Iron Empires

by Michael Hiltzik

  “The female character”: Fowler, 450.

  What the Curb’s: For a picture of the Curb at the turn of the twentieth century, see Sobel, The Curbstone Brokers, 107ff.

  “specious frauds”: Clews, Twenty-Eight Years, 20.

  “once in a generation”: New York Sun, Feb. 11, 1897.

  “an impetus to trade”: “The Party of the Century,” Quest, February 1997.

  “lavish entertainments”: New York Times, Jan. 24, 1897.

  “With all the people”: Ibid., Jan. 23, 1897.

  “Twelve hundred invitations”: Ibid., Feb. 11, 1897.

  On February 7: Ibid., Feb. 7, 1897.

  “To the cautious”: Schiff to Cassel, Mar. 20, 1901, in Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, vol. 1, 34.

  “Buying orders seemed”: Noyes, The Market Place, 194–95.

  “panic struck”: Baruch, 136.

  * * *

  17. Lions Guarding the Way

  * * *

  Morgan boarded: For Morgan’s crossing and subsequent art purchases see Satterlee, 350ff.

  “Nobody will ever”: Satterlee, 353.

  escorting an advance: Albro Martin, 498.

  “I feel it is”: Schiff to Hill, April 8, 1901, in Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, vol. 1, 100.

  Hill replied: Hill to Schiff, April 9, [1901], in Albro Martin, 498.

  “the Union Pacific interests”: Schiff to Morgan, May 16, 1901, in Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, vol. 1, 105.

  “represented the interests”: Schiff testimony, United States of America v. Northern Securities Co., et al., vol. 1, 260ff.

  “Early theories”: New York Times, April 7, 1901.

  “But Keene had”: Baruch, 156.

  “He would buy”: Pyle, vol. 2, 141.

  “I sold all”: Ellis to Hill, May 9, 1901, in Haeg, 136.

  Another investor who: Pyle, vol. 2, 146. The same transaction was reported by Satterlee, 354–55.

  “deeply incensed”: New York Times, May 28, 1901.

  “I answered that”: Pyle, vol. 2, 143–44.

  His reaction: For an authoritative debunking of the legend, see Albro Martin, 499.

  “Some of them”: Hill testimony, United States of America v. Northern Securities Co., et al., vol. 1, 84.

  based his recollection: Schiff to Morgan, May 16, 1901, in Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, vol. 1, 106.

  “But you can’t”: Kennan, vol. 1, 304.

  “You are the boss”: Hill to Mount Stephen, July 22, 1904, in Albro Martin, 500.

  “by the roots”: New York Tribune, April 28, 1901.

  “perched high”: Ibid., April 30, 1901.

  Before the first hour: For volume statistics, see New York Sun and New York Tribune, April 30, 1901.

  “Union Pacific Control”: New York Times, May 1, 1901.

  “I certainly have not”: New York Sun, May 3, 1901. Harriman’s words were reported with slight variations by different newspapers. See New York Times, May 3, 1901: “I have not let go of any of my holdings.”

  “it was a common”: United States of America v. Northern Securities Co., et al., vol. 1, 335.

  “not since the Vanderbilt”: New York Times, May 1, 1901.

  “It’s nice to own”: Birmingham, 298.

  “a million every minute”: New York Sun, May 1, 1901.

  “in the ordinary”: Pyle, vol. 2, 147.

  “there were parties”: United States of America v. Northern Securities Co., et al., vol. 1, 188.

  * * *

  18. “A Good-Sized Panic”

  * * *

  Bernard Baruch made a habit: Baruch, 141.

  “the harmony and community”: Schiff to Morgan, May 16, 1901, in Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, vol. 1, 106.

  “We had reorganized”: United States of America v. Northern Securities Co., et al., vol. 1, 338.

  Harriman, meanwhile: Kennan, vol. 1, 305.

  “bothered me somewhat”: Ibid.

  “agreed unanimously”: Kahn, 45.

  Harriman returned: Kennan, vol. 1, 306.

  especially since the shares: For the prices of Northern Pacific from May 3 through May 10, see Commercial & Financial Chronicle, May 4 and 11, 1901.

  “the silver fox”: Baruch, 156.

  “home . . . from Monday”: New York Sun, May 7, 1901.

  a new record: New York Times, May 7, 1901.

  “to catch Mr. Hill”: New York Tribune, May 7, 1901.

  “The wonderful advances”: Ibid.

  He had been instructed: New York Times, May 12, 1901.

  “The first response”: Baruch, 144.

  “The Control of N.P.”: New York Tribune, May 8, 1901.

  “stock duel”: New York Sun, May 8, 1901.

  “Panic Reigns”: New York Times, May 9, 1901.

  “For several months”: New York Sun, May 9, 1901.

  “Do I look”: New York Times, May 9, 1901.

  “a good-sized panic”: United States of America v. Northern Securities Co., et al., vol. 1, 48.

  “All I can do”: Kennan, vol. 1, 316.

  * * *

  19. Exhaustion

  * * *

  “an incident putting”: New York Times, May 12, 1901.

  In Albany: New York Tribune, May 10, 1901; New York Times, May 10, 1901.

  “Not slowly”: New York Times, May 10, 1901.

  “lost heavily in stocks”: Ibid.

  As would be recounted: Lefèvre, 30. Lefèvre’s version of Livermore’s blunder has entered Wall Street lore but has not been conclusively questioned by anyone, including by Livermore, who later published his own book about stock trading.

  His order to sell: Smitten, 46–47.

  “I am not in the habit”: New York Sun, May 10, 1901.

  The peculiarities: Fraser, 258.

  “Risks and panics”: Clews, Twenty-Eight Years, 160–61.

  “It looks as if”: New York Times, May 9, 1901.

  “A Policy of Life”: See, for example, New York Sun, May 10, 1901, p. 5; and New York Tribune, May 10, p. 3.

  “some statement”: See Josephson, The Robber Barons, 441.

  Morgan’s most recent: Strouse, xi.

  Josephson got it: See Corey, 301.

  “A few men”: See ibid., 366.

  “The recent growth”: King, 218.

  “There’s been no wreck”: New York Times, May 10, 1901.

  * * *

  20. The Trustbuster

  * * *

  He was scanning: New York Times, Sept. 7, 1901.

  “Power when wielded”: Henry Adams, 417.

  “Go Slow”: Bishop, vol. 1, 154.

  “During the last”: Teddy Roosevelt’s first annual address is at https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-3-1901-first-annual-message (accessed September 1, 2019).

  “The President has written”: Bishop, vol. 1, 160.

  “How is Schiff?”: Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, vol. 1, 108.

  “We didn’t want”: United States of America v. Northern Securities Co., et al., vol. 1, 345.

  “I wanted to put”: Ibid., 356.

  “was a foregone”: Albro Martin, 509.

  “a great ‘stock’”: Schiff to Harriman, Sept. 11, 1901, in Klein, The Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman, 238.

  “Although the Union”: Schiff to Ernest Cassel, Nov. 11, 1901, in Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, vol. 1, 110.

  “the people that”: United States of America v. Northern Securities Co., et al., vol. 1, 1343.

  On September 19: See, for example, New York Tribune, Sept. 20, 1902.

  “Suddenly, this week”: Adams to Cameron, Feb. 23, 1902, in Ford, 374.

  “Not since the”: New York Tribune, Sept. 21, 1902.

  “If we have done”: Bishop, vol. 1, 184–85.

  The court issued: Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 US 197 (1904).

  “I could carve”:
Harbaugh, 162.

  “broke up our”: Holmes to Sir Francis Pollock, Feb. 9, 1921, in Howe, vol. 2, 63–64.

  “a piece of conscienceless”: Klein, The Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman, 313.

  According to Harriman’s: Kennan, vol. 1, 389.

  “a veritable bonanza”: Ibid., 394.

  “I think it was”: Carl Snyder, “Harriman: ‘Colossus of Roads,’” American Monthly Review of Reviews, January 1907, 48.

  * * *

  21. “Malefactors of Great Wealth”

  * * *

  “difficult and complex”: Kahn, 54.

  “the crisis”: Ibid., 51.

  “We are not”: New York Tribune, Jan. 31, 1905.

  “His war on”: Adams to Elizabeth Cameron, April 19, 1903, in Ford, 405.

  “The big New York”: Roosevelt to Schurz, Dec. 24, 1903, in Morison, vol. 3, 679.

  “Roosevelt fairly”: Corey, 371.

  “a perfectly cynical”: Roosevelt to Lodge, Oct. 8, 1906, in Bishop, vol. 2, 32.

  “The Harriman Extermination”: Kahn, 52.

  “It may be only”: GeorgeKennan, “The Chicago and Alton Case,” North American Review, Jan. 1916.

  “He told me”: Kahn, 53.

  “He always made”: Ibid., 55.

  “If you let”: Interstate Commerce Commission, In the Matter of Consolidations and Combinations of Carriers, Report No. 943, July 11, 1907, in Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States, November 1906 to December 1907, vol. 12 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1908), 280–81.

  “a veritable cyclone”: Kahn, 56.

  “the suggestion that”: Roosevelt to William Z. Ripley, Jan. 19, 1916, in Ripley, “Federal Financial Railway Regulation.”

  Upon receiving: See Roosevelt to Bonaparte, July 10, 1907, and July 13, 1907, in Morison, vol. 5, 710, 716.

  “we will get”: New York Times, Jan. 5, 1906.

  “I would hate”: Ibid., Mar. 15, 1907. Other versions of this quote were more ambiguous; see, for example, New York Tribune, Mar. 15, 1907. (“I’d hate to tell you who could give you correct information on the situation.”)

  “Everyone is frightened”: Strouse, 574.

  “hired megaphone”: Ibid., 616.

  “a drunken man’s”: New York Times, Nov. 14, 1907.

  “if hard times”: Roosevelt to Henry Lee Higginson, Aug. 12, 1907, in Morison, vol. 5, 746.

  The occasion was: Address of President Roosevelt on the Occasion of the Laying of the Corner Stone of the Pilgrim Memorial Monument (Washington, DC: GPO, 1907).

  “My speech told”: Roosevelt to Kermit Roosevelt, Aug. 21, 1907, in Morison, vol. 5, 760.

  “at least as”: See Bishop, vol. 2, 61.

  “We were in”: Roosevelt to William Dudley Foulke, Oct. 24, 1908, in Morison, vol. 6, 1317.

  In an exchange: S. Doc. No. 212, 59th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 12, 1907. See also Hiltzik, 41–51.

  “diversion dams and”: Roosevelt’s message can be found in Congressional Record, vol. 41, (Senate, January 12, 1907), 1028-29.

  “Very few there were”: Kahn, 56.

  Harriman listened: Kennan, vol. 2, 315.

  “He has taken”: Commercial and Financial Chronicle, April 11, 1908.

  “Harriman Cash”: New York Times, April 9, 1908.

  The following spring: Kennan, vol. 2, 345.

  “E.H. Harriman will go”: New York Tribune, Aug. 25, 1909.

  He never left: Kennan, vol. 2, 346.

  “He did not believe”: Schiff to Ernest Cassel, Sept. 12, 1909, in Adler, Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters, vol. 1, 117.

  “Your firm is”: Pujo Report, part 15, 1053–54, 1061.

  “Father made a”: Strouse, 671.

  “The long preparation”: Satterlee, 560.

  “nervous depression”: Strouse, 676.

  “thin, exhausted”: Ibid.

  “our archaic”: Pujo Report, 148.

  “Big railroad systems”: Brandeis, 162.

  “practically all”: See ibid., 135.

  “served, substantially”: Ibid., 167.

  “succeeded in becoming”: Ibid., 169.

  As recently as: Stover, 242.

  On December 2: United States v. Union Pacific Railroad Company, 226 US 61 (1912).

  * * *

  Epilogue: The End of an Epoch

  * * *

  The consequences: See Gallamore and Meyer, 60.

  “much was made”: Ibid., 55.

  Once the prime: The statistics in this section come from ibid., 396ff.

  “survived more”: Ibid., 401.

  “The reasonable”: The author is indebted to Andrew Roberts (Churchill: Walking with Destiny) for exhuming this epigram.

  “turned on the”: Schumpeter, Business Cycles, 383.

  “the unexampled”: Trachtenberg, 57.

  “During the 1880s”: Chandler, The Visible Hand, 147.

  “the essential fact”: Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 83.

  “made possible”: Chandler, The Visible Hand, 99.

  “hardy pioneers”: Brandeis, 135.

  “entitled to share”: Ibid., 136.

  “the scrambled disorder”: Frederick Lewis Allen, “The Great Pierpont Morgan,” Harper’s Magazine, December 1948, 28.

  “the personal dictatorship”: Corey, 357.

  “the leadership”: Klein, The Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman, 446.

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