Morgan

by Jean Strouse

  1 “Your road”: MGCo., Ms 21,760—“Reorganization of Northern Pacific Railroad Co.,” May 20, 1875. “the largest”: Chandler & Tedlow, Managerial Capitalism, p. 271.

  2 “Nothing”: MGCo. Ms 21,760—DMCo. to JSMCo., Dec. 18, 1880. “Warmest” & “We reciprocate”: Ibid., Jan. 5, 1881.

  3 “with which”: PML—JPM to JSMCo., Oct. 17, 1883. “made radical” to “it is a”: to WHB, Dec. 18, 1883. Net $2 million: to T. Jefferson Coolidge, July 2, 1884.

  4 “Whatever”: Ibid., to WHB, Dec. 18, 1883.

  5 “politicians” & ff.: James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pp. 56, 67.

  6 “laughed”: Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography, p. 56.

  7 “to lower”: Hofstadter, APT, p. 176.

  8 Grover the Good & ff.: Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns, pp. 149–53.

  9 “(1) He is”: W.A. Swanberg, Pulitzer, p. 82.

  10 “Result”: MGCo. Ms 21,795—JPMCo. to JSMCo., Oct. 13, 1884.

  11 fn., “not sufficient”: PML—JPM, AJD, George Childs, Nov. 9, 1880; “although”: JPM to US Grant, Dec. 4, 1882.

  12 “Many of”: Sobel, Panic, p. 255.

  13 “nice” & ff.: PML—JSM to JPM, Dec. 20, 1884.

  14 “a mind in”: John Moody, The Masters of Capital, p. 20. “Where shall we” & “Morgan’s right arm”: PML—Jack Box 93, folder 36-A.

  15 “absurd”: MGCo.—JSMCo. to DMCo., Oct. 4 [1884?].

  16 “I don’t”: PML, MSI—LPM to JPM, May 1 [1882].

  17 “My dear Charlie”: PML, HLS Box 3, folder A-10. Lanier quits: NY Sun, Jan. 10, 1884.

  18 “There is”: NY Tribune, July 21, 1885.

  19 “not very”: MGCo. Ms 21,795—JSM to WHV, May 27, 1885. “how fast”: PML, MSI—JPM to LPM [n.d.]. JPM-WHV conversation: reported in NY Sun, July 20, 1885.

  20 “I will”: PML, HLS Box 2, folder A-4—Memorandum from Chauncey Depew, Nov. 29, 1913.

  21 “To railroads”: C&FC, Sept. 10, 1887, in Chandler & Tedlow, Managerial Capitalism, p. 274.

  22 “Papa enjoyed”: PML, MSI—LPM to FTM, May 3, 1885.

  23 “as here” & “delicate”: Ibid., April 21, & [spring] 1886.

  24 “systematically”: MGCo. “Private Telegrams,” IV—AJD to JSMCo., Sept. 30, 1882; in Carosso, Morgans, p. 259.

  25 Reading reorganization: Carosso, pp. 259–61.

  26 “scarcely” & achievement: PML—JPM to JSM, Jan. 28 & 30, 1886. “We ourselves”: JPM to WHB, March 2, 1886.

  27 “I created” & “The best”: PML, MSI—JPM to FTM, Sept. 23, & LPM to FTM, Sept. 19, 1886. “Papa is”: PML—Jack to FTM, Sept. 19 & 26, 1886.

  28 “you have”: PML—JPM to AC, Oct. 12, 1888.

  29 “I cannot”: PML—JPM to J. Lowber Welsh, Dec. 6, 1887.

  30 “heartily” & ff.: PML—JSM to JPM, Dec. 29, 1887.

  31 “peace and”: NY Sun, Feb. 15, 1886.

  32 “My dear”: PML—JPM to Charles A. Dana, Feb. 15, 1886.

  33 “What can”: Mrs. Frederick Bellamy, in Allan Nevins, The Evening Post (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1922), p. 546.

  34 “I am not”: PML—JPM to ELG, July 24, 1886. “Pierpont Morgan seems”: ELG to Frederick Sheldon, Sept. 19, 1886, in William M. Armstrong, ed. The Gilded Age Letters of E.L. Godkin (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1974), p. 347–48.

  35 “railroad organ” & “no money”: ELG to H. Villard, June 7 & 21, 1893, ibid., pp. 447–48.

  36 “God’s time”: Chandler & Tedlow, Managerial Capitalism, p. 552.

  37 freight revenues: Gabriel Kolko, Railroads and Regulation, 1877–1916, p. 7.

  38 “a delusion”: Hofstadter, APT, p. 178. “a disturbing”: MGCo.—JSM to DMCo., Dec. 12, 1888.

  39 “money kings”: Boller, Presidential Campaigns, p. 150.

  40 “Providence”: Hofstadter, APT, p. 172.

  41 “The feeling” & “make the”: The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Levi P. Morton Papers—Morton to Harrison, Feb. 4, & Harrison to Morton, Feb. 8, 1889.

  42 $1,000: PML—JPM to George E. Lemon, Jan. 25, 1889.

  43 “This is not”: Carl Hovey, The Life Story of J. Pierpont Morgan, pp. 139–41. If the railroad: PML—Depew Memo to HLS, Nov. 29, 1913.

  44 “rope” & ff.: MHS, Charles Francis Adams II Papers—CFA II Memorabilia, Dec. 23, 1888, pp. 5, 12. “remove” & “sanction”: in Kolko, Railroads, p. 60.

  45 “revolution”: NY Sun in Herbert Satterlee, J. Pierpont Morgan, p. 250. “few strong”: John Moody & George K. Turner, “Masters of Capital.”

  46 “to a hill” & “Is it worth”: in Klein, Gould, p. 440.

  47 “Will Pierrepont”: MHS, Charles Francis Adams II Papers—Memorabilia, pp. 8–9.

  CHAPTER 14: FATHERS AND SONS

  1 “We are” to “The Americans”: MGCo. Ms 21,795—JSM to DMCo., Jan. 27, 1887. fn.: W. Elliot Brownlee, Dynamics of Ascent, p. 191.

  2 “the best”: PML—JSM to JVL Pruyn, April 10, 1889.

  3 “I wish”: PML, MSI—LPMD, April 10, 1889.

  4 “According”: Ibid.—LPM to FTM, May 18 [1884].

  5 “nothing that”: Reitlinger, Economics of Taste, p. 156. “lopsided”: PML—Jack to FTM, July 17, 1887.

  6 “late” & “the top”: PML—JPM Letterpress Vol. 2, p. 127, Oct. 12, 1888, & p. 50, March 6, 1888.

  7 “I wish” & “It makes”: PML—Jack to FTM, Feb. 25 & Sept. 26, 1886.

  8 “stray”: George Santayana, Persons and Places, edited by William C. Holzberger and Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986), Vol. I, p. 349.

  9 “a little”: Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century, p. 13. “rather die”: PML—Jack to FTM, Feb. 25, 1886.

  10 “intellectual”: Samuel Eliot Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard University, 1636–1936 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936), p. 322. “disgusted”: PML—Jack to FTM, Dec. 11, 1887.

  11 “nurse and”: PML, MSI—EPF to FTM, July 12, 1886.

  12 “and had”: PML—Jack to FTM, March 18, 1889.

  13 “If Papa” & “I cannot”: PML—Jack to FTM, Feb. 1 & Sept. 26, 1886.

  14 “I do not”: TR to TR Sr., Oct. 22, 1876, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol. I, p. 18.

  15 “causes,” “heir,” & “belle”: PML—Jack to FTM, July 2 & 12, 1887.

  16 “Tell Papa” & “tone”: Ibid., Jan. 13 & March 24, 1889.

  17 “Nothing” & “attitude”: Ibid., March 6 & 7, 1889.

  18 “sickening”: PML, MSI—FTM to LPM, March 24 [1889].

  19 “irresistably” & “hard to”: Ibid.—LPM to JPM, May 4 [1881?], & Jack to LPM, Sept. 29 [1889].

  20 “sort of” & “who has never”: Ibid.—Juliet(d) to LPM, March 10, 1891, & FTM to LPM, April 7, 1891.

  21 “ready-made”: Ibid.—Juliet(d) to LPM, Sept. 12, 1886.

  22 “like the heroine” & “The funny”: Ibid.—LPM to FTM, June 4, 1887, & March 15, 1889.

  23 “untruthfulness”: Ibid.—FTM to LPM, Oct. 12, 1886.

  24 “Uncle John”: Ibid.—LPM to FTM, April 18, 1885.

  25 “so united” & “gaining”: PML—Jack to FTM, July 18, 1887, & Nov. 28, 1889.

  26 “Mr. Morgan has”: Geoffrey Hellman, Bankers, Bones & Beetles, p. 78.

  27 “The less said”: Ibid., p. 77.

  28 “rare opportunity”: Henry Fairfield Osborn, “After Twenty Years,” Princeton Class of 1877.

  29 fn.: “permanently”—in Lewis, Turner, McQuillen, Opulent Interiors, p. 23.

  30 “Your taste”: MMA Archives—Cesnola to JPM, March 16, 1888. “I have”: PML—JPM to Cesnola, March 27, 1888.

  31 “the best” & bills: PML—JPM to John Crerar, July 16 & 24, 1886.

  32 “very archaic” & “beautiful”: Rainsford, Story of a Varied Life, p. 285, & (PML) Recollections, pp. 5–6.

  33 “silent”: Adams, Education, pp. 1067, 1071.

  34 “to be bought”: Addison, Episcopal Church, p. 2
86.

  35 “Oh that”: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Standard Library Edition (Boston, 1863, 1891), Vol. II, p. 335; in Neil Harris, The Artist in American Society, p. 148.

  36 “a craving”: Alexander Graham, quoted in Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin, John Massengale, New York 1900, p. 398.

  37 “owing”: PML—JPM to L.P. Morton, Nov. 4, 1889. “Il est”: Paul Porzelt, The Metropolitan Club of New York (New York: Rizzoli, 1982), p. 9.

  38 “the extreme”: Town Topics, March 1, 1894, pp. 6–7.

  39 “unrivalled” & “architectural triumph”: Baker, Stanford White, pp. 155, 159.

  40 “I heard”: MGCo. Ms 21,760—L. Chadwick to JSM, March 31, 1890.

  41 “symptoms” & ff.: PML—WHB to JPM, April 6–7, 1890. “Papa bore”: PML, MSI—LPM to FTM, April 9 [1890].

  42 “Your father”: PML—WHB to JPM, April 8, 1890.

  43 “Papa was”: PML, MSI—LPM to FTM, April 13, 1890.

  44 “My own”: PML—ATM to JPM, April 8, 1890.

  45 “I do so” & ff., & “These times”: PML—FTM to JPM, April 8, 1890 (1) & (2).

  46 “I am afraid”: PML, MSI—LPM to FTM, April 19, 1890.

  47 “Your chief”: PML—SEP to JPM, April 8, 1890; “pardonable”—A.S. Hewitt to JPM, May 6, 1890; “overjoyed”—Emma Stirling to JPM, April 14, 1890.

  48 “much less”: PML, HLS Box 2, folder A-4—G.M. Miller Personal Recollections.

  49 “half so”: Hartford Courant, May [7], 1890.

  50 JPM inheritance: PML, Jack Box 116—JSM Will (Epitome), and Carosso, Morgans, p. 276.

  CHAPTER 15: IN PRIVATE

  1 “poor”: PML—FTMD, June 15, 1890.

  2 “not over” & “The sauciest”: Town Topics, Oct. 1, 1896, & April 24, 1890.

  3 “See that”: PML—G.W. Knight to J.E. Thorley, March 20, 1889.

  4 “ready” & “give up”: PML, MSI—FTM to LPM, June 19 & 27, 1890.

  5 “Papa &”: Ibid.—LPMD, July 21, 1890.

  6 “All seem” & ff.: PML—FTMD, July–Aug., 1890.

  7 “very much”: Town Topics, May 15, 1890, p. 2.

  8 “you have”: Swanberg, Whitney Father, Whitney Heiress, pp. 87–90.

  9 “You constantly”: PML—FTMD, Oct. 20, 1890.

  10 “What are” & ff.: PML—Memorandum of J. Frederic Tams, Feb. 27, 1925.

  11 “You cannot”: PML, MSI—Jack to FTM, Oct. 7, 1891.

  12 “about the”: PML—JPM to Daniell, Aug. 12, 1891.

  13 “on the scale”: PML—JPM to Juliet(s), Dec. 23, 1891.

  14 “for your”: PML—JPM to Williams, Dec. 30, 1891.

  15 “price” & ff.: PML—JPM to Pearson, Jan. 27 & Aug. 12, 1891.

  16 “I must”: PML—JPM to Col. Charles C. Jones, Jr., Dec. 22, 1892.

  17 “was a strange” & ff.: Fraternity, A Romance of Inspiration (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1910).

  18 “as for the”: PML—Jack to FTM, Feb. 8, 1889.

  19 Diary of Margot Asquith, Nov. 13, 1911 (privately owned).

  20 “I have never”: Lilly—Sackville-West manuscripts, LSD, July 30, 1911.

  21 “it isn’t” & ff.: PML, MSI—Juliet(d) to LPM, March 10 & April 8, 1891.

  22 “big supplies” to “you do”: Ibid.—FTM to LPM, July 19 & July 27, 1891.

  23 “Cable from”: PML—FTMD, Oct. 6, 1891. “it hurt”: PML, MSI—Jack to FTM, Oct. 7, 1891. “quite a”: PML—Jack to Edward W. Grew, Nov. 11, 1892.

  24 “bad news” & “do not”: PML, MSI—FTM to LPM, April 29 & March 27, 1887. “Of course”: LPM to FTM, April 11, 1887.

  25 “with his tongue in his cheek”: AMS interview.

  26 fn. “The only”: Diana Forbes-Robertson, My Aunt Maxine, The Story of Maxine Elliott (New York: Viking, 1964), p. 200.

  27 “never”: Dr. Lewis A. Conner in James A. Harrar, M.D., The Story of the Lying-In Hospital of the City of New York (New York: The Society of the Lying-In Hospital, 1938), p. 74.

  28 “Mr. Morgan”: AMS interview.

  29 “whenever” & ff.: Ibid.

  30 “really did”: Satterlee, JPM, p. 372.

  31 “bad lot”: AMS interview.

  CHAPTER 16: CONSOLIDATIONS

  1 fn. “If a man”: Thomas Navin & Marian Sears, “The Rise of a Market for Industrial Securities,” p. 119, n. 21.

  2 “a kingly”: March 21, 1890, in Theodore S. Burton, John Sherman (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1906), p. 359.

  3 “the false” & ff.: Rudolph J.R. Peritz, Competition Policy in America 1888–1992, pp. 16–23.

  4 “the only”: PML—BG notes in margins of Hovey, Life Story of JPM, p. 225.

  5 “Here was”: Lippmann, A Preface to Politics, pp. 22–31. fn. (Areeda) “Like all”: NY Times, Dec. 27, 1995.

  6 “a regular”: in Maury Klein, Jay Gould, p. 454.

  7 “simple but”: Ibid., p. 460.

  8 “I am”: Satterlee, JPM, p. 257. “Railroad Kings”: NY Herald, Dec. 16, 1890, in Klein, Gould, p. 460.

  9 “The granger”: PML—JPM to T.B. Blackstone, Dec. 26, 1890.

  10 “My dear”: PML—JPM to L.P. Morton, March 16, 1891.

  11 “laid aside” &c.: New York State Assembly Journal, 1891, Vol. I, pp. 588, 658; Vol. II, pp. 1076, 1083, 1231, 1239.

  12 “ ‘saving’ ”: PML, MSI—Jack to FTM, Aug. 21, 1891.

  13 “Again Mr.”: in Klein, Gould, p. 469.

  14 “The best”: PML—Jack to FTM, Aug. 21, 1891. “The new”: PML, MSI—Juliet(d) to FTM, Jan. 1, 1892.

  15 “Not on your” to “I fixed”: Lincoln Steffens, Autobiography, pp. 188–90.

  16 industrial securities market: Navin & Sears, “The Rise,” pp. 106–9.

  17 “an invitation”: J. Hughes, The Vital Few, p. 151.

  18 “We shall”: Robert Conot, A Streak of Luck, p. 277.

  19 EGE figures: Carosso, Morgans, pp. 272–73.

  20 “The Edison system”: PML—JPM to HLH, Feb. 3, 1891.

  21 “knocking”: W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, p. 294. “I entirely”: PML—JPM to TJC, March 24, 1892.

  22 “be then”: Ibid., JPM to TJC.

  23 GE figures: Carlson, p. 294, & Carosso, p. 391. fn., “Well”: J. Hughes, Vital Few, pp. 204–5.

  24 “I always”: PML—JPM to Charles T. Barney, Jan. 18, 1893.

  25 GE nineties: John W. Hammond, Men and Volts, The Story of General Electric (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1941), pp. 407–8.

  26 Ice: David Hemenway, “The Ice Trust,” Prices and Choices (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1993), pp. 189–203.

  27 fn.: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Scale and Scope, pp. 21–23; “suggest”: Thomas K. McCraw, “Rethinking the Trust Question,” p. 24.

  28 “buying up”: Thomas Cochran, The American Business System, p. 54.

  29 GE performance: Wall Street Journal, “A Century of Investing,” May 28, 1996, & NY Times, May 14, 1997.

  30 “I don’t want”: PML—JPM to Lucius Tuttle, Sept. 8, 1893.

  31 systems for Union Station: HBS—Boston & Maine Railroad Annual Reports, 1892–93 and 1893–94.

  32 “tumbled”: PML—JPM to E. Coles, July 10, 1893.

  33 “the lack”: C&FC, Dec. 12, 1892, in Sobel, Panic, p. 243.

  34 “essential”: PML—JPM to R.R. Sinclair, Feb. 13, 1893.

  35 “in money” & “On the one”: Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland, pp. 534, 540.

  36 “satisfactory”: MGCo.—DMCo. to JSMCo., Feb. 12, 1894.

  37 “there was no”: NY Times, Nov. 30, 1906.

  38 “in a queer”: PML—Jack memorandum in JSM Box 5, folder 4.

  39 Southern earnings, “one of,” & “new era”: Carosso, p. 372.

  40 “an impressive”: Ibid., p. 376.

  41 “We have”: MGCo.—JPM to WHB, July 31, 1895.

  42 “drastic” & earnings: Carosso, pp. 382–83.

  43 “gigantic”: Edward S. Meade, “Mr. Morgan as Financier,” The
Independent, Dec. 11, 1902. “safest”: in James Grant, Bernard Baruch, p. 54.

  44 “When J. Pierpont”: “A Case of Conjecture,” Machinists’ Monthly Journal [n.d.], reprinted in the Eight Hour Herald (Chicago), Sept. 2, 1897.

  45 “stunned”: PML—JPM to Edward Coles, July 10, 1893; “dazed”—to WHB, July 19, 1893; “Everything”—to Coles, July 21, 1893.

  CHAPTER 17: ROMANCE

  1 “Pierpont dined”: PML—FTMD, Jan. 1894. “Why does”: Town Topics, July 25, 1895.

  2 payoffs & “I went”: Andy Logan, “That Was New York,” Vol. II, pp. 66–72.

  3 “As for”: HA to Elizabeth Cameron, Oct. 4, 1895, LHA, Vol. IV, p. 336.

  4 “Mr. Whitney” & ff.: Town Topics, Oct. 1, 1896.

  5 “with calm” & ff.: Wharton, Age of Innocence, p. 97.

  6 “the Caresser”: HJ to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Feb. 20, 1901, HJL, Vol. IV, p. 184. “never happier”: Theo Aronson, The King in Love, p. 65.

  7 “to be delivered”: PML—Duveen Brothers files.

  8 “Mrs. Douglass”: PML—FTMD, June 2 & 4, 1900.

  9 “may have signed”: Last Will and Testament of William P. Douglas, May 23, 1910. Trusts & gifts: Interview with James Gordon Douglas, Jr., Sept. 27, 1987. Indenture Feb. 3, 1897, between JPM and the Central Trust Co. of New York.

  10 “one of”: PML—JPM to WR, July 19, 1887.

  11 “Of course”: PML, MSI—Juliet(d) to LPM, Jan. 1, 1892.

  12 “I left”: PML—JPM to CM, June 11, 1892.

  13 “a very”: PML—HLS Box A-9, Annette W. Markoe, June 19, 1924. “loved to”: AMS interview.

  14 fn., Morgan figures: Carosso, Morgans, pp. 303–7, 432. City Bank: Harold van B. Cleveland & Thomas F. Huertas, Citibank, p. 320.

  15 “tall” & ff.: James B. Scott, Robert Bacon, pp. x, 28–29, 70, 86.

  16 “If Pierpont”: Ibid., p. 71—HLH to RB, Nov. 23, 1894.

  17 “I am”: Ibid., p. 72—RB to MB, March 26, 1895.

  18 “It is probably”: in Sobel, Panic, p. 260.

  CHAPTER 18: POLITICS OF GOLD

  1 “Few people”: LC, Grover Cleveland Papers—James Stillman to William E. Curtis, July 31, 1894.

  2 1894 bond issues: Matthew Simon, “The Morgan-Belmont Syndicate,” p. 388.

  3 “If so”: PML—Louis Sperry to JPM, Jan. 1, 1895.