In reminiscences of my journalistic friends I do not include many of the most valued who are still living. Of those who have passed away one of the most faithful and devoted was Edward H. Butler, editor and proprietor of the Buffalo Evening News.
Mr. Butler began at the bottom as a newspaper man and very early and rapidly climbed to the top. He secured control of the Evening News and soon made one of the most, if not the most, widely circulated, influential, and prosperous papers of western New York. Personally and through his paper he was for many years my devoted friend. To those he loved he had an unbounded fidelity and generosity. He possessed keen insight and kept thoroughly abreast of public affairs was a journalist of high order.
It was my privilege to know Charles A. Dana very well. I first met him when he was on the New York Tribune and closely allied with Horace Greeley. He made the New York Sun one of the brightest, most original, and most quoted newspapers in the United States. His high culture, wonderful command of English, and refined taste gave to the Sun a high literary position, and at the same time his audacity and criticism made him a terror to those with whom he differed, and his editorials the delight of a reader.
Personally Mr. Dana was one of the most attractive and charming of men. As assistant secretary of war during Lincoln's administration he came in intimate contact with all the public men of that period, and as a journalist his study was invaded and he received most graciously men and women famous in every department of intellectual activity. His reminiscences were wonderful and his characterizations remarkable. He might have published an autobiography of rare value and interest.
When the elder James Gordon Bennett died the newspaper world recognized the loss of one of the most remarkable and successful of journalists and publishers. His son had won reputation in the field of sport, but his contemporaries doubted his ability to maintain, much less increase, the sphere of the New York Herald. But young Bennett soon displayed rare originality and enterprise. He made his newspaper one of national and international importance. By bringing out an edition in Paris he conferred a boon upon Americans abroad. For many years there was little news from the United States in foreign newspapers, but Americans crazy for news from home found it in the Paris edition of the New York Herald.
Mr. Bennett was a good friend of mine for half a century. He was delightful company, with his grasp of world affairs and picturesque presentation of them. A President of the United States who wished to change the hostile attitude of the Herald towards his administration and himself asked me to interview Mr. Bennett. The editor was courteous, frank, but implacable. But some time afterwards the Herald became a cordial supporter of the president. The interview and its subsequent result displayed a characteristic of Bennett. He would not recognize that his judgment or action could be influenced, but his mind was so open and fair that when convinced that he was wrong he would in his own way and at his own time do the right thing.
Mr. Bennett did me once an essential service. It was at the time when I was a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate. I cabled him in Paris and asked that he would look into the situation through his confidential friends, reporters, and employees, and if he found the situation warranted his taking a position to do so. Of course the Herald was an independent and not a party journal and rarely took sides. But not long afterwards, editorially and reportorially, the emphatic endorsement of the Herald came, and positive prediction of success, and were of great help. He was one of my groomsmen at my wedding in 1901.
Among the thousands of stories which appear and disappear like butterflies, it is a curious question what vogue and circulation one can have over others. By an accident I broke one of the tendons of my heel and was laid up in my house for some time, unable to walk. The surgeon fixed the bandage in place by a liquid cement which soon solidified like glass.
Julian Ralph, a brilliant young newspaper reporter, wrote a long story in the New York Sun about a wonderful glass leg, which had been substituted for the natural one and did better work. The story had universal publication not only in the United States but abroad, and interested scientists and surgeons. My mail grew to enormous proportions with letters from eager inquirers wanting to know all the particulars. The multitude of unfortunates who had lost their legs or were dissatisfied with artificial ones wrote to me to find out where these wonderful glass legs could be obtained.
The glass-leg story nearly killed me, but it gave Ralph such a reputation that he was advanced to positions both at home and abroad, where his literary genius and imagination won him many honors, but he never repeated his success with my glass leg.
I suppose, having been more than half a century in close contact with matters of interest to the public, or officially in positions where I was a party to corporate activities or movements which might affect the market, I have been more interviewed than any one living and seen more reporters. No reporter has ever abused the confidence I reposed in him. He always appreciated what I told him, even to the verge of indiscretion, and knew what was proper for him to reveal and what was not for publication. In the critical situations which often occurred in railway controversies, this cordial relationship with reporters was of great value in getting our side before the public.
One reporter especially, a space writer, managed for a long time to get from me one-half to a column nearly every day, sometimes appearing as interviews and at other times under the general phrase: "It has been learned from a reliable source."
I recall a personal incident out of the ordinary. I was awakened one stormy winter night by a reporter who was well known to me, a young man of unusual promise. I met him in dressing gown and slippers in my library. There he told me that his wife was ill, and to save her life the doctor informed him that he must send her West to a sanitarium.
"I have no money," he continued, "and will not borrow nor beg, but you must give me a story I can sell."
We discussed various matters which a paper would like to have, and finally I gave him a veiled but still intelligible story, which we both knew the papers were anxious to get. He told me afterwards that he sold the interview for enough to meet his present needs and his wife's journey. Some time after he entered Wall Street and made a success.
I have known well nearly all the phenomenally successful business men of my time. It is a popular idea that luck or chance had much to do with their careers. This is a mistake. All of them had vision not possessed by their fellows. They could see opportunities where others took the opposite view, and they had the courage of their convictions. They had standards of their own which they lived up to, and these standards differed widely from the ethical ideas of the majority.
Russell Sage, who died in the eighties, had to his credit an estate which amounted to a million dollars for every year of his life. He was not always a money-maker, but he was educated in the art as a banker, was diverted into politics, elected to Congress, and became a very useful member of that body. When politics changed and he was defeated, he came to New York and speedily found his place among the survival of the fittest. Mr. Sage could see before others when bad times would be followed by better ones and securities rise in value, and he also saw before others when disasters would follow prosperity. Relying upon his own judgment, he became a winner, whether the market went up or down.
I met Mr. Sage frequently and enjoyed his quick and keen appreciation of men and things. Of course, I knew that he cultivated me because he thought that from my official position he might possibly gain information which he could use in the market. I never received any points from him, or acted upon any of his suggestions. I think the reason why I am in excellent health and vigor in my eighty-eighth year is largely due to the fact that the points or suggestions of great financiers never interested me. I have known thousands who were ruined by them. The financier who gives advice may mean well as to the securities which he confidentially tells about, but an unexpected financial storm may make all prophecies worthless, except for those who have capital to tide it over.
One of the most certain opportunities for fortune was to buy Erie after Commodore Vanderbilt had secured every share and the shorts were selling wildly what they did not have and could not get. An issue of fraudulent and unauthorized stock suddenly flooded the market and thousands were ruined.
As Mr. Sage's wealth increased, the generous and public-spirited impulses which were his underlying characteristics, became entirely obscured by the craze for accumulation. His wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, was, fortunately for him, one of the most generous, philanthropic, and open-minded of women. She was most loyal to the Emma Willard School at Troy, N. Y., from which she graduated. Mrs. Sage wrote me a note at one time, saying: "Mr. Sage has promised to build and give to the Willard School a building which will cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he wants you to deliver the address at the laying of the corner-stone." I wrote back that I was so overwhelmed with business that it was impossible for me to accept. She replied: "Russell vows he will not give a dollar unless you promise to deliver the address. This is the first effort in his life at liberal giving. Don't you think he ought to be encouraged?" I immediately accepted.
Mrs. Sage was a Mayflower descendant. At one of the anniversaries of the society she invited me to be her guest and to make a speech. She had quite a large company at her table. When the champagne corks began to explode all around us, she asked what I thought she ought to do. I answered: "As the rest are doing." Mr. Sage vigorously protested that it was a useless and wasteful expense. However, Mrs. Sage gave the order, and Mr. Sage and two objecting gentlemen at the table were the most liberal participants of her hospitality. The inspiration of the phizz brought Sage to his feet, though not on the programme. He talked until the committee of arrangements succeeded in persuading him that the company was entirely satisfied.
Jay Gould told me a story of Sage. The market had gone against him and left him under great obligations. The shock sent Sage to bed, and he declared that he was ruined. Mr. Gould and Mr. Cyrus W. Field became alarmed for his life and went to see him. They found him broken-hearted and in a serious condition. Gould said to him: "Sage, I will assume all your obligations and give you so many millions of dollars if you will transfer to me the cash you have in banks, trust, and safe-deposit companies, and you keep all your securities and all your real estate." The proposition proved to be the shock necessary to counteract Sage's panic and save his life. He shouted, "I won't do it!" jumped out of bed, met all his obligations and turned defeat into a victory.
Sage could not personally give away his fortune, so he left it all, without reservations, to his wife. The world is better and happier by her wise distribution of his accumulations.
One of Mr. Sage's lawyers was an intimate friend of mine, and he told me this story. Sage had been persuaded by his fellow directors in the Western Union Telegraph Company to make a will. As he was attorney for the company, Sage came to him to draw it.
The lawyer began to write: "I, Russell Sage, of the City of New York, being of sound mind" . . . (Sage interrupted him in his quick way by saying, "Nobody will dispute that") "do publish and devise this to be my last will and testament as follows: First, I direct that all my just debts will be paid." . . . ("That's easy," said Sage, "because I haven't any.") "Also my funeral expenses and testamentary expenses." ("Make the funeral simple. I dislike display and ostentation, and especially at funerals," said Sage.) "Next," said the lawyer, "I give, devise, and bequeath" . . . (Sage shouted: "I won't do it! I won't do it!" and left the office.)
Nothing is so absorbing as the life of Wall Street. It is more abused, misunderstood, and envied than any place in the country. Wall Street means that the sharpest wits from every State in the Union, and many from South America and Europe, are competing with each other for the great prizes of development, exploitation, and speculation.
I remember a Wall Street man who was of wide reading and high culture, and yet devoted to both the operation and romance of the Street. He rushed into my room one night at Lucerne in Switzerland and said: "I have just arrived from Greece and have been out of touch with everything for six weeks. I am starving for news of the market."
I enlightened him as well as I could, and then he remarked: "Do you know, while in Athens our little party stood on the Acropolis admiring the Parthenon, and one enthusiastic Grecian exclaimed: 'There is the wonder of the world. For three thousand years its perfection has baffled and taught the genius of every generation. It can be copied, but never yet has been equalled. Surely, notwithstanding your love of New York and devotion to the ticker, you must admire the Parthenon.' I answered him, if I could be transported at this minute to Fifth Avenue and Broadway and could look up at the Flatiron Building, I would give the money to rebuild that old ruin."
While conditions in the United States because of the World War are serious, they are so much better than in the years following the close of the Civil War, that we who have had the double experience can be greatly encouraged. Then one-half of our country was devastated, its industries destroyed or paralyzed; now we are united and stronger in every way. Then we had a paper currency and dangerous inflation, now we are on a gold standard and with an excellent banking and credit system. The development of our resources and wonderful inventions and discoveries since the Civil War place us in the foremost position to enter upon world commerce when all other nations have come as they must to co-operation and co-ordination upon lines for the preservation of peace and the promotion of international prosperity.
Many incidents personal to me occur which illustrate conditions following the close of the war between the States. I knew very rich men who became paupers, and strong institutions and corporations which went into bankruptcy. I was in the Union Trust Company of New York when our financial circles were stunned by the closing of its doors following the closing of the New York Stock Exchange.
One of my clients was Mr. Augustus Schell, one of the ablest and most successful of financiers and public-spirited citizens. The panic had ruined him. As we left the Union Trust Company he had his hat over his eyes, and his head was buried in the upturned collar of his coat. When opposite Trinity Church he said: "Mr. Depew, after being a rich man for over forty years, it is hard to walk under a poor man's hat." When we reached the Astor House a complete reaction had occurred. His collar was turned down, his head came out confident and aggressive, his hat had shifted to the back of his head and on a rakish angle. The hopeful citizen fairly shouted: "Mr. Depew, the world has always gone around, it always will go around." He managed with the aid of Commodore Vanderbilt to save his assets from sacrifice. In a few years they recovered normal value, and Mr. Schell with his fortune intact found "the world had gone around" and he was on top again.
I have often felt the inspiration of Mr. Schell's confidence and hope and have frequently lifted others out of the depths of despair by narrating the story and emphasizing the motto "The world always has gone around, the world always will go around."
Illustrating the wild speculative spirit of one financial period, and the eagerness with which speculators grasped at what they thought points, the following is one of my many experiences.
Running down Wall Street one day because I was late for an important meeting, a well-known speculator stopped me and shouted: "What about Erie?" I threw him off impatiently, saying, "Damn Erie!" and rushed on. I knew nothing about Erie speculatively and was irritated at being still further delayed for my meeting.
Sometime afterwards I received a note from him in which he said: "I never can be grateful enough for the point you gave me on Erie. I made on it the biggest kill of my life."
I have often had quoted to me that sentence about "fortune comes to one but once, and if rejected never returns." When I declined President Harrison's offer of the position of secretary of state in his Cabinet, I had on my desk a large number of telegrams signed by distinguished names and having only that quotation. There are many instances in the lives of successful men where they have repeatedly declined Dame Fortune's gift, and yet she has finally rewarded them according to their desires. I am inclined to think that the fickle lady is not always mortally offended by a refusal. I believe that there come in the life of almost everybody several opportunities, and few have the judgment to wisely decide what to decline and what to accept.
In 1876 Gardner Hubbard was an officer in the United States railway mail service. As this connection with the government was one of my duties in the New York Central, we met frequently. One day he said to me: "My son-in-law, Professor Bell, has made what I think a wonderful invention. It is a talking telegraph. We need ten thousand dollars, and I will give you one-sixth interest for that amount of money."
I was very much impressed with Mr. Hubbard's description of the possibilities of Professor Bell's invention. Before accepting, however, I called upon my friend, Mr. William Orton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Orton had the reputation of being the best-informed and most accomplished electrical expert in the country. He said to me: "There is nothing in this patent whatever, nor is there anything in the scheme itself, except as a toy. If the device has any value, the Western Union owns a prior patent called the Gray's patent, which makes the Bell device worthless."
When I returned to Mr. Hubbard he again convinced me, and I would have made the investment, except that Mr. Orton called at my house that night and said to me: "I know you cannot afford to lose ten thousand dollars, which you certainly will if you put it in the Bell patent. I have been so worried about it that contrary to my usual custom I have come, if possible, to make you promise to drop it." This I did.
The Bell patent was sustained in the courts against the Gray, and the telephone system became immediately popular and profitable. It spread rapidly all over the country, and innumerable local companies were organized, and with large interests for the privilege to the parent company.
I rarely ever part with anything, and I may say that principle has brought me so many losses and so many gains that I am as yet, in my eighty-eighth year, undecided whether it is a good rule or not. However, if I had accepted my friend Mr. Hubbard's offer, it would have changed my whole course of life. With the dividends, year after year, and the increasing capital, I would have netted by to-day at least one hundred million dollars. I have no regrets. I know my make-up, with its love for the social side of life and its good things, and for good times with good fellows. I also know the necessity of activity and work. I am quite sure that with this necessity removed and ambition smothered, I should long ago have been in my grave and lost many years of a life which has been full of happiness and satisfaction.
My great weakness has been indorsing notes. A friend comes and appeals to you. If you are of a sympathetic nature and very fond of him, if you have no money to loan him, it is so easy to put your name on the back of a note. Of course, it is rarely paid at maturity, because your friend's judgment was wrong, and so the note is renewed and the amount increased. When finally you wake up to the fact that if you do not stop you are certain to be ruined, your friend fails when the notes mature, and you have lost the results of many years of thrift and saving, and also your friend.
I declined to marry until I had fifty thousand dollars. The happy day arrived, and I felt the fortunes of my family secure. My father-in-law and his son became embarrassed in their business, and, naturally, I indorsed their notes. A few years afterwards my father-in-law died, his business went bankrupt, I lost my fifty thousand dollars and found myself considerably in debt. As an illustration of my dear mother's belief that all misfortunes are sent for one's good, it so happened that the necessity of meeting and recovering from this disaster led to extraordinary exertions, which probably, except under the necessity, I never would have made. The efforts were successful.
Horace Greeley never could resist an appeal to indorse a note. They were hardly ever paid, and Mr. Greeley was the loser. I met him one time, soon after he had been a very severe sufferer from his mistaken kindness. He said to me with great emphasis: "Chauncey, I want you to do me a great favor. I want you to have a bill put through the legislature, and see that it becomes a law, making it a felony and punishable with imprisonment for life for any man to put his name by way of indorsement on the back of another man's paper."
Dear old Greeley kept the practice up until he died, and the law was never passed. There was one instance, which I had something to do with, where the father of a young man, through whom Mr. Greeley lost a great deal of money by indorsing notes, arranged after Mr. Greeley's death to have the full amount of the loss paid to Mr. Greeley's heirs.
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