-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.©1901
VOL. XVII. -- OCTOBER, 1901. -- No. 6.
J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
By RAY STANNARD BAKER,
Author of Character Sketches of Theodore Roosevelt, Admiral Sampson, General
Leonard Wood, etc.
A FEW months ago an American citizen without title or office landed in
England, and so apprehensive was Threadneedle Street of his power in the
financial world, and of the effect which his sudden death might have on the
markets, that certain brokers, to protect themselves, in their American
investments, immediately took the extraordinary measure of applying to
Lloyd's for insurance on his life, paying premiums at the rate of thirty
pounds on the thousand for three months.
This citizen was J. Pierpont Morgan, who had just organized the most powerful
industrial and financial institution the world has ever known. It matters not
whether he was a large owner in the United States Steel Corporation; as its
recognized and actual dictator, he controlled a yearly income and expenditure
nearly as great as that of imperial Germany, paid taxes on a debt greater
than that of many of the lesser nations of Europe, and by employing two
hundred and fifty thousand men, supported a population of over one million
souls, almost a nation in itself. Iron and steel making has long been known
as the basic industry. England's greatness and Germany's recent progress were
due largely to their ability to produce iron and steel cheaply and in, large
quantities. Mr. Morgan, as iron-master, controlling the world's greatest and
cheapest sources of iron supply, threatened the trade and profits of England
and Germany, both of which had already felt the sharp tooth of American
competition. It is no wonder, therefore, that be was regarded at the moment
as the American peril incarnate.
While in England Mr. Morgan bought—whether for himself or for American
clients, it matters not-one of the greatest of English steamship companies
the Leyland line, operating thirty-eight vessels between Europe and America.
This move, following so closely upon the organization of the Steel Trust, was
interpreted at first as a blow to England's supremacy on the seas. It was
natural and inevitable that Europe should anxiously inquire as to the further
intentions of this man, to whom the purchase of a great steamship line seemed
only the incident of a holiday.
About the same time still another episode brought into high relief Mr.
Morgan's power. A panic occurred in the London Stock Exchange, resulting from
the great financial struggle between Mr. Morgan and certain opposing
interests for the control of the Northern Pacific Railway. A number of
English traders must have faced ruin, with serious subsequent effects to the
whole market, if Mr. Morgan bad not stepped in and relieved the situation by
accepting small payments from the distressed traders where he might have
exacted his pound of flesh.
No one could follow the accounts of his doings in England, and of the deep
concern which his presence caused, without realizing the meaning of power.
Mr. Morgan, no doubt, controls and influences more money and money interests
to-day than any other man in the world. Perhaps no one, not even Mr. Morgan
himself, fully realizes the responsibility and gravity of that power. Certain
it is that the death to-day of Mr. Morgan would disturb more capital and
shake more settled business institutions than the death of almost any
sovereign in Europe.
If Mr. Morgan were merely rich, he would not be worth thoughtful attention
except as a social problem ; but his own riches constitute the least of his
claims to distinction. Nowadays a rich man has little more opportunity to
reach a commanding place in the world than a poor man, and often his very
riches hamper his advancement. Native force and genius, sustained with bard
work, govern progress among men of wealth as in any other class. Twenty-five
years ago Mr. Morgan was practically unknown even in Wall Street, and be
could hardly be called wealthy as wealth is now measured. By deep thinking
and hard work be has reached, at the age of sixty-four years, the foremost
place in American finance. He is the most advanced expression Of a new world
movement, that of "community of interest," of consolidation; he saw that
great combinations were to constitute the next step in the development of
industry and commerce, and be took early advantage of his sagacity.
Mr. Morgan, therefore, is to be considered not as a millionaire, but as a man
of original force. Whether or not be has used his unquestioned genius to the
highest purpose, whether or not he deserves all the credit or all the abuse
that be has received, are questions the future alone will be able to answer.
Americans of great wealth may be divided into two classes: those who are
self-made and those who inherit their riches. The self-made millionaire,
although by no means unknown in old Europe, is peculiarly an American
product, and there is no story which bites more keenly on our popular
imagination than that of the poor farmer ]ad -never a plain "boy "-who hoed
potatoes at twenty-five cents a day, and grew to be worth twenty-five
millions. To this class belong such men as Huntington, Armour, the first
Astor, the first Vanderbilt, Peter Cooper, Jay Gould, Hill, and Pullman. They
have all been bold, active, fearless men, sometimes rough and unpolished,
sometimes unprincipled, always forceful and original. To their sons and
successors these men left their money, but rarely their force and daring.
Passiveness, polish, and conservatism naturally succeed creative activity,
and the later Astors, Vanderbilts, and Goulds have been conservators rather
than creators. J. Pierpont Morgan possesses the somewhat rare distinction, in
America, of belonging to both of these classes. Born to considerable wealth,
surrounded in his youth by evidences of culture, and carefully educated, be
could have led a life of leisure if it had so pleased him. It was of his own
motion that he chose a business career.
It is a significant fact that much of the great wealth of our country belongs
to men who sprung from very old American families. The Morgan family dates
back to 1636, when Miles Morgan, first of the name, landed on the soil of New
England, and became one of the company which founded the town of Springfield,
Massachusetts. Joseph Morgan, grandfather of J. Pierpont, was a farmer and
tavern-keeper in Hartford, Connecticut, with a Revolutionary War record.
Joseph left his son Junius Spencer, the present Morgan's father, a good
property on what is now Asylum Hill, Hartford. Junius Spencer, full of energy
and business acumen, was a bank clerk while hardly more than a boy, then a
partner in the dry-goods business with Levi P. Morton (afterward
Vice-President of the United States), and later an associate of the
millionaire philanthropist George Peabody. He made money rapidly, established
a successful banking house in London, with branches in America and Australia,
and laid the foundation upon which his son rose to preeminence. At the age of
twenty-three he married Juliet Pierpont, the daughter of the Rev. John
Pierpont, poet and preacher, an original thinker, and a combative reformer,
though not particularly endowed with practical wisdom.
Pierpont was the author of the ringing old poem beginning:
Stand! the ground's your own, my braves.
Mr. Morgan was born April 17, 1837, in Hartford, Connecticut, where he
continued to live until he was fourteen years old, attending a neighboring
country school for several years. In 1851 his father moved to Boston, and J.
Pierpont became a student in the famous English High School, graduating at
the age of eighteen. He is described as being a boy of sturdiness and
independence, not talkative, taking small part in the social side of his
school life, and not at all distinguished in his studies, except possibly in
mathematics. At one time in his youth, an old friend of the family told me,
young Morgan had a decided inclination toward poetry writing. For two years
after be left Boston be was a student at the University of Gottingen,
Germany. At the age of twentyone, be embarked on his career as a banker,
receiving his first experience with the house of Duncan, Sherman & Co., of
New York City.
One of the most complicated departments of banking is that of foreign
exchange; it is also the department which has bad the greatest growth in
America in recent years. Through his father's world-wide connections, as well
as in his own business relationships, Mr. Morgan attained a thorough
knowledge of every intricacy of the foreign business. He acquired a mastery
of the delicate relationships between the business transactions of nation and
nation, and he saw the world's credit system in its broader aspects. Many an
able banker is limited by the lack of such a breadth of view, the possession
of which must have counted high in many of Mr. Morgan's achievements. It is
significant of his idea of a banker's education that he appointed his son, J.
Pierpont, Jr., to a position in the foreign exchange department of the bank
at the very beginning of his career, and when be bad mastered the American
end of the business he was sent to London.
All who knew Mr. Morgan in early life agree that from the very beginning be ex
hibited the cardinal feature of his character, the capacity for pursuing his
own way without advice, and that, independent of his father, he worked with
him rather as man with man than as son with father. In 1860, at the age of
twenty-three, be became the American agent for George Peabody & Co., of
London, and with that firm his experience began in the handling of large
funds, and he acquired familiarity with the risks and responsibilities of
great business transactions. At the age of twenty-seven he helped organize
the firm of Dabney, Morgan & Co., and seven years later, in 1871, he formed a
combination with the wealthy Drexels of Philadelphia, the firm being known as
Drexel, Morgan & Co. In 1895 Drexel, Morgan & Co. became J. P. Morgan & Co.,
and Mr. Morgan's father having died in 1890, the London house of J. S. Morgan
& Co., and the Paris branch of Morgan, Harjes & Co., with all their
connections the world over, fell under the sole dictatorship of J. P. Morgan,
and to-day J. P. Morgan is the supreme director of all this great financial
machine.
Significant of the changing centers of the world's money power is the fact
that J. S. Morgan, the father, directed his banks from London, while J.
Pierpont Morgan, the son, directs the larger system from New York. It was
characteristic also that Morgan should have finally dominated every man and
every firm with whom he came in contact; be must, by nature, be absolute
dictator or nothing. It is for this reason, no doubt, that his house has
remained a private bank—a private bank giving larger scope and freedom of
action than a national bank, or any institution limited by fixed rules and
subject to the divided mind of a board of directors. J. P. Morgan & Co. is
not a corporation. it is a partnersbip. There are many partners—-in all,
eleven besides Mr. Morgan—and most of them men of the first rank, though
wholly under the influence of the vital personality of the senior member.
Comparatively few people possess any very clear conception of what Mr. Morgan
is or does in Wall Street. He is vaguely compared with Mr. Keene, who is a
speculator; with Jay Gould, who was a wrecker; with Hill and Harriman, who
are strictly railroad men; with the Astors, who are primarily real-estate
owners; with Carnegie, who was an iron-master. But Mr. Morgan's business is
purely that of a banker—a worker with money. As such be acts as an agent for
rich clients in the investment of money; he loans, borrows, transmits money
abroad, issues letters of credit, and buys and sells securities which are the
evidences of money. The extensive foreign connections of J. P. Morgan & Co.
enable the firm to do a large business in foreign exchange. The interchange
of merchandise commodities between the United States and the rest of the
world now amounts to the vast sum of seventy-seven million dollars for every
business day of the year. The banker who issues the drafts or the credits
makes a profit on every dollar conveyed. J. P. Morgan & Co. transacts a large
share of this business.
Mr. Morgan is not a practical railroad man, nor a 'steel manufacturer, nor a
coal dealer, although be is interested in all of these things, because he is
constantly buying and selling railroad and steel and coal stocks. Sometimes
for some specific purpose he buys so much of a railroad company's stock that
he and his clients practically own the railroad, and be takes a strong
position in directing its policy. Not long ago I beard an apparently
intelligent speaker who conveyed the impression that Morgan bought a railroad
out of his surplus cash as a farmer buys a cow. Nothing could be further from
the truth. While Mr. Morgan must make use of his own large means, it no doubt
forms but a small part in his vast deals. The essence of successful banking
is connections, otherwise friends. While coveting large earnings capital is
proverbially shrinking and timid, fearing to strike out boldly for itself,
and yet ever ready to trust itself with confidence to the leader whose skill,
foresight, and cautious daring have been steadily fruitful of success. Such a
money-master is J. Pierpont Morgan. The millionaire Peabody trusted him
first, then the Drexels with their vast fortunes, then the Vanderbilts, for
whom he made a profitable sale of bonds early in his career. All through
these years he has thus built up an army of powerful connections, not only in
America, but in England, France, and Germany, so that more and more millions
of capital follow the dictates of his judgment.
I asked a number of men in Wall Street who knew Mr. Morgan and his methods
intimately—and some were his friends and some his enemies—how he attained the
leading position in the world of finance. The answers were: "He does exactly
as he agrees to do." "He keeps his word." "He is an honest man." And one
said: "He is a gentleman in his business dealings." It is plain that Mr.
Morgan would -not have the handling of such important interests unless men of
money trusted him. But a leader must not only be honest; he must justify his
leadership by success. The value of his judgment must be vindicated in good
times and bad, else his splendid following will surely fall apart. His
followers must continue to regard him as strong and wise. It should not be
forgotten that Mr. Morgan has been working doggedly at his profession for
forty-four years, and that his prestige and preeminence are of Do sudden
growth. With these facts in mind it is plain why Mr. Morgan's life is now so
precious to the markets. When he drops out there is a possibility that some
of the warring interests which he now holds together with an iron band, as be
holds the rival coal railroads of Pennsylvania, for example, may clash; the
aggregation of capital which be now leads to swift successes may be unable to
find at once another master in whose judgment it reposes such confidence, and
it may begin to withdraw from the great activities to which Mr. Morgan has
spurred it, and withdrawal of capital means stringency and falling prices.
Besides his own private banking house here and its branches abroad, Mr.
Morgan largely controls a powerful national bank in New York City-the
National Bank of Commerce, of which he is the vice-president. It is known in
Wall Street as "Morgan's Bank." He is a dominating influence in other banks
and financial institutions, and a director never without much influence in
twenty-one railroad companies, great and small, including the New York
Central and Lake Shore systems. He is a director in the Western Union
Telegraph Company, the Pullman Palace Car Company, the Etna Fire Insurance
Company, the General Electric Company, the greatest electric company in the
world, and in other less important corporations. And through his partners,
who are directors in other railroad and steel corporations, his influence
reaches far and wide. He is a potent, and in times of trouble the
controlling, factor in several of what are known as the "coal roads" of
Pennsylvania-the Erie, the Lehigh Valley, the Central of New Jersey, and the
Reading, together with their tributary coal-fields. He is the predominating
influence in the Southern Railway and in three of its connections, the
foremost railroad system of the Southern States, with over eight thousand
miles of track, a system which he has created, and of which an associate and
is president. He is also a power in many other railroads, as witness his
recent appointment of the directors of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and his
evident influence through J. J. Hill in the Burlington and Great Northern
management. And, as I have already said, he is at present practically
dictator of the vast steel interests of the country, through the United
States Steel Corporation, and he controls at least one Atlantic steamship
line.
It is impossible, of course, for any outsider to know Mr. Morgan's exact
influence in any one of these ,vast business concerns. It may be set down for
a fact that if Mr. Morgan's interests reach into any corporation even
slightly, and Mr. Morgan chooses to dictate, his word is going along way.
"Why," exclaimed a somewhat enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Morgan's, "if he
owned one share in a railroad company and wanted to boss, he'd boss." Indeed,
be has something to do with so many widely diverse interests, that he
occasionally finds one of his companies fighting another, as when, the other
day, the General Electric Company began suit against the Lorain Steel
Company, one of the components of the Steel Trust. if anything dim and big in
the way of business is impending in Wall Street, brokers tell with bated
breath that Mr. Morgan, or, as it is usually expressed, "the old man," is
behind it. He is the bogie of the street. Indeed, it is amusing to behold in
what awe Mr. Morgan is everywhere held. Every one who speaks of him or about
him must first be assured that the disclosures will go no further, as if he
were committing a sort of treason.
And Mr. Morgan himself sits in his office and works prodigiously, apparently
paying no attention to what is said about him, whether good or evil. Mr.
Morgan's office occupies the first floor of a large, somewhat old-fashioned
building, standing at the corner of Wall and Broad streets, New York City,
the financial center of our country and of the world. On one side in Wall
Street rises grimly the columned portals of the United States Sub-treasury
Building, with George Washington standing in bronze dignity in front. On the
other side, in Broad Street, facing Mr. Morgan's window, the new Stock
Exchange is building. Within a radius of a quarter of a mile are gathered
some of the richest banks in America, and the offices whence most of the
great railroad and other corporations of the country are controlled.
Uncounted millions of dollars' worth of business—American, European,
Australian, Chinese, African business-is there transacted every hour. But in
the crook of the steps of Mr. Morgan's office a man makes a good living
gelling lemonade and chewinggum, and he looks contented too.
To Mr. Morgan's office come railroad presidents, bank presidents, and the
beads of great corporations, to consult with him, and once the Secretary of
the United States Treasury came to seek his aid in preserving the solvency of
the United States Government. He rarely goes to them; they all come to him.
Until recently any man might walk up to his desk, which stands in plain view
from the outer office, without the formality of presenting a card; but, while
approachable, it would be an intrepid man indeed who would call upon him
without definite business in hand.
Mr. Morgan impresses one as a large man, thick of chest, with a big head set
close down on burly shoulders, features large, an extraordinarily prominent
nose, keen gray eyes, deep set under heavy brows, a high, fine forehead, a
square, bulldog chin. His hair is iron-gray and thin, and his mustache is
close cropped. For a man of his age and size he seems unusually active,
moving about with almost nervous alertness. He is a man of few words, always
sharply and shortly spoken. When a man comes to him Mr. Morgan looks at him
keenly, waiting for him to speak- first, and his decision follows quickly.
A young broker, who had never met Mr. Morgan before, went to him not long ago
to borrow nearly a million dollars for a client. He told Mr. Morgan what he
wanted in half a dozen words, and handed him the list of securities to be
deposited as collateral. Mr. Morgan looked sharply at his visitor, "looked at
me as if he saw clear through me," as the broker expressed it, then glanced
swiftly down the list. "I'll take the loan," he said, and passed the borrower
on to one of his partners. That was all. The whole transaction, involving a
loan larger than the yearly business of many a small bank, had not taken a
minute and a half, and Mr. Morgan's side of the conversation had consumed not
more than a dozen words.
Mr. Morgan knows to the last degree the psychology of meeting and dealing
with men. The man who sits in his office, a citadel of silence and reserve
force, and makes his visitor uncover his batteries is impregnable.
That is Mr. Morgan's way-the way he dealt with a certain owner of coal lands
in Pennsylvania who knew that Mr. Morgan must have his property, and so had
come down prepared to exact a good price, to "thresh it out with Morgan." Mr.
Morgan kept him waiting a long time, and then he came out, bulky, cold,
impressive, looked the coalman in the eye, and only broke the silence to say,
"I'll give you $— for your property." And there the bargain was closed. His
way is to deal brusquely in ultimatums; he says: "I'll do this," or, "I'll do
that," and that settles it.
All who know say that Mr. Morgan does not ask advice, not even of his
partners, and that when he makes up his mind nothing short of a cataclysm
will divert him. No doubt his confidence in himself inspires confidence in
others. He may make, and must have made, mistakes, but he goes tramping
forward as though nothing had happened, and even his partners may be more
than half convinced that nothing has happened, or else that it is all a
skilful feint in some unsuspected maneuver.
Mr. Morgan has the surety of judgment and the broadness of mind which enable
him to work with large numbers of men—a strong man with eyes on a clearly
defined though distant purpose, which he alone perceives, marching ruthlessly
forward until his goal is reached. It was Bismarck's way. We may not like
such men, and the cries of those who are trampled upon may ring ugly in our
ears, but this is the method of the men who accomplish things.
Without what has been so well called the leaping mind," Mr. Morgan never
could have accomplished what he has. Mr. Morgan does not spend many hours at
his office, and when he is there he rarely remains long at one desk. A man
who was long associated with him told me how he "leaped" through his correspon
dence, how he was often complete master of a proposition before the
explanations were half finished, and the lawyers who drew up the papers for
the Steel Corporation could hardly keep pace with his swiftly enunciated
plans. Indeed, Mr. Morgan is given credit in Wall Street not so much for his
skill in organizing the Steel Trust as he is for the speed with which the
enormous task was accomplished. On December 12, 1900, he attended a dinner
given at the University Club by J. Edward Simmons, of the Fourth National
Bank. Charles M. Schwab was there and gave an illuminative address on the
steel and iron industry. Mr. Morgan, though already a dominant factor in
three steel combinations, had never before met Mr. Schwab, but he was so
impressed wit is address, a he conceive the idea he of a gigantic combination
of the steel interests in America. Three months later the largest corporation
in the world was organized, with Mr. Schwab as its president, and the stock
was on sale.
As yet I have given no account, except incidentally, of what Mr. Morgan has
actually done to make him a great figure in finance. There is not space here
to mention even briefly half of the great money maneuvers which he has
planned and carried to success. First of all it is evident that Mr. Morgan
has never been a wrecker, like Jay Gould; he has always been an up-builder,
or a creator. Most of his achievements have had for their object the saving
of money waste. Economy in production, economy in management, economy in
interest charges are what misses an opportunity to strike a blow at
competition in whatever form it may appear. Rival companies compete and lose
money; Mr. Morgan steps in and combines them, thus saving not only the losses
due to the competition, but economizing also in administrative expenses. In
times of great excitement in Wall Street, when panic and loss threatened the
entire country, Mr. Morgan has been the first to come to the rescue with his
money and credit, knowing that panic and uncertainty are among the most
fruitful sources of loss to capital. In the panic of December, 1899, for
instance, when call money reached one hundred and eighty-six per cent., Mr.
Morgan at once poured several million dollars into the market, and instantly
quieted the panic. For many years he has acted as a sort of balance-wheel to
the country's finance, wielding his immense power and credit so as to steady
the market when panic threatened.
Mr. Morgan has been such a reorganizer and reconstructor of bankrupt
corporations, especially railroad companies, that Wall Street has come to
call the process reMorganizing. He acts, sometimes, as a sort of expert
financial doctor, called in to treat financial illness for a fee-and he knows
as well how to charge as the best specialist in surgery. At other times he
buys up a railroad, as a second-hand furniture dealer buys a dilapidated
settee, refurbishes it with new upholstery, stiffens the legs, polishes up
the varnish, and sells it for new at a big profit. One might also liken Mr.
Morgan to a shrewd retail merchant, for be knows so well how to make his
goods attractive that, when he places a fine new line of stocks and bonds in
his window, they are recognized as the latest fashion, and find a ready
market.
But this reorganizing is a tremendously difficult business. For instance,
in 1893,
Mr. Morgan's firm took hold of what was then the Richmond and West Point
Terminal
Railway and Warehouse System, a loose, confused combination of some thirty
jealous companies, all involved in bankruptcy, with some two hundred and
fifty million dol-lars in securities outstanding. It required months merely
to learn the nature of the business, and then Mr. Morgan took up the almost
hopeless task of getting the consent of all the warring interests to his plan
of re-organization. He had to persuade, frighten, or force crowds of
creditors to bow to his will, besides providing the vast sums of money
necessary to buy up claims and to support the railroad while the
reorganization was going forward. It is impossible to give more than a hint
of the complications involved in such an achievement; in this case there were
no fewer than twenty-six foreclosures. And at the last, in this as in every
reorganization, Mr. Morgan was confronted with the great task of convincing
the public that the new company could so operate the railroad, which had gone
bankrupt before, that it would pay a profit, else the stocks and bonds would
not sell. To-day the Southern Railway, which sprung from this feat of
reorganization, is one of the best railroads in the country, doing a large
part of the transportation business of the Southern States. In a similar
manner Mr. Morgan's firm reorganized the West Shore Railroad in 1885, and
sold it to the New York Central, thereby stopping the fierce competition
which was injuring both roads; the Reading Railroad in 1886, the Chesapeake
and Ohio in 1888, the Erie Railroad in 1895, the Lehigh Valley Railroad in
1897. As far back as 1880 Mr. Morgan's firm furnished the money, forty
million dollars, which enabled the Northern Pacific Railroad to build to the
Pacific Coast, and in 1887 it saved the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from
insolvency by forming a syndicate to provide that company with ten million
dollars.
However, many of Mr. Morgan's reorganizations are criticised in Wall Street
for being slow in paying profits, and he is accused in some quarters of
overeapitalizing his corporations, basing the stock issue on the most
favorable and promising aspects of the business, rather than on an average
accomplishment. Many Wall Street men assert that the new Steel Corporation
has thus been overcapitalized, and that it can never earn the expected
dividends on so large a capital. This view, however, is as strenuously
combated in other quarters.
Mr. Morgan's most noteworthy achievements have been the part he played at
least three times in relieving the United States Government from serious
financial embarrassment. As early as 1876 Drexel, Morgan & Co. were the chief
instruments in furnishing the cash for refunding the government debt, and
placing the United States once more on a gold basis after the years of stress
and paper money following the civil war. The part that J. P. Morgan & Co.
played in 1895, when, after the panic of 1893, gold began to flow out of the
country until it threatened the stability of the Treasury, is familiar
history. At that time Morgan and Belmont, with other bankers whom they had
interested, agreed to buy two hundred million dollars' worth of government
bonds, to pay for them in gold, and to prevent gold, as nearly as possible,
from leaving the country. It was one of the greatest financial undertakings
ever attempted. In effect it placed all the credit of the private money
interest of the country behind the government, and it saved the day. For this
service J. P. Morgan & Co. and its associates exacted very large pay, and
when roundly abused for it by the public and in Congress, they answered that
their profits were not large considering the magnitude and risk of the
undertaking. In the threatened panic of the next year, 1896, Mr. Morgan
offered again to provide gold for the government, but when the people
demanded a popular loan, he immediately wrote to President Cleveland pledging
him his support.
In 1899 J. P. Morgan & Co. took the lead in a significant departure in
American finance. Until then London was the world money center, and -the
United States had, therefore, been a borrower, not a lender. But in 1899 Mr.
Morgan's firm financed the first foreign loan ever negotiated here. With the
assistance of its connections in Europe the entire foreign debt of Mexico,
amounting to one hundred and ten million dollars, was converted. In 1900 the
firm took the lead in helping to supply Great Britain with war money, placing
twelve million dollars of bonds in this country, and since then it has taken
part of several other foreign loans.
These are only a few of the achievements of Mr. Morgan and his firm. A
history of J. P. Morgan & Co. for the last six years would constitute a
fairly complete history of Wall Street, and, indeed, of finance in the United
States.
Business by no means absorbs all of Mr. Morgan's energy. Perhaps his first
interest outside of his work is his enthusiasm as a collector of works of
art. He is the possessor of many famous paintings, and is interested in rare
china, Limoges ware particularly. As evidences of his taste he has gathered
and presented a collection of fabrics to Cooper Union, of rare gems to the
American Museum of Natural History, of Greek ornaments to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Yachting is his diversion, and he superintended the building
of his steam yacht "Corsair" in every detail. For a long time he was
commodore of the New York Yacht Club, to which he recently presented the land
for a new club-house. After a hard siege at business Mr. Morgan goes for a
cruise, and it is related that be often takes with him a mass of papers, and
that when his friends look for him he is to be found below deck buried deep
in figures, utterly oblivious to his surroundings. Fond of a fine dinner, a
connoisseur in wines, and a judge of cigars, be is temperate in all these.
Caring little for society, he occasionally enjoys a quiet party, and may warm
into talkativeness, though never on business subjects. Any one who has seen
him at the dinners of the New England Society knows that he enjoys them.
There he will sometimes join in the singing, but it is very rarely that he
makes a speech. None of his few intimate friends are among his business
associates. The outward mark of esteem which Mr. Morgan bestows upon a man is
to present him with a collie dog from the kennels of his country home. A
member of many clubs, he is too busy to be much of a clubman, but he has
always been a churchgoer, and what is more, a church-worker, being a
vestryman of St. George's Church in Stuyvesant Square, and the unfailing
friend and helper of its rector, the Rev. Dr. Rainsford. He has taken
especial interest in the boys of the church, has helped devise means to keep
them off the street and to teach them trades, and sometimes be attends the
evening sessions of their club and talks to them. Two of his known
philanthropies have been the establishment, at a cost of over five hundred
thousand dollars, of the now well-known New York Trade School in the upper
east side of New York, and the founding of a smaller trade school in
connection with St. George's Church.
Mr. Morgan has also given to Harvard University for the Medical School one
million dollars; for a great lying-in hospital near St. George's Church, one
million, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars; for St. John's Cathedral,
five hundred thousand dollars; for help toward paying the debts of the Young
Men's Christian Association, one hundred thousand dollars; for the Loomis
Hospital for Consumptives, some five hundred thousand dollars; for a library
in Holyoke, Massachusetts (his father's birthplace), one hundred thousand
dollars; for preserving the Palisades along the Hudson River, one hundred and
twenty-five thousand dollars; for a new parish house and rectory for St.
George's Church, three hundred thousand dollars. He also contributed largely
to the Queen Victoria memorial fund and to the Galveston relief fund; be
presented St. Paul's Cathedral in London with a complete electric plant, and
built a hospital at Aix-les-Bains, France.
And this is J. Pierpont Morgan, a powerful factor in one of the great departme
nts of human activity, a man endowed with extraordinary energy and capacity,
who has trampled forward in his own rough way, asking neither sympathy nor
advice; who has been widely trusted and feared, little liked and much abused;
who has attained great wealth, which be neither needed nor desired, except as
a tool to carve a way to greater achievements; who has worked prodigiously—in
short, a man who has lived his life and fought his fight to the limit of his
power.
pps. 507-518
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
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