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In Search of Jay Gould

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Maury Klein
Maury Klein
Affiliation:
Professor of History, University of Rhode Island
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Abstract

Jay Gould's image is stamped heavily upon the picture historians have drawn of the “Gilded Age” of American economic development. Our lack of knowledge of the man, and our meager efforts to understand him, account in large measure for the fatuous traditional interpretation of the era. Professor Klein explains how the work of recent historians has made the hackneyed view of both the man and his age obsolete. He reviews the constructive role that Gould played in the rise of modern America, and offers an explanation of why the man was singled out for extraordinary condemnation in his own time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , Summer 1978 , pp. 166 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1978

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References

1 Garraty, John A., The Nature of Biography (New York, 1957), 6.Google Scholar

2 These interpretations of the late nineteenth century and the figures regarded as its central characters are so familiar that extensive citation of the literature hardly seems necessary. A few of the standard works are Josephson, Matthew, The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists 1860-1901 (New York, 1934)Google Scholar; Parrington, Vernon L., The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America (New York, 1930)Google Scholar; Ginger, Ray, Age of Excess (New York, 1965)Google Scholar; Wiebe, Robert H., The Search for Order: 1877-1920 (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Cochran, Thomas C. and Miller, William, The Age of Enterprise (New York, 1942)Google Scholar; Hacker, Louis, Triumph of American Capitalism (New York, 1940)Google Scholar; Chandler, Alfred D. Jr, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass., 1962)Google Scholar, and The Visible Hand (Cambridge, Mass., 1977)Google Scholar; Nevins, Allan, John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise (New York, 1941)Google Scholar; and Hughes, Jonathan R. T., The Vital Few (Boston, 1966)Google Scholar.

One interesting insight into changing views of the era appears in Morgan, H. Wayne, ed., The Gilded Age: A Reappraisal (Syracuse, 1963)Google Scholar. This collection of interpretive essays appeared first in 1963 and then in a revised, enlarged edition in 1970. For the 1963 edition John Tipple contributed an essay entitled “The Robber Baron in the Gilded Age: Entrepreneur or Iconoclast?” In the 1970 edition this same essay, with little more than stylistic changes, bore the title, “Big Businessmen and a New Economy.”

3 Clews, Henry, Fifty Years in Wall Street (New York, 1908), 119.Google Scholar

4 Quoted in O'Connor, Richard, Gould's Millions (New York, 1962), 191Google Scholar. Contemporary editorials abound with similar sentiments. To cite but one example, the New York Times, April 13, 1873, declared that “The work of reform is but half done when the insidious poison of an influence like that of JAY GOULD can be detected in politics, in finance, in society, and when people claiming to be respectable are not ashamed of being associated with a man such as he.” See also New York Herald, April 3, 1888. Bennett's Herald habitually referred to Gould not by name but simply as “The Corsair.”

5 Quoted in Grodinsky, Julius, Jay Gould: His Business Career 1867-1892 (Philadelphia, 1987), 418Google Scholar.

8 New York Herald, May 22, 1886.

7 Adams, Charles Francis Jr, and Adams, Henry, Chapters of Erie (Ithaca, 1966), 104–106Google Scholar. This is a paperback reprint of the original 1886 edition.

8 Grodinsky, Jay Gould; Ellsworth, Lucius F., “Jay Gould and the Leather Industry; Success or Failure?” in Dickes, Allen L., ed., Proceedings of the Business History Conference (Texas Christian University, 1973)Google Scholar.

9 Garraty, John A., The New Commonwealth 1887-1890 (New York, 1968), 13Google Scholar.

10 Blum, John M., Catton, Bruce, et at., The National Experience: A History of the United States Since 1865 (New York, 1968), Second Edition, 440Google Scholar.

11 Josephson, Robber Barons, 192-193. Josephson entitled his chapter on Gould “Mephistopheles,” a characterization frequently applied to him. For an early usage of it see New York Times, April 15, 1873.

12 Cochran and Miller, Age of Enterprise, 147. This conclusion is at best exaggerated. Twice in his career, in 1878 and 1884, Gould badly misgauged the market and suffered heavy, almost fatal, losses. The crisis of 1884, which seriously undermined his already frail constitution, led Grodinsky to conclude that “As a stock-market trader he must be classed as a failure.” Grodinksy, Jay Gould, 514. Even one of Gould's contemporary biographers noted that “his principal success, it must be remembered, was in operations outside of the street.” Northrop, Henry D.. Life and Achievements of Jay Gould (Philadelphia, 1892), 178–179Google Scholar. On one occasion Gould himself said in an interview that “‘I go into almost everything’ that promises a return.… Unfortunately I do not always succeed. I have been in a score, a hundred speculations, from which almost as soon as I was in I would gladly have withdrawn.” New York Herald, February 28, 1881.

13 Ibid., 148.

14 Myers, Gustavus, History of the Great American Fortunes (New York, 1936), 398.Google Scholar This is the Modern Library edition.

15 Gould's niece, Alice Northrop Snow, after listing all the vices her uncle eschewed, concluded that “it would be entirely accurate to say that Jay Gould never abused his limited physique, except in one way — overwork.” Snow, Alice Northrop, The Story of Helen Gould (New York, 1943), 80Google Scholar.

19 Actress Clara Morris recalled once meeting Gould backstage at the theatre and receiving not the usual proposition but words of comfort, encouragement, and an offer of help if she encountered trouble: “I thought of the gentle voice, the piercing eyes that had grown so kind, the friendly promise.… I am forced to believe Mr. Jay Gould was perfectly honest and sincere in his offer of assistance.” Morris, Clara, Life on the Stage (New York, 1901), 305.Google Scholar

17 In a letter to his former teacher Gould, then sixteen, wrote, “I think I have learned one thing this (past) winter from actual observation… that happiness consists not so much in indulgence as in self-denial.” Quoted in Snow, Helen Gould, 80. On this point Alice Snow probably has the last word: “It has often been repeated that Jay Gould was a man who took little pleasure in life.… The truth was that he derived unlimited pleasure, satisfaction, from many things, but that his enjoyment was deep, contemplative, appreciative in quality; quiet rather than the reverse.” Ibid., 116.

18 Gould was clearly fascinated by the legend of Atalanta, since he gave the name to both his yacht and private railway car. Atalanta was the virgin huntress who promised to marry the first man who could defeat her in a foot race. She lost finally to Hippomenes, who distracted her by dropping three golden apples given him by Aphrodite.

19 New York Times, December 8, 1892. See also New York Times, December 3, 1892 and Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 285.

20 Quoted in Halstead, Murat and Beale, J. Frank Jr, Life of Jay Gould: How He Made his Millions (New York, 1892), 171–172Google Scholar.

21 New York Times, December 8, 1893; also quoted in Ibid., 182-183.

22 New York Times, December 3, 1892. See also Sage's remarks in Ibid., July 1, 1887.

23 See the account by Morosini, Gould's most trusted employee, in Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 271, for a typical example of Gould's secretiveness.

24 New York Times, December 25, 1872.

25 Bradstreet, March 29, 1884, 200.

26 Philadelphia North American, December 21, 1881. See also New York Times, February 19, 1875, April 14, 1877, and January 14, 1881. The latter editorial complained that “all that is necessary to make a fertile soil for damaging rumors in Wall-street is to prepare the ground by the free use of JAY GOULD'S name.… There is a sinister power in JAY GOULD'S reputation which is as unrivaled as it is unenviable.”

27 It must be emphasized again that not all speculators followed Gould in a straight line. Many took his pronouncements as a cue to go in the opposite direction, knowing full well Gould's tendency to conceal his true objective. This added dimension of second-guessing compounds the ambiguities surrounding his trading career.

28 Wall, Joseph Frazier, Andrew Carnegie (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Martin, Albro, James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest (New York, 1976)Google Scholar.

29 See Gould's testimony in Report of the Committee of the Senate upon the Relations between Labor and Capital, Senate Hearings, 41 Cong., vol. 28 (Washington, 1885), I, 1062-1066. For other Gould testimony before committees see “Labor Troubles in the South and West,” House Reports, 49 Cong., 2d Sess., 1886 (Serial 2502), No. 4174, Pt. 1, 28-72; “U.S. Pacific Railway Commission,” Senate Executive Documents, 50 Cong., 1st Sess., 1887 (Serial 2505), No. 51, 446-592; “Investigation into the Causes of the Gold Panic,” House Reports, 41 Cong., 2d Sess., 1870 (Serial 1436), No. 31, 131-168; New York State Assembly, “Select Committee to Investigate the Erie Railroad,” Assembly Documents, 1873, No. 98, 545-570.

30 For nearly two decades the New York Times, Gould's most severe critic, printed articles and editorials denouncing his growing control over the media. At various times he was credited with dominating the New York Tribune, New York Evening Express, New York Sun, Denver's Rocky Mountain News, and several other papers. In 1881 the Times accused him of trying to gain control over four of the seven papers in the Associated Press and railed against his budding monopoly in transportation (railroads and elevated railways) and communications (newspapers, telegraph). See for example, New York Times, December 25, 1872; July 23, 1878; February 11 and February 23, 1881, July 1, 1886, and March 23, 1891. The Adamses’ essays on the 1868 fight between the forces of Gould and Vanderbuilt for the Erie, first published in installments at the time, were collected in Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (New York, 1886).Google Scholar

31 A careful reading of Grodinsky's study of Gould's career confirms this point again and again.

32 Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 480. One reporter, describing how Gould used interviews for his own purpose, observed that “He did not impress one as speaking the truth.… The public heard from him only when he, not the public, would profit by the utterance.” See the full account quoted in Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 314-316.

33 Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould; Northrop, Life and Achievements af Jay Gould; White, Trumbull, The Wizard of Wall Street (New York, 1892)Google Scholar.

34 Halstead was a well-known political reporter, famous for his election coverage, and editor of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. “Offered the editorship of the Brooklyn Standard-Union in 1890, Halstead disposed of the Commercial Gazette and entered a new field at sixty-one years of age. But he was not as successful in Brooklyn as he had been in Cincinnati, and after a few years he retired to devote himself to free-lance work and hackwriting.” Mott, Frank Luther, American Journalism: A History: 1690-1960 (New York, 1962), 459–460Google Scholar. This is the third edition.

35 DeCastellane, Marquis Boni, How I Discovered America (New York, 1924)Google Scholar.

36 Twain to William Dean Howells, April 2-13, 1899, in Smith, Henry Nash and Gibson, William M., eds., Mark Twain – Howells Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), II, 692.Google Scholar

37 Seton, Celeste Andrews, Helen Gould was my Mother-in-Law (New York, 1953)Google Scholar; Snow, Story of Helen Gould.

38 Much of this affection, and the close ties between the Northrops and the Goulds, stemmed from the fact that Gould undertook to support his sister's family after her husband failed in business and committed suicide. He educated the children, followed their progress closely, and provided for their every want even to the extent of building a school for Ida Northrop, Alice's sister, to operate. Alice Snow's book documents in detail Gould's devotion to family and his close attention to the affairs of every member.

39 Clews, Fifty years in Wall Street, 620-658 and passim; Bok, Edward W., The Americanization of Edward Bok (New York, 1920), 68–76Google Scholar; Adams and Adams, Chapters of Erie, passim; Noyes, Alexander D., Forty Years of American Finance (New York, 1909), 63Google Scholar. See also “The Great Imbroglio,” Atlantic Monthly (July, 1868), 111-121 and Henry Demarest Lloyd, “The Political Economy of Seventy-Three Million Dollars,” Atlantic Monthly (July, 1882), 69-81.

40 Warshaw, Robert I., Jay Gould: The Story of a Fortune (New York, 1928), 183.Google Scholar

41 O'Connor, Gould's Millions; Hoyt, Edwin P., The Goulds (New York, 1960)Google Scholar.

42 For some of these briefer accounts see Josephson, Robber Barons, 192-215 and passim; Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes, 395-446, 478-503; Minnigerode, Meade, Certain Rich Men (Freeport, N.Y., 1970)Google Scholar, reprint of 1927 edition, 135-187. All these works portray Gould in highly unflattering terms as a prime specimen of the genus Baronus Robberae.

43 Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 7.

44 The difference in figures stems of course from the use of multiple citations in some footnotes. All multiple citations were broken down and tabulated by type of reference rather than number of references. Thus, if a footnote contained three citations, all of them newspapers, it was tallied as one newspaper citation. But if a footnote referred to a newspaper, a journal, and a private letter, it was counted as a citation in each of these categories. As a rule of thumb, newspapers were defined as dailies; all other publications were classified under journals or periodicals.

45 There is abundant testimony on this point. Alice Snow said of Gould, “He had always done his best to learn everything there was to learn as he went along; to master scrupulously every last detail; to perform each step as perfectly as it was in him to perform it.” Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 83-84. See also the comments of E. Ellery Anderson and Chauncey M. DePew quoted in Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 249-253, 463, 467. For a detailed description of Gould touring one of his railroad systems see New York Times, April 27, 1887.

46 Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 112.

47 Public, April 15, 1880, quoted in Ibid., 162. It was widely rumored that Gould was saved from disaster only when the operators seeking to ruin him went too far and outraged Russell Sage, who lent Gould $2,000,000 to ride out the crisis. See New York Times, November 20, 1881, and Philadelphia Press, December 3, 1892.

48 Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 165.

49 Even in his favorite enterprises Gould seldom held more than a minority interest. Grodinsky observed that “The greater part of his empire, even at the peak of his influence in 1881, was kept together by minority holdings, and occasionally by no holdings at all.” Ibid., 321.

50 Ibid., 353-354.

51 On Gould's ability to think big, Alice Snow offers a revealing comment: “It was one of Uncle Jay's life characteristics that he seemed actually to prefer a large, apparently impossible problem to a small and easier one.” On another occasion she recalls overhearing Gould say to Cyrus Field and John Terry during a business conference at Lyndhurst, “The procedure, gentlemen! The procedure! That is always the important thing. We need not hesitate about dimensions.” Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 94, 155.

52 For some typical reactions see New York Times, October 18, 1885, and December 1, 18S5. An editorial in the December 1 issue dismissed Gould's declaration with the sneering remark that “Mr. JAY GOULD has made as many last appearances as any actress on the boards.”

53 Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 498-499. Gould was quoted as saying, “I am out of the street, and nothing whatever could induce me to go back into it.” New York Tribune, July 5, 1886. Similar statements appeared regularly during the next six years.

54 Alice Snow provides several revealing glimpses of: an exhausted and haggard Gould during the last decade of his life. In describing his youthful days as a clerk in a country store she captured the pattern he followed until his stamina broke down: “Jay Gould found that the work in the store took up almost his entire day. Also it was much more of a drain on his limited vitality than he had anticipated; two obstacles which he promptly attacked by steeling himself to sleep even less and work even more, as hard as he knew how in spite of fatigue — which is to say, again, by strength of will.” Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 68.

55 For a good example of one such trip see New York Times, July 28, August 2, August 5, and August 29, 1888. This same trip to Saratoga is described in Ibid., 166-168.

56 Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 476. By contrast White, Wizard of Wall Street, 152, concluded that “Nothing Mr. Gould did in his life so arrayed public sentiment against him as his creation of the telegraphic monopoly.”

57 Referring to the late 1880s, Grodinsky wrote: “When rate wars had produced their baneful effects upon railroad earnings and finances in the West, it was Gould who for the first time in his career assumed leadership in an effort to stabilize rates and maintain values. It was a unique position for a man who in the popular eye had for so many years been considered a railroad wrecker. He was now to come forth in a new role — that of railroad stabilizer.” Ibid., 554-555.

58 Ibid., 561.

59 See Ibid., 86. Grodinsky observed trenchantly that “A Gould road in the Southwest was a byword for poor service.” Ibid., 599. The same judgment may be applied to his other roads as well.

90 Ibid., 608. In summarizing Gould's influence Grodinsky notes that “The record building construction in 1879-81 and in 1886-87 were in part the consequence of competitive fears inspired by the Gould policies. Gould was in this sense a public servant. The building program in the eighties of the Atchison, the Union Pacific, the Burlington, the Rock Island, the Northwestern, and the St. Paul, reflected to a considerable degree adjustments to his rate-cutting, business disturbing policies.” Ibid., 598. For a comprehensive account, see also Grodinsky, 's Transcontinental Railway Strategy, 1869-1893 (Philadelphia, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Ibid., 610.

62 Of one early episode Alice Snow wrote, “If the manner in which this fifteen-year-old boy next proceeded to extricate himself from his difficulties, with a profit for good measure, reads too much like a page from Horatio Alger, that cannot be helped.” Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 74.

63 Henry Clews observed that “of all the self-made men of Wall Street he [Gould] had probably the most difficulty in making the first thousand dollars of the amazing pile which he now controls.” Clews, Fifty Years in Wall Street, 620.

64 Unlike many “self-made” men, Gould never deceived himself into making a virtue of his childhood hardships. On one occasion he was quoted as saying. “Do you know that my father's poverty was never worth a single thousand dollars to me?” New York Times, December 3, 1892.

65 Perkins to John Murray Forbes, November 19, 1879, quoted in Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 232.

66 See for example the incidents recounted in Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould, 179-182. Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 196, observed that “In assuming control, Gould took pains to select a proper managerial leadership. This was one of Gould's strong points. He was usually careful to select just the right man for the right job and to keep that man only as long as necessary to do that job.” See also Ibid., 421.

67 After his health began to fail, so did his self control. For the most publicized of Gould's breakdowns see New York Times October 1, 1892 and December 3, 1892.

68 Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 300, 450. Northrop commented that “It is probable that no man in this or any other country has ever been a party to so many law-suits as Gould.” Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 48.

69 Gould's attitude toward the law bears a striking resemblance to that of Frank Cowperwood in Dreiser, Theodore, The Financier, (New York, 1912), 291Google Scholar. This is the Signet Classic paperback edition.

70 Grodinsky, Jay Gould, 448, cites one classic instance of this mis-appraisal: “Gould's stroke in acquiring the Western Union in 1881, far from being accepted as a masterpiece of corporate strategy, was almost universally regarded as a serious blunder.”

71 Gould was once quoted as explaining his success by saying “There isn't any secret.… I avoid bad luck by being patient. Whenever I am obliged to get into a fight I always wait and let the other fellow get tired first.” New York Times, December 3, 1892.

72 “He became invested with a sinister distinction as the most coldblooded corruptionist, spoliator, and financial pirate of his time; and so thoroughly did he earn this reputation that to the end of his days it confronted him at every step, and survived to become the standing reproach and terror of his descendants. For nearly a half century the very name of Jay Gould was a persisting jeer and byword, an object of popular contumely and hatred, the signification of every foul and base crime by which greed triumphs.” Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes, 397.

73 Warshaw, Jay Gould: The Story of a Fortune, 122. See also New York Times, January 14, 1881.

74 See for example the New York Times, February 19, 1875, April 4, April 5, April 12, and April 14, 1877, and February 23, 1881.

75 For this episode see Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 142-143; O'Connor, Gould's Millions, 252-254; New York Herald, March 30, April 1-3, 1888; New York Sun, April 1 and April 3, 1888; New York Times, April 2, 1888. Bennett was also a business rival to Gould, having invested in a telegraph company engaged in a fight with Western Union. Of Gould's usual aloofness from controversy Alice Snow wrote: “What contributed, probably more than anything else, to some public acceptance of even the most far-fetched allegations was my uncle's obstinate and absolute refusal to make reply either by word or in print. He would neither defend himself nor attack his attackers. He would neither affirm nor deny — anything.” Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 185.

76 See the amusing episodes in New York Times, August 8, 1873; Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould, 290-292; Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 298-316.

77 Swanberg, W. A., in his Jim Fisk: The Career of an Improbable Rascal (New York, 1959), 170Google Scholar, wrote: “Possibly in part because of this almost unanimous rejection of Fisk by the elite, the less privileged classes were inclined to view him with forgiveness and even fondness. Obviously he was a rascal, but he was the honestest rascal in sight.” See also the comments of General Francis Barlow in Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 78-79, and the comparison of Gould with Chauncey M. Depew in their handling of reporters in Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 184-185.

78 “Uncle Jay's attitude toward the press and its personnel was strictly passive, a mixture of aloofness and disgust.” Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 182.

79 Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 338. For some of; Gould's charitable acts and their repercussions see Ibid., 330; Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould, 217-218; Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 173, 179-181; New York Times, September 6 and September 13, 1879, January 22, 1880, March 9 and 10, 1892. In 1890, when Gould bought some land between two churches and donated it to them, the Times ran the story under the head, “GOULD SOOTHES HIS CONSCIENCE.” New York Times, July 8, 1890.

80 Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould, 189.

81 Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 314. See also Ibid., 306.

82 New York Herald, February 28, 1881.

83 Gould's wealth and reputation naturally made him and his family a prime target for cranks, blackmailers, and would-be assassins. For the last decade or so of his life he lived in constant dread of assailants. He kept a personal bodyguard, never walked the streets alone, and obtained the loyal services of a New York police inspector, Thomas Byrnes, whom he rewarded with stock market tips. At Lyndhurst, Gould maintained an elaborate security system of guards, dogs, alarms, and telephones. For some examples see Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould, 63-66, 195-201; Northrop, Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 208, 230-232, 288-297; Snow, Story of Helen Gould, 144-148, 186-187; New York Times, May 7, 1891.

84 See, for example, Morris, Life on the Stage, 304-305; Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould, 211-212, 290-292, 295; O'Connor, Gould's Millions, 244. To cite one example: “He was too intelligent to hate and too unsympathetic to love very strongly. He produced the impression of extreme intellectuality; indeed, leaving out the affectionate element, he was feminine in nature, with marked intuitive perceptions.” White, Wizard of Wall Street, 216-217. See also ibid., 20.

85 Quoted in White, Wizard of Wall Street, 218-219.

86 Numerous observers confirm Gould's zest for business combat. Alice Snow concluded that her uncle “did thoroughly enjoy business, and, in particular, the opportunity to fight and overcome great obstacles.… I shall always believe that with Uncle Jay money was secondary to his intense desire to win, his burning will to succeed, in life, in business.…” Story of Helen Gould, 117.

87 New York Times, December 8, 1884. Northrop stated simply that “Physically Mr. Gould was not a courageous man.” Life and Achievements of Jay Gould, 208. See also White, Wizard of Wall Street, 217.

88 Ibid., December 3, 1892.

89 For this episode see New York Times, April 30, May 1, May 11, and May 13, 1873, and White, Wizard of Wall Street, 179-180.

90 Clews, Fifty Years in Wall Street, 232-233.

91 Ibid.; White, Wizard of Wall Street, 170-173. The New York Times, August 3, 1877, editorialized, “That a man who represents at least a hundred million dollars… should have been soundly walloped seemed too good to be true. As the news spread, there was a general feeling of regret — that the walloping had been so private.… If reprisals like this are to be countenanced, Mr. JAY GOULD will be hung by the nape of the neck and pummeled by indignant stock operators from January to December.”

92 Clews, Fifty Years in Wall Street, 233-235. Keene, like other of Gould's foes, returned to haunt the little financier later. For some episode of violent threats against Gould see Ibid., 198-200; Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould, 295-296; Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes, 420n., 427; O'Connor, Gould's Millions, 167, 214-218, 239-240.

93 New York Tribune, December 3, 1892. White, Wizard of Wall Street, 218, agreed that “His triumphs were, for the most part, over men who would have ruined him if he had not ruined them.”

94 “After all,” Gould told a reporter, “what does any man, however rich he may be, get in this world except his board and his clothes and a place to live?” New York Times, March 7, 1887.

95 Quoted in Halstead and Beale, Life of Jay Gould, 218.

96 Alice Snow seems on solid ground in her appraisal of Gould's religious habits: “I am quite aware of the oft-repeated statement that Jay Gould was an unreligious man. …I know that characterization to have been totally untrue. It is a fact that he was not a strong denominationalist.…” Story of Helen Gould, 143.

97 Even the hostile Times editorialized that “we really know nothing about Mr. GOULD's creed, for he has never posed as a religious man. We do not like Mr. GOULD. We do not think he is a good man to have around. But it is much to his credit that he is wholly free from hypocrisy in the matter of religion.” New York Times, August 8, 1883. See also Ibid., March 9 and March 10, 1892.

98 Dreiser, The Financier, 291-292.

99 See, for example, Galambos, Louis, “The Emerging Organizational Synthesis in Modern American History,” Business History Review, 44 (Autumn, 1970), 279–290CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 Filene, Peter G., “An Obituary for “The Progressive Movement,’” American Quarterly, 22 (Spring, 1970), 20–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar