a safety valve for the relief of brains that would otherwise become disordered. Without the relief of joking and skylarking, Nature’s own remedy for the burdened mind in such circumstances—many a stock broker would go mad. “There is nothing so good as a laugh,” says the song, and this expresses a profounder truth than is generally suspected. Charles Darwin relaxed the severe mental strain induced by his inquiries into occult questions of biological science by reading the humorous extravagances of Mark Twain, and the greatest thinkers, men who are far out on the cold frontiers of thought, seeking, as intellectual pioneers, the solution of the fundamental problem of existence, are proverbially jocular in their hours of relaxation. Nature herself may be said to laugh, and why not overburdened business men? The pranks at Christmas on the Stock Exchange, the sound of hand organs in the Board Room, the smashing of hats, pushing and jostling, the blowing of tin horns, the waltzes and lanciers, the walking matches, wrestling and sparring—these are only the natural reaction through the safety valve of humor which tend to relieve undue tension and keep the spirits clear and fresh. There is more or less skylarking on all dull days, and the effect is mental invigoration. It is a mistake to suppose that only the younger men participate in these amusements. The older members are the most incorrigible. When a new member, for instance, is receiving his vigorous initiation and being hustled here and there like a chip in raging waters, his silk hat skimming along the floor, the foot ball of hundreds of feet, his collar at right angles with his person and his coat tails flying like a Dutch lugger under full sail, a group of older members may look on with apparent disapproval, but the moment the newcomer is driven in their direction he finds that his last state is worse than the first. The veterans give him a reception that makes him look wilder and gasp more than ever, and he is glad to escape from these gray bearded evil-doers. The horse play is rough but it does no harm, and the new member, after buying a new hat, is ready to “get square” on the next unfortunate wight to be initiated.
As to the Stock Exchange as a great financial institution, none stands higher in the world. Its transactions involve hundreds of millions in a year, and nowhere is there more regard for strict equity in business. Its members are as exemplary a class of business men as can be found anywhere. Its methods are strictly upright, and a black sheep finds no mercy. Wealth will not necessarily procure a membership in this great financial emporium. The applicant must be a person of good repute. It numbers men of great wealth, men of a high order of talent, men of scholarly tastes, connoisseurs in art, students of science, literature and philosophy, and men capable of standing at the helm and giving direction to vast enterprises in the domain of finance and commerce. There is not a more intelligent body of men in the world. The very nature of their business compels them to study great public questions, and many of the members are men of a distinctly statesmanlike caste of mind, of whom the Stock Exchange may well be proud, while they themselves derive no small distinction from being identified with so illustrious and honorable a body.
WASHINGTON E. CONNOR.
Washington E. Connor was born in New York city about 37 years ago. He first appeared in Wall Street as a clerk for Wm. Belden & Co., a firm in which the redoubtable Jim Fisk was once a partner. Black Friday of September, 1869, when a financial hurricane whistled through Wall Street, brought young Connor to the front, and he has ever since remained there. He was long the able lieutenant of Mr. Gould in large speculations. He is a natural leader in speculation—cool, quick and adroit. From time to time he has been a director in the Western Union, Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Missouri, Kansas & Texas, Kansas Pacific and Wabash Companies. He was president of the Central Construction Company, which established the lines of the American Union Telegraph Company. He was a director in the famous Credit Mobilier Company, the Texas & Colorado Improvement Company, the Metropolitan and New York Elevated roads and the New Jersey Southern. He is a member of the Union League and the Lotus clubs, and especially enjoys the society of artists, writers and other persons of talent and cultivation. He has a good library, and is of a somewhat studious turn of mind. As a youth he studied at the College of the City of New York.
[Illustration:
_George J. Gould_ ]
A FUTURE FINANCIAL POWER.
George J. Gould will be one of the few very rich men in this country, as he will, of course, be his father’s successor. He possesses good abilities, has an attractive presence, and is modest and retiring in his manners. He has, thus far, made an excellent record, and the Stock Exchange was glad to admit him to membership. He is connected with all of his father’s roads, and is gradually relieving him of much of the onerous work connected therewith. If anything should happen to Jay Gould, George Gould would stand in the same financial relation to his affairs that Wm. H. Vanderbilt sustained to his father, the Commodore, and, like him, would be found equal to the new honors and responsibilities devolving upon him. This reasonable expectation should dispel any apprehension of a financial shock in the event of Jay Gould’s demise.
George Gould is bright and agreeable, and a good husband. If Jay Gould has made enemies, that is no reason why his son should not be popular. It is proverbial that the male descendants of a family are more akin to the side of the mother than to that of the father, and as Mrs. Jay Gould has always been recognized as a most exemplary wife and mother, she may rightfully be regarded as the equal of any woman in New York, and one to be respected and honored accordingly by those whom we ought to take as social exemplars. There should be no other standard of social test than that of merit; not judging individuals by what they were, but by what they are to-day; not judging by the ridiculous test of ancestry—a criterion which would upset some of our social demi-gods—but by the real worth of the living man or woman. Suppose, for instance, the young Vanderbilts, who rank high in society, and are splendid specimens of nature’s noblemen, should be measured by the standard of the old Commodore when he was a boatman on Staten Island. Everybody would recognize such a test of fitness as to the last degree absurd. In the United States nature’s nobility is at the front, as against the parchment nobility of England and the Continent. The _personelle_ of the English nobility makes a sorry showing beside that of young George Gould, the young Vanderbilts, and others of our wealthy Americans.
The modern nobility spring from success in business. Peace has its victories in the formation of character greater than those of war; and peace and republicanism will develop the future greatness of the human family, and not pretentious yet effete monarchies, of which mankind is heartily sick. Many of the so-called noblemen of to-day shine only by a faint reflected glimmer from the armor of mediæval ancestors; or their ancestry may be much more recent, and steal slyly off in the gloom of forgotten crimes to the prison or the gallows; or their patent of nobility may be a thing of yesterday, a child’s bauble solemnly displayed by addle-pated dotards, ridiculous even to the unthinking. The English nobility is coming to the auction block. Not a few in former times laid their heads there for treason, but now it is articles of more value, namely, the curious, the antiquities, the bric-a-brac, the works of art, the rare furniture, which comes to the block, and they are purchased by the new nobility raised up by success in finance and commerce. There is very little in Europe which is not obtainable at a price. Titles in England may yet be sold as they have been in Italy. Who cares for a title of Italian or French nobility? To this low estate must English titles come at last. It is marvellous that they have endured so many centuries after the downfall of the feudal system that originally gave them birth.
Why is it that Gladstone has always refused a title?
One reason is that at his birth nature gave him a higher title to nobility than parchment can ever confer.
Another is that he did not care to be ennobled and then wrapped, as a titled mummy, in the sweet-scented cerements of political death, to be buried in that Egyptian tomb of political extinction, the House of Lords. And to-day he is a Colossus among statesmen, whose grand figure will loom up in history as one of the foremost men of the nineteenth century, a Titan dwarfing the proudest of a senile nobility. And yet he is simply a great Commoner.
If the Irish wish to assist nature in purging Great Britain of her bilious incumbus of nobility, they should recognize the fact that ridicule is a good medicine. The Irish are proverbially prolific. Let them make a point of christening the rising generation with titled names. Then there would be myriads bearing the name of Duke O’Reilly, Earl McCarty, Marquis O’Brien, Baron Sullivan, Sir Timothy Finnegan, Lord McSwynny, and so on. The objection to this plan, however, is that it would brand thousands of innocent and helpless children of worthy parents with titles which have become contemptible to all right-thinking persons as the badges of imbecility, mediocrity, or dishonor. This is a rather lengthy digression after beginning with one of the natural nobility which we have in this country, namely, the nobility founded solely on merit, but the case of a young man like George Gould naturally suggests contrasts. He is destined to take a commanding position in the world of finance in future years, and it is gratifying to know that he is a man of high character, excellent capacity, and of great promise. There is usually a disposition to criticise the sons of very wealthy men, due to that envy to which poor human nature is so prone, but the fact in this case is indisputable that young Gould is held in high esteem wherever he is known. He is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia, and a member of the Manhattan and other clubs, and he is, in the business world, where he is most powerful, simply a reserved and quiet associate, always controlling his lines, but never interfering in a strident way with those who are working for them.
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CHAPTER LVII.
A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE.
WHAT WE ARE.—WHAT WE ARE PREPARING FOR.—WHAT WE ARE DESTINED TO DO AND TO BECOME.—WE ARE ENTERING ON AN ERA OF SEEMING IMPOSSIBILITIES.—YET THE INCONCEIVABLE WILL BE REALIZED.
In reviewing the past, I am struck with the enormous growth of New York as a city, New York as a State, and the United States as a Nation. The fact is that we hustle through the business world so fast (and this is especially applicable to Wall Street), that we do not realize how rapidly we are going. To any one who is familiar with the appearance of the down town or business part of the city, as it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, or even eight years ago, the difference to-day will give some intimation of the changes which are going on around us, and are merely features of development. Why, even ten years ago, the old Equitable Building was a structure to which attention was attracted because of its greatness and its superiority over any other building in New York city—its height, its width, its breadth, its depth, its elevators, its beauty of arrangement inside and its artistic aspect outside. Millions of dollars have been spent in the past few months in making this one building about four times as large as the original structure which brought pride to the hearts of New Yorkers, and surprised and startled their friends from the country. To-day it is one of the greatest buildings on the Island, and even rivals the State Capitol, which is supposed to be the pride of the people of the Empire State. This is only one instance. All along lower Broadway, the great business artery of the country, four-story and five-story buildings have been torn down, and nine-story buildings put up in their place. Four and five buildings have been dug away and a single structure put up in their place, and in some of the buildings—indeed in scores of them—within a few blocks of the Stock Exchange, there are whole communities of people who are performing life’s work in their own good way, rather than interfering with their neighbors or themselves, and who know nothing of what goes on around and about them, and care less. Small armies of retainers and servants, and the most perfect mechanism, are needed to enable these communities to carry on their work with dispatch and convenience. That is to say, where offices are rented in the eighth and ninth stories of a building, the occupants expect to be shot up to them, and down from them, with no trouble to themselves, and no weariness of limbs—and they are. This must be done, too, without loss of time—and it is. All the attendant arrangements must have the elements of luxuriousness and comfort—and they do.
This is a small feature of our development, however. So far as the development of the city is concerned, this appears to be an era of bridges, and Rapid Transit Elevated roads. So far as the development of inter-State communication is concerned this is an era of Express Trains, which, although they have reached a speed of a mile a minute in certain perfected sections of the roads, do not at all indicate what will come to pass in the future. Electricity is, of course, the means for instantaneous communication between separate points known to human intelligence, practically annihilating time between the New World and the Old World, and between separated points in either world, or even in the cities. But electricity does not travel with anything like the speed of light and air. Now, in some few instances, we have utilized compressed air as a means of locomotion. Efforts are being made, but are still in a crude state of development, for the utilization of electricity as a motive power. Suppose we look one handled years ahead, and, calculating upon the factors and experiences of the past one hundred years, imagine what the picture will be of this town as a city, and this people as a nation. I believe that one hundred years hence the era of bridges between this city and those which adjoin it across the rivers, will have passed away, and that instead of one or two or five bridges across the East River, we will have pneumatic tubes at every pier, and I believe the same will be true on either side and at the end of the island. These tubes will spread from New York, as the blood vessels in the human body spread out and are supplied from the heart; for New York is not only the business heart of this country, but it is destined to be, so surely as God permits growth, the business heart of the world, and the money centre of the world. And the arteries from this centre will distribute the blood all over, and in all directions. Through these pneumatic tubes I believe there will be almost instantaneous communication or transportation of people from one point to another. Nor will this be confined to New York city alone. In the near future the Trunk Line Railroad to leading points, such as Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago, will probably run trains at the rate of one hundred miles an hour, and even this will only be a beginning. To admit of this, steel rails will be required of about double their present weight, and the wheels must be proportionately massive and strong. The risk attendant upon such increased speed will be no greater than the ordinary speed of the present day, say forty miles an hour. But the time will come, during the next five generations, when the pneumatic tubes will extend from here to these central points of the East and the West and the South; and it will be possible for a man to leave New York at seven o’clock and go to Chicago for breakfast, transact his business and return to New York for lunch or business appointment by twelve o’clock noon of the same day. Of course, one of the problems to be solved in connection with this sort of meteoric speed will be to supply air for breathing purposes; and the same compressed air which will shoot the carriage through the tube, will be in some form utilized for the purpose. This, however, only for a period; for I think the time must come when electricity will be the one motive power of this country and of the world, so far as the transportation of people and property is concerned. Time is money, and the American idea is to save time. We now waste little enough of it in all conscience. The greatest business of the world, that of the New York Stock Exchange, is already compressed into five hours’ time; and yet it is a business in which the most trivial error or accident because of haste might cause losses of millions. The obliteration of time is a necessity of American enterprise. When Electricity is made the general propelling power, it is likely that a stationary engine will be located at Niagara Falls, and the force and power of those waters utilized to supply all the needed propelling power for this State, if not even beyond, to remote and far-off sections of our country. I heard it once said by an intelligent authority, that it had been predicted that instead of the coal mines of this country sending their products hundreds and thousands of miles away, for transportation-power, at a great expense, that a stationary engine would be located at the mouth of the mine, and the power derived from the coal transmitted therefrom over an electric wire. This would, indeed, be a great transformation, and a great improvement and a great economy. But a greater change, one quite as likely in the future, and perhaps possible within the lifetime of some of our children, will be the abolition of railroads by the pneumatic tube process, and the transmission of power as I have suggested.
A hundred years hence the people who then occupy our places will look upon us as primitive and crude, or, in accordance with the Darwinian theory, as the monkeys from which their perfected race has been developed. In fact, there is a good deal of Darwinism in our development, in a business sense, if not in a human sense. As the surroundings grow, so does the intellect of the human race, and there is no telling what we may do or what we may become—provided we live long enough. We have plenty of room, plenty of power, plenty of natural ability, and we make our own opportunities; all we lack in this world is time and perfect science, and if time is given us we may be able to show what giants of enterprise a free people may become; that, as the first choice of God’s creation, we lack nothing.
We are proud now of our Brooklyn Bridge. But when the Bridge was opened, and the foot passenger rate was made one cent per person, and the car rates three cents, it was a grave question of consideration for the men upon whom devolved the responsibility of the conduct of the Bridge, whether or not the cities would supply passengers enough to make the Bridge self-supporting. It was not expected that they could or would. But to-day, the rate for foot passengers is one-fifth of one cent, and the car passengers are transported for two and one-half cents. The time is not far distant when these rates will be made much less, if not abolished entirely. They certainly will be abolished so far as the promenade is concerned; and, at the rate of one cent per passenger now, the Bridge would earn dividends for each of the two cities which issued bonds for its construction; while the taxable value of the property in both has been so largely enhanced, that the Bridge has paid for itself already, and, yet it has been open less than five years. More than a year ago the experience of the Directors was that the facilities of this Bridge were perfectly inadequate; and, while everything has been done to increase them and extensions and improvements have been made, the Bridge is still too slow, and its power facilities too limited for the proper accommodation of the people who cross it from city to city.
This is only one evidence of the growth of New York; it is merely an incident. There is another incident, which, in connection with what I have said about the difference in construction of buildings during the past few years, I think I will mention right here. The city of New York donated to the Government the site in the City Hall Park where the New York post-office now stands. It was the original intention that the building should be only three stories in height. The capping was already on, and the roof was in the primitive stages of construction, when, walking down Broadway one morning, as I passed the structure, the thought occurred to me that, for a building of its size and heavy granite exterior, its height was disproportionate, and gave it a dwarfed appearance, and a lack of symmetry. Besides that, whatever space could be added to it by the increase in its height, even though the additional room might be a surplus for the time being, the time would soon come when even more would be needed. I wrote to Architect Mullet, calling his attention to these facts, and insisting that, in confining the building to three stories, he was making a mistake; that it was not in keeping with the magnificence of the structure; that it should have one or more additional stories, with a mansard addition besides, and that the business experience of the past most certainly demonstrated that the room would soon be needed by the Government for the proper conduct of its affairs in this the greatest business center of the country. Within a week Mr. Mullet called to see me, and I convinced him that I was correct in my criticism and predictions. He said, in reply: “But there is no appropriation; the money appropriated is exhausted, and the building cannot be enlarged.” I asked him: “Well, what is necessary to be done in the matter? Suppose I write to Mr. Boutwell, the Secretary of the Treasury, about it, and urge that the building be enlarged as I suggest.” Mr. Mullet approved of the suggestion, and I added: “I will write to several members of Congress to the same effect.” This I did, and it was not long afterward that Mr. Mullet informed me that my efforts in the matter had been successful, and he had received orders to go ahead and make the building four stories in height, with a mansard roof story besides. This additional room was not needed at the time, but it has already become inadequate for the accommodation of the Government postal employees, and a few others who have been granted quarters there. And now there is a proposition under consideration for the construction of an additional Government building in this city which will cover two blocks of ground or more, and in which may be centered the various departments of Government, which are now scattered in a half dozen or more places. Is not this evidence of growth? Is not this evidence of development which justifies what has been said as to our prospective growth? Yet this is merely incidental to the strides of progress going on; and, if we are walking at this pace, will not our children’s children be racing at the different paces suggested by some of the predictions I have made?