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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30956-8.txt b/30956-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1e5829 --- /dev/null +++ b/30956-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9418 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of the Great American Fortunes, +Vol. I, by Myers Gustavus + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I + Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times + +Author: Myers Gustavus + +Release Date: January 13, 2010 [EBook #30956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire + + + + + + + + +THE HISTORY OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + * * * * * + +THE HISTORY OF TAMMANY HALL + +HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC FRANCHISES IN NEW YORK CITY + + + + +HISTORY OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES + +BY +GUSTAVUS MYERS + +AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF TAMMANY HALL," "HISTORY OF +PUBLIC FRANCHISES IN NEW YORK CITY," ETC. + + * * * * * + +VOL. I. + + PART I: CONDITIONS IN SETTLEMENT AND COLONIAL TIMES + + PART II: THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES + + * * * * * + +CHICAGO +CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY +1910 + + +Copyright 1907, 1908 and 1909 +By GUSTAVUS MYERS + + + + +PREFACE + + +In writing this work my aim has been to give the exact facts as far as +the available material allows. Necessarily it is impossible, from the +very nature of the case, to obtain all the facts. It is obvious that in +both past and present times the chief beneficiaries of our social and +industrial system have found it to their interest to represent their +accumulations as the rewards of industry and ability, and have likewise +had the strongest motives for concealing the circumstances of all those +complex and devious methods which have been used in building up great +fortunes. In this they have been assisted by a society so constituted +that the means by which these great fortunes have been amassed have been +generally lauded as legitimate and exemplary. + +The possessors of towering fortunes have hitherto been described in two +ways. On the one hand, they have been held up as marvels of success, as +preëminent examples of thrift, enterprise and extraordinary ability. +More recently, however, the tendency in certain quarters has been +diametrically the opposite. This latter class of writers, intent upon +pandering to a supposed popular appetite for sensation, pile exposure +upon exposure, and hold up the objects of their diatribes as monsters of +commercial and political crime. Neither of these classes has sought to +establish definitely the relation of the great fortunes to the social +and industrial system which has propagated them. Consequently, these +superficial effusions and tirades--based upon a lack of understanding of +the propelling forces of society--have little value other than as +reflections of a certain aimless and disordered spirit of the times. +With all their volumes of print, they leave us in possession of a +scattered array of assertions, bearing some resemblance to facts, which, +however, fail to be facts inasmuch as they are either distorted to take +shape as fulsome eulogies or as wild, meaningless onslaughts. + +They give no explanation of the fundamental laws and movements of the +present system, which have resulted in these vast fortunes; nor is there +the least glimmering of a scientific interpretation of a succession of +states and tendencies from which these men of great wealth have emerged. +With an entire absence of comprehension, they portray our +multimillionaires as a phenomenal group whose sudden rise to their +sinister and overshadowing position is a matter of wonder and surprise. +They do not seem to realize for a moment--what is clear to every real +student of economics--that the great fortunes are the natural, logical +outcome of a system based upon factors the inevitable result of which is +the utter despoilment of the many for the benefit of a few. + +This being so, our plutocrats rank as nothing more or less than as so +many unavoidable creations of a set of processes which must imperatively +produce a certain set of results. These results we see in the +accelerated concentration of immense wealth running side by side with a +propertyless, expropriated and exploited multitude. + +The dominant point of these denunciatory emanations, however, is that +certain of our men of great fortune have acquired their possessions by +dishonest methods. These men are singled out as especial creatures of +infamy. Their doings and sayings furnish material for many pages of +assault. Here, again, an utter lack of knowledge and perspective is +observable. For, while it is true that the methods employed by these +very rich men have been, and are, fraudulent, it is also true that they +are but the more conspicuous types of a whole class which, in varying +degrees, has used precisely the same methods, and the collective +fortunes and power of which have been derived from identically the same +sources. + +In diagnosing an epidemic, it is not enough that we should be content +with the symptoms; wisdom and the protection of the community demand +that we should seek and eradicate the cause. Both wealth and poverty +spring from the same essential cause. Neither, then, should be +indiscriminately condemned as such; the all-important consideration is +to determine why they exist, and how such an absurd contrast can be +abolished. + +In taking up a series of types of great fortunes, as I have done in this +work, my object has not been the current one of portraying them either +as remarkable successes or as unspeakable criminals. My purpose is to +present a sufficient number of examples as indicative of the whole +character of the vested class and of the methods which have been +employed. And in doing this, neither prejudice nor declamation has +entered. Such a presentation, I believe, cannot fail to be useful for +many reasons. + +It will, in the first place, satisfy a spirit of inquiry. As time +passes, and the power of the propertied oligarchy becomes greater and +greater, more and more of a studied attempt is made to represent the +origin of that property as the product of honest toil and great public +service. Every searcher for truth is entitled to know whether this is +true or not. But what is much more important is for the people to know +what have been the cumulative effects of a system which subsists upon +the institutions of private property and wage-labor. If it possesses the +many virtues that it is said to possess, what are these virtues? If it +is a superior order of civilization, in what does this superiority +consist? + +This work will assist in explaining, for naturally a virtuous and +superior order ought to produce virtuous and superior men. The kind and +quality of methods and successful ruling men, which this particular +civilization forces to the front, are set forth in this exposition. +Still more important is the ascertainment of where these stupendous +fortunes came from, their particular origin and growth, and what +significance the concomitant methods and institutions have to the great +body of the people. + +I may add that in Part I no attempt has been made to present an +exhaustive account of conditions in Settlement and Colonial times. I +have merely given what I believe to be a sufficient resumé of conditions +leading up to the later economic developments in the United States. + + GUSTAVUS MYERS. + September 1, 1909. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + PREFACE iii + + +PART I + + CONDITIONS IN COLONIAL AND SETTLEMENT TIMES + + CHAPTER + + I. THE GREAT PROPRIETARY ESTATES 11 + + II. THE SWAY OF THE LANDGRAVES 23 + + III. THE RISE OF THE TRADING CLASS 45 + + IV. THE SHIPPING FORTUNES 57 + + V. THE SHIPPERS AND THEIR TIMES 65 + + VI. GIRARD--THE RICHEST OF THE SHIPPERS 83 + + +PART II + + THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES + + I. THE ORIGIN OF HUGE CITY ESTATES 97 + + II. THE INCEPTION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 109 + + III. THE GROWTH OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 126 + + IV. THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 155 + + V. THE MOMENTUM OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 182 + + VI. THE PROPULSION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 202 + + VII. THE CLIMAX OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 224 + + VIII. OTHER LAND FORTUNES CONSIDERED 242 + + IX. THE FIELD FORTUNE IN EXTENSO 262 + + X. FURTHER VISTAS OF THE FIELD FORTUNE 278 + + + + +PART I + + +CONDITIONS IN SETTLEMENT AND COLONIAL TIMES + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE GREAT PROPRIETARY ESTATES + + +The noted private fortunes of settlement and colonial times were derived +from the ownership of land and the gains of trading. Usually both had a +combined influence and were frequently attended by agriculture. +Throughout the colonies were scattered lords of the soil who held vast +territorial domains over which they exercised an arbitrary and, in some +portions of the colonies, a feudal sway. + +Nearly all the colonies were settled by chartered companies, organized +for purely commercial purposes and the success of which largely depended +upon the emigration which they were able to promote. These corporations +were vested with enormous powers and privileges which, in effect, +constituted them as sovereign rulers, although their charters were +subject to revision or amendment. The London Company, thrice chartered +to take over to itself the land and resources of Virginia and populate +its zone of rule, was endowed with sweeping rights and privileges which +made it an absolute monopoly. The impecunious noblemen or gentlemen who +transported themselves to Virginia to recoup their dissipated fortunes +or seek adventure, encountered no trouble in getting large grants of +land especially when after 1614 tobacco became a fashionable article in +England and took rank as a valuable commercial commodity. + +Over this colony now spread planters who hastened to avail themselves of +this new-found means of getting rich. Land and climate alike favored +them, but they were confronted with a scarcity of labor. The emergency +was promptly met by the buying of white servants in England to be resold +in Virginia to the highest bidder. This, however, was not sufficient, +and complaints poured over to the English government. As the demands of +commerce had to be sustained at any price, a system was at once put into +operation of gathering in as many of the poorer English class as could +be impressed upon some pretext, and shipping them over to be held as +bonded laborers. Penniless and lowly Englishmen, arrested and convicted +for any one of the multitude of offenses then provided for severely in +law, were transported as criminals or sold into the colonies as slaves +for a term of years. The English courts were busy grinding out human +material for the Virginia plantations; and, as the objects of commerce +were considered paramount, this process of disposing of what was +regarded as the scum element was adjudged necessary and justifiable. No +voice was raised in protest. + + +THE INTRODUCTION OF BLACK SLAVES. + +But, fast as the English courts might work, they did not supply laborers +enough. It was with exultation that in 1619 the plantation owners were +made acquainted with a new means of supplying themselves with adequate +workers. A Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown with a cargo of negroes from +Guinea. The blacks were promptly bought at good prices by the planters. +From this time forth the problem of labor was considered sufficiently +solved. As chattel slavery harmonized well with the necessities of +tobacco growing and gain, it was accepted as a just condition and was +continued by the planters, whose interests and standards were the +dominant factor. + +After 1620, when the London Company was dissolved by royal decree, and +the commerce of Virginia made free, the planters were the only factor. +Virginia, it was true, was made a royal province and put under deputy +rule, but the big planters contrived to get the laws and customs their +self-interest called for. There were only two classes--the rich +planters, with their gifts of land, their bond-servants and slaves and, +on the other hand, the poor whites. A middle class was entirely lacking. + +As the supreme staple of commerce and as currency itself, tobacco could +buy anything, human, as well as inert, material. The labor question had +been sufficiently vanquished, but not so the domestic. Wives were much +needed; the officials in London instantly hearkened, and in 1620 sent +over sixty young women who were auctioned off and bought at from one +hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty pounds of tobacco each. +Tobacco then sold at three shillings a pound. Its cultivation was +assiduously carried on. The use of the land mainly for agricultural +purposes led to the foundation of numerous settlements along the shores, +bays, rivers, and creeks with which Virginia is interspersed and which +afforded accessibility to the sea ports. As the years wore on and the +means and laborers of the planters increased, their lands became more +extensive, so that it was not an unusual thing to find plantations of +fifty or sixty thousand acres. But neither in Virginia nor in Maryland, +under the almost regal powers of Lord Baltimore who had propriety rights +over the whole of his province, were such huge estates to be seen as +were being donated in the northern colonies, especially in New +Netherlands and in New England. + + +FEUDAL GRANTS IN THE NORTH. + +In its intense aim to settle New Netherlands and make use of its +resources, Holland, through the States General, offered extraordinary +inducements to promoters of colonization. The prospect of immense +estates, with feudal rights and privileges, was held out as the alluring +incentive. The bill of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629 made easy the +possibility of becoming a lord of the soil with comprehensive +possessions and powers. Any man who should succeed in planting a colony +of fifty "souls," each of whom was to be more than fifteen years old, +was to become at once a patroon with all the rights of lordship. He was +permitted to own sixteen miles along shore or on one side of a navigable +river. An alternative was given of the ownership of eight miles on one +side of a river and as far into the interior "as the situation of the +occupiers will permit." The title was vested in the patroon forever, and +he was presented with a monopoly of the resources of his domain except +furs and pelts. No patroon or other colonist was allowed to make woolen, +linen, cotton or cloth of any material under pain of banishment.[1] + +These restrictions were in the interest of the Dutch West India Company, +a commercial corporation which had well-nigh dictatorial powers. A +complete monopoly throughout the whole of its subject territory, it was +armed with sweeping powers, a formidable equipment, and had a great +prestige. It was somewhat of a cross between legalized piracy and a body +of adroit colonization promoters. Pillage and butchery were often its +auxiliaries, although in these respects it in nowise equalled its twin +corporation, the Dutch East India Company, whose exploitation of +Holland's Asiatic possessions was a long record of horrors. + + +THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. + +The policy of the Dutch West India Company was to offer generous prizes +for peopling the land while simultaneously forbidding competition with +any of the numerous products or commodities dealt in by itself. This had +much to do with determining the basic character of the conspicuous +fortunes of a century and two centuries later. It followed that when +native industries were forbidden or their output monopolized not only by +the Dutch West India Company in New Netherlands, but by other companies +elsewhere in the colonies, that ownership of land became the mainstay of +large private fortunes with agriculture as an accompanying factor. +Subsequently the effects of this continuous policy were more fully seen +when England by law after law paralyzed or closed up many forms of +colonial manufacture. The feudal character of Dutch colonization, as +carried on by the Dutch West India Company, necessarily created great +landed estates, the value of which arose not so much from agriculture, +as was the case in Virginia, Maryland and later the Carolinas and +Georgia, but from the natural resources of the land. The superb +primitive timber brought colossal profits in export, and there were +also very valuable fishery rights where an estate bounded a shore or +river. The pristine rivers were filled with great shoals of fish, to +which the river fishing of the present day cannot be compared. As +settlement increased, immigration pressed over, and more and more ships +carried cargo to and fro, these estates became consecutively more +valuable. + +To encourage colonization to its colonies still further, the States +General in 1635 passed a new decree. It repeated the feudal nature of +the rights granted and made strong additions. + +Did any aspiring adventurer seek to leap at a bound to the exalted +position of patroonship? The terms were easy. All that he had to do was +to found a colony of forty-eight adults and he had a liberal six years +in which to do it. For his efforts he was allowed even more extensive +grants of land than under the act of 1629. So complete were his powers +of proprietorship that no one could approach within seven or eight miles +of his jurisdiction without his express permission. His was really a +principality. Over its bays, rivers, and islands, had it any, as well as +over the mainland, he was given command forever. The dispensation of +justice was his exclusive right. He and he only was the court with +summary powers of "high, low and middle jurisdiction," which were +harshly or capriciously exercised. Not only did he impose sentence for +violation of laws, but he, himself, ordained those laws and they were +laws which were always framed to coincide with his interests and +personality. He had full authority to appoint officers and magistrates +and enact laws. And finally he had the power of policing his domain and +of making use of the titles and arms of his colonies. All these things +he could do "according to his will and pleasure." These absolute rights +were to descend to his heirs and assigns.[2] + + +OLD WORLD TRADERS BECOME FEUDAL LORDS. + +Thus, at the beginning of settlement times, the basis was laid in law +and custom of a landed aristocracy, or rather a group of intrenched +autocrats, along the banks of the Hudson, the shores of the ocean and +far inland. The theory then prevailed that the territory of the colonies +extended westward to the Pacific. + +From these patroons and their lineal or collateral descendants issued +many of the landed generations of families which, by reason of their +wealth and power, proved themselves powerful factors in the economic and +political history of the country. The sinister effects of this first +great grasping of the land long permeated the whole fabric of society +and were prominently seen before and after the Revolution, and +especially in the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century. +The results, in fact, are traceable to this very day, even though laws +and institutions are so greatly changed. Other colonies reflected the +constant changes of government, ruling party or policy of England, and +colonial companies chartered by England frequently forfeited their +charters. But conditions in New Netherlands remained stable under Dutch +rule, and the accumulation of great estates was intensified under +English rule. It was in New York that, at that period, the foremost +colonial estates and the predominant private fortunes were mostly held. + +The extent of some of those early estates was amazingly large. But they +were far from being acquired wholly by colonization methods. + +Many of the officers and directors of the Dutch West India Company were +Amsterdam merchants. Active, scheming, self-important men, they were +mighty in the money marts but were made use of, and looked down upon, by +the old Dutch aristocracy. Having amassed fortunes, these merchants +yearned to be the founders of great estates; to live as virtual princes +in the midst of wide possessions, even if these were still comparative +solitudes. This aspiration was mixed with the mercenary motive of +themselves owning the land from whence came the furs, pelts, timber and +the waters yielding the fishes. + +One of these directors was Kiliaen van Rensselaer, an Amsterdam pearl +merchant. In 1630 his agents bought for him from the Indians a tract of +land twenty-four miles long and forty-eight broad on the west bank of +the Hudson. It comprised, it was estimated, seven hundred thousand acres +and included what are now the counties of Albany, Rensselaer, a part of +Columbia County and a strip of what is at present Massachusetts. And +what was the price paid for this vast estate? As the deeds showed, the +munificent consideration of "certain quantities of duffels, axes, knives +and wampum,"[3] which is equal to saying that the pearl merchant got it +for almost nothing. Two other directors--Godyn and Bloemart--became +owners of great feudal estates. One of these tracts, in what is now New +Jersey, extended sixteen miles both in length and breadth, forming a +square of sixty-four miles.[4] + +So it was that these shrewd directors now combined a double advantage. +Their pride was satisfied with the absolute lordship of immense areas, +while the ownership of land gave them the manifold benefits and greater +profits of trading with the Indians at first hand. From a part of the +proceeds they later built manors which were contemplated as wonderful +and magnificent. Surrounded and served by their retainers, agents, +vassal tenants and slaves, they lived in princely and licentious style, +knowing no law in most matters except their unrestrained will. They +beheld themselves as ingenious and memorable founders of a potential +landed aristocracy whose possessions were more extended than that of +Europe. Wilderness much of it still was, but obviously the time was +coming when the population would be fairly abundant. The laws of entail +and primogeniture, then in full force, would operate to keep the estates +intact and gifted with inherent influence for generations. + +Along with their landed estates, these directors had a copious inflowing +revenue. The Dutch West India Company was in a thriving condition. By +the year 1629 it had more than one hundred full-rigged ships in +commission. Most of them were fitted out for war on the commerce of +other countries or on pirates. Fifteen thousand seamen and soldiers were +on its payroll; in that one year it used more than one hundred thousand +pounds of powder--significant of the grim quality of business done. It +had more than four hundred cannon and thousands of other destructive +weapons.[5] Anything conducive to profit, no matter if indiscriminate +murder, was accepted as legitimate and justifiable functions of trade, +and was imposed alike upon royalty, which shared in the proceeds, and +upon the people at large. The energetic trading class, concentrated in +the one effort of getting money, and having no scruples as to the means +in an age when ideals were low and vulgar, had already begun to make +public opinion in many countries, although this public opinion counted +for little among submissive peoples. It was the king and the governing +class, either or both, whose favor and declarations counted; and so long +as these profited by the devious extortions and villainies of trade the +methods were legitimatized, if not royally sanctified. + + +AN ARISTOCRACY SOLIDLY GROUNDED. + +A more potentially robust aristocracy than that which was forming in New +Netherlands could hardly be imagined. Resting upon gigantic gifts of +land, with feudal accompaniments, it held a monopoly, or nearly one, of +the land's resources. The old aristocracy of Holland grew jealous of the +power and pretensions of what it frowned upon as an upstart trading +clique and tried to curtail the rights and privileges of the patroons. +These latter contended that their absolute lordship was indisputable; to +put it in modern legal terminology that a contract could not be +impaired. They elaborated upon the argument that they had spent a "ton +of gold" (amounting to one hundred thousand guilders or forty thousand +dollars) upon their colonies.[6] They not only carried their point but +their power was confirmed and enlarged. + +Now was seen the spectacle of the middle-class men of the Old World, the +traders, more than imitating--far exceeding--the customs and pretensions +of the aristocracy of their own country which they had inveighed +against, and setting themselves up as the original and mighty landed +aristocracy of the new country. The patroons encased themselves in an +environment of pomp and awe. Like so many petty monarchs each had his +distinct flag and insignia; each fortified his domain with fortresses, +armed with cannon and manned by his paid soldiery. The colonists were +but humble dependants; they were his immediate subjects and were forced +to take the oath of fealty and allegiance to him.[7] + +In the old country the soil had long since passed into the hands of a +powerful few and was made the chief basis for the economic and political +enslavement of the people. To escape from this thralldom many of the +immigrants had endured hardships and privation to get here. They +expected that they could easily get land, the tillage of which would +insure them a measure of independence. Upon arriving they found vast +available parts of the country, especially the most desirable and +accessible portions bordering shores or rivers, preëmpted. An exacting +and tyrannous feudal government was in full control. Their only recourse +in many instances was to accept the best of unwelcome conditions and +become tenants of the great landed functionaries and workers for them. + + +THE ABASEMENT OF THE WORKERS. + +The patroons naturally encouraged immigration. Apart from the additional +values created by increased population, it meant a quantity of labor +which, in turn, would precipitate wages to the lowest possible scale. +At the same time, in order to stifle every aspiring quality in the +drudging laborer, and to keep in conformity with the spirit and custom +of the age which considered the worker a mere menial undeserving of any +rights, the whole force of the law was made use of to bring about sharp +discriminations. The laborer was purposely abased to the utmost and he +was made to feel in many ways his particular low place in the social +organization. + +Far above him, vested with enormous personal and legal powers, towered +the patroon, while he, the laborer, did not have the ordinary burgher +right, that of having a minor voice in public affairs. The burgher right +was made entirely dependent upon property, which was a facile method of +disfranchising the multitude of poor immigrants and of keeping them +down. Purchase was the one and only means of getting this right. To keep +it in as small and circumscribed class as possible the price was made +abnormally high. It was enacted in New Netherlands in 1659, for +instance, that immigrants coming with cargoes had to pay a thousand +guilders for the burgher right.[8] As the average laborer got two +shillings a day for his long hours of toil, often extending from sunrise +to sunset, he had little chance of ever getting this sum together. The +consequence was that the merchants became the burgher class; and all the +records of the time seem to prove conclusively that the merchants were +servile instruments of the patroons whose patronage and favor they +assiduously courted. This deliberately pursued policy of degrading and +despoiling the laboring class incited bitter hatreds and resentments, +the effects of which were permanent. + +[Illustration: JEREMIAS VAN RENSSLAERR. +One of the Patroons. +(From an Engraving.)] + +[Illustration: Signature] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] O'Callaghan's "History of New Netherlands," 1:112-120. + +[2] Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, +1:89-100. + +[3] O'Callaghan, 1:124. Although it was said that Kiliaen van Rensselaer +visited America, it seems to be established that he never did. He +governed his estate as an absentee landgrave, through agents. He was the +most powerful of all of the patroons. + +[4] Ibid., 125. + +[5] Colonial Documents, 1:41. The primary object of this company was a +monopoly of the Indian trade, not colonization. The "princely" manors +were a combination fort and trading house, surrounded by moat and +stockade. + +[6] Colonial Documents, 1:86. + +[7] "Annals of Albany," iii:287. The power of the patroons over their +tenants, or serfs, was almost unlimited. No "man or woman, son or +daughter, man servant or maid servant" could leave a patroon's service +during the time that they had agreed to remain, except by his written +consent, no matter what abuses or breaches of contract were committed by +the patroon. + +[8] "Burghers and Freemen of New York":29. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE SWAY OF THE LANDGRAVES + + +While this seizure of land was going on in New Netherlands, vast areas +in New England were passing suddenly into the hands of a few men. These +areas sometimes comprised what are now entire States, and were often +palpably obtained by fraud, collusion, trickery or favoritism. The +Puritan influx into Massachusetts was an admixture of different +occupations. Some were traders or merchants; others were mechanics. By +far the largest portion were cultivators of the soil whom economic +pressure not less than religious persecution had driven from England. To +these land was a paramount consideration. + +Describing how the English tiller had been expropriated from the soil +Wallace says: "The ingenuity of lawyers and direct landlord legislation +steadily increased the powers of great landowners and encroached upon +the rights of the people, till at length the monstrous doctrine arose +that a landless Englishman has no right whatever to enjoyment even of +the unenclosed commons and heaths and the mountain and forest wastes of +his native country, but is everywhere in the eye of the law a trespasser +whenever he ventures off a public road or pathway."[9] By the sixteenth +century the English peasantry had been evicted even from the commons, +which were turned into sheep walks by the impoverished barons to make +money from the Flemish wool market. The land at home wrenched from them, +the poor English immigrants ardently expected that in America land would +be plentiful. They were bitterly disappointed. The various English +companies, chartered by royal command with all-inclusive powers, despite +the frequent opposition of Parliament, held the trade and land of the +greater part of the colonies as a rigid monopoly. In the case of the New +England Company severe punishment was threatened to all who should +encroach upon its rights. It also was freed from payment for twenty-one +years and was relieved from taxes forever. + + +THE COLONIES CARVED INTO GREAT ESTATES. + +The New England colonies were carved out into a few colossal private +estates. The example of the British nobility was emulated; but the +chartered companies did not have to resort to the adroit, disingenuous, +subterranean methods which the English land magnates used in +perpetuating their seizure, as so graphically described by S. W. +Thackery in his work, "The Land and the Community". The land in New +England was taken over boldly and arbitrarily by the directors of the +Plymouth Company, the most powerful of all the companies which exploited +New England. The handful of men who participated in this division, +sustained with a high hand their claims and pretensions, and augmented +and fortified them by every device. Quite regardless of who the changing +monarch was, or what country ruled, these colonial magnates generally +contrived to keep the power strong in their own hands. There might be a +superficial show of changed conditions, an apparent infusion of +democracy, but, in reality, the substance remained the same. + +This was nowhere more lucidly or strikingly illustrated than after New +Netherlands passed into the control of the English and was renamed New +York. Laws were decreed which seemed to bear the impress of justice and +democracy. Monopoly was abolished, every man was given the much-prized +right of trading in furs and pelts, and the burgher right was extended +and its acquisition made easier. + +However well-intentioned these altered laws were, they turned out to be +shallow delusions. Under English rule, the gifts of vast estates in New +York were even greater than under Dutch rule and beyond doubt were +granted corruptly or by favoritism. Miles upon miles of land in New York +which had not been preëmpted were brazenly given away by the royal +Governor Fletcher for bribes; and it was suspected, although not clearly +proved, that he trafficked in estates in Pennsylvania during the time +when, by royal order, he supplanted William Penn in the government of +that province. From the evidence which has come down it would appear +that any one who offered Fletcher his price could be transformed into a +great vested land owner. But still the people imagined that they had a +real democratic government. Had not England established representative +assemblies? These, with certain restrictions, alone had the power of +law-making for the provinces. These representative bodies were supposed +to rest upon the vote of the people, which vote, however, was determined +by a strict property qualification. + + +THE LANDED PROPRIETORS THE POLITICAL RULERS. + +What really happened was that, apparently deprived of direct feudal +power, the landed interests had no difficulty in retaining their +law-making ascendancy by getting control of the various provincial +assemblies. Bodies supposedly representative of the whole people were, +in fact, composed of great landowners, of a quota of merchants who were +subservient to the landowners, and a sprinkling of farmers. In Virginia +this state was long-continuing, while in New York province it became +such an intolerable abuse and resulted in such oppressions to the body +of the people, that on Sept. 20, 1764, Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader +Colden, writing from New York to the Lords of Trade at London, strongly +expostulated. He described how the land magnates had devised to set +themselves up as the law-making class. Three of the large land grants +contained provisions guaranteeing to each owner the privilege of sending +a representative to the General Assembly. These landed proprietors, +therefore, became hereditary legislators. "The owners of other great +Patents," Colden continued, "being men of the greatest opulence in the +several American counties where these Tracts are, have sufficient +influence to be perpetually elected for those counties. The General +Assembly, then, of this Province consists of the owners of these +extravagant Grants, the merchants of New York, the principal of them +strongly connected with the owners of these Great Tracts by Family +interest, and of Common Farmers, which last are men easily deluded and +led away with popular arguments of Liberty and Privileges. The +Proprietors of the great tracts are not only freed from the quit rents +which the other landholders in the Provinces pay, but by their +influences in the Assembly are freed from every other public Tax on +their lands."[10] + +What Colden wrote of the landed class of New York was substantially true +of all the other provinces. The small, powerful clique of great +landowners had cunningly taken over to themselves the functions of +government and diverted them to their own ends. First the land was +seized and then it was declared exempt of taxation. + +Inevitably there was but one sequel. Everywhere, but especially so in +New York and Virginia, the landed proprietors became richer and more +arrogant, while poverty, even in new country with extraordinary +resources, took root and continued to grow. The burden of taxation fell +entirely upon the farming and laboring classes; although the merchants +were nominally taxed they easily shifted their obligations upon those +two classes by indirect means of trade. Usurious loans and mortgages +became prevalent. + +It was now seen what meaningless tinsel the unrestricted right to trade +in furs was. To get the furs access to the land was necessary; and the +land was monopolized. In the South, where tobacco and corn were the +important staples, the worker was likewise denied the soil except as a +laborer or tenant, and in Massachusetts colony, where fortunes were +being made from timber, furs and fisheries, the poor man had practically +no chance against the superior advantages of the landed and privileged +class. These conditions led to severe reprisals. Several uprisings in +New York, Bacon's rebellion in Virginia, after the restoration of +Charles II, when that king granted large tracts of land belonging to the +colony to his favorites, and subsequently, in 1734, a ferment in +Georgia, even under the mild proprietary rule of the philanthropist +Oglethorpe, were all really outbursts of popular discontent largely +against the oppressive form in which land was held and against +discriminative taxation, although each uprising had its local issues +differing from those elsewhere. + +In this conflict between landed class and people, the only hope of the +mass of the people lay in getting the favorable attention of royal +governors. At least one of these considered earnestly and +conscientiously the grave existing abuses and responded to popular +protest which had become bitter. + + +A CONFLICT BETWEEN LAND MAGNATES AND PEOPLE. + +This official was the Earl of Bellomont. Scarcely had he arrived after +his appointment as Captain-General and Governor of Massachusetts Bay, +New York and other provinces, when he was made acquainted with the +widespread discontent. The landed magnates had not only created an +abysmal difference between themselves and the masses in possessions and +privileges, but also in dress and air, founded upon strict distinctions +in law. The landed aristocrat with his laces and ruffles, his silks and +his gold and silver ornaments and his expensive tableware, his +consciously superior air and tone of grandiose authority, was far +removed in established position from the mechanic or the laborer with +his coarse clothes and mean habitation. Laws were long in force in +various provinces which prohibited the common people from wearing gold +and silver lace, silks and ornaments. Bellomont noted the sense of deep +injustice smouldering in the minds of the people and set out to +confiscate the great estates, particularly, as he set forth, as many of +them had been obtained by bribery. + +It was with amazement that Bellomont learned that one man, Colonel +Samuel Allen, claimed to own the whole of what is now the state of New +Hampshire. When, in 1635, the Plymouth Colony was about to surrender its +charter, its directors apportioned their territory to themselves +individually. New Hampshire went by lot to Captain John Mason who, some +years before, had obtained a patent to the same area from the company. +Charles I had confirmed the company's action. After Mason's death, his +claims were bought up by Allen for about $1,250. Mason, however, left an +heir and protracted litigation followed. In the meantime, settlers +taking advantage of these conflicting claims, proceeded to spread over +New Hampshire and hew the forests for cleared agricultural land. Allen +managed to get himself appointed governor of New Hampshire in 1692 and +declared the whole province his personal property and threatened to oust +the settlers as trespassers unless they came to terms. There was +imminent danger of an uprising of the settlers, who failed to see why +the land upon which they had spent labor did not belong to them. +Bellomont investigated; and in communication, dated June 22, 1700, to +the Lords of Trade, denounced Allen's title as defective and +insufficient, and brought out the charge that Allen had tried to get his +confirmation of his, Allen's, claims by means of a heavy bribe. + + +ATTEMPTED BRIBERY CHARGED. + +"There was an offer made me," Bellomont wrote, "of £10,000 in money, but +I thank God I had not the least tempting thought to accept of the offer +and I hope nothing in this world will ever be able to attempt me to +betray England in the least degree. This offer was made me three or four +times." Bellomont added: "I will make it appear that the lands and woods +claimed by Colonel Allen are much more valuable than ten of the biggest +estates in England, and I will rate those ten estates at £300,000 a +piece, one with another, which is three millions. By his own confession +to me at Pescattaway last summer, he valued the Quit Rents of his lands +(as he calls 'em) at £22,000 per annum at 3d per acre of 6d in the pound +of all improv'd Rents; then I leave your lordships to judge what an +immense estate the improv'd rents must be, which (if his title be +allowed) he has as good a right to the forementioned Quit Rents. And all +this besides the Woods which I believe he might very well value at half +the worth of the lands. There never was, I believe, since the world +began so great a bargain as Allen has had of Mason, if it be allowed to +stand good, that all this vast estate I have been naming should be +purchased for a poor £250 and that a desperate debt, too, as Col. Allen +thought. He pretends to a great part of this province as far Westward as +Cape St. Ann, which is said to take in 17 of the best towns in this +province next to Boston, the best improved land, and, (I think Col. +Allen told me) 8 or 900,000 acres of their land. If Col. Allen shall at +any time go about to make a forcible entry on these lands he pretends to +(for, to be sure, the people will never turn tenants to him willingly) +the present occupants will resist him by any force he shall bring and +the Province will be put to a combustion and what may be the course I +dread to think."...[11] + +But the persistent Allen did not establish his claim. Several times he +lost in the litigation, the last time in 1715. His death was followed by +his son's death; and after sixty years of fierce animosities and +litigation, the whole contention was allowed to lapse. Says Lodge: "His +heirs were minors who did not push the controversy, and the claim soon +sank out of sight to the great relief of the New Hampshire people, whose +right to their homes had so long been in question."[12] + +Similarly, another area, the entirety of what is now the State of Maine, +went to the individual ownership of Sir Fernandino Gorges, the same who +had betrayed Essex to Queen Elizabeth and who had received rich rewards +for his treachery.[13] The domain descended to his grandson, Fernando +Gorges, who, on March 13, 1677, sold it by deed to John Usher, a Boston +merchant, for £1,250. The ominous dissatisfaction of the New Hampshire +and other settlers with the monopolization of land was not slighted by +the English government; at the very time Usher bought Maine the +government was on the point of doing the same thing and opening the land +for settlement. Usher at once gave a deed of the province to the +governor and company of Massachusetts, of which colony and later, State, +it remained a part until its creation as a State in 1820.[14] + +These were two notable instances of vast land grants which reverted to +the people. In most of the colonies the popular outcry for free access +to the land was not so effective. In Pennsylvania, after the government +was restored to Penn, and in part of New Jersey conditions were more +favorable to the settlers. In those colonies corrupt usurpations of the +land were comparatively few, although the proprietary families continued +to hold extensive tracts. Penn's sons by his second wife, for instance, +became men of great wealth.[15] The pacific and conciliatory Quaker +faith operated as a check on any local extraordinary misuse of power. +Unfortunately for historical accuracy and penetration, there is an +obscurity as to the intimate circumstances under which many of the large +private estates in the South were obtained. The general facts as to +their grants, of course, are well known, but the same specific, +underlying details, such as may be disinterred from Bellomont's +correspondence, are lacking. In New York, at least, and presumably +during Fletcher's sway of government in Pennsylvania, great land grants +went for bribes. This is definitely brought out in Bellomont's official +communications. + + +VAST ESTATES SECURED BY BRIBERY. + +Fletcher, it would seem, had carried on a brisk traffic in creating by a +stroke of the quill powerfully rich families by simply granting them +domains in return for bribes. + +Captain John R. N. Evans had been in command of the royal warship +Richmond. An estate was his fervent ambition. Fletcher's mandate gave +him a grant of land running forty miles one way, and thirty another, on +the west bank of the Hudson. Beginning at the south line of the present +town of New Paltry, Ulster County, it included the southern tier of the +now existing towns in that picturesque county, two-thirds of the fertile +undulations of Orange County and a part of the present town of +Haverstraw. It is related of this area, that there was "but one house on +it, or rather a hut, where a poor man lives." Notwithstanding this lone, +solitary subject, Evans saw great trading and seignorial possibilities +in his tract. And what did he pay for this immense stretch of +territory? A very modest bribe; common report had it that he gave +Fletcher £100 for the grant.[16] + +Nicholas Bayard, of whom it is told that he was a handy go-between in +arranging with the sea pirates the price that they should pay for +Fletcher's protection, was another favored personage. Bayard was the +recipient of a grant forty miles long and thirty broad on both sides of +Schoharie Creek. Col. William Smith's prize was a grant from Fletcher of +an estate fifty miles in length on Nassau--now Long Island. According to +Bellomont, Smith got this land "arbitrarily and by strong hand." Smith +was in collusion with Fletcher, and moreover, was chief justice of the +province, "a place of great awe as well as authority." This judicial +land wrester forced the town of Southampton to accept the insignificant +sum of £10 for the greater part of forty miles of beach--a singularly +profitable transaction for Smith, who cleared in one year £500, the +proceeds of whales taken there, as he admitted to Bellomont.[17] Henry +Beekman, the astute and smooth founder of a rich and powerful family, +was made a magnate of the first importance by a grant from Fletcher of a +tract sixteen miles in length in Dutchess County, and also of another +estate running twenty miles along the Hudson and eight miles inland. +This estate he valued at £5,000.[18] Likewise Peter Schuyler, Godfrey +Dellius and their associates had conjointly secured by Fletcher's +patent, a grant fifty miles long in the romantic Mohawk Valley--a grant +which "the Mohawk Indians have often complained of". Upon this estate +they placed a value of £25,000. This was a towering fortune for the +period; in its actual command of labor, necessities, comforts and +luxuries it ranked as a power of transcending importance. + +These were some of the big estates created by "Colonel Fletcher's +intolerable corrupt selling away the lands of this Province," as +Bellomont termed it in his communication to the Lords of Trade of Nov. +28, 1700. Fletcher, it was set forth, profited richly by these corrupt +grants. He got in bribes, it was charged, at least £4,000.[19] But +Fletcher was not the only corrupt official. In his interesting work on +the times,[20] George W. Schuyler presents what is an undoubtedly +accurate description of how Robert Livingston, progenitor of a rich and +potent family which for generations exercised a profound influence in +politics and other public affairs, contrived to get together an estate +which soon ranked as the second largest in New York state and as one of +the greatest in the colonies. + +Livingston was the younger son of a poor exiled clergyman. In currying +favor with one official after another he was unscrupulous, dexterous and +adaptable. He invariably changed his politics with the change of +administration. In less than a year after his arrival he was appointed +to an office which yielded him a good income. This office he held for +nearly half a century, and simultaneously was the incumbent of other +lucrative posts. Offices were created by Governor Dongan apparently for +his sole benefit. His passion was to get together an estate which would +equal the largest. Extremely penurious, he loaned money at frightfully +usurious rates and hounded his victims without a vestige of +sympathy.[21] As a trader and government contractor he made enormous +profits; such was his cohesive collusion with high officials that +competitors found it impossible to outdo him. A current saying of him +was that he made a fortune by "pinching the bellies of the +soldiers"--that is, as an army contractor who defrauded in quantity and +quality of supplies. By a multitude of underhand and ignoble artifices +he finally found himself the lord of a manor sixteen miles long and +twenty-four broad. On this estate he built flour and saw mills, a bakery +and a brewery. In his advanced old age he exhibited great piety but held +on grimly to every shilling that he could and as long as he could. When +he died about 1728--the exact date is unknown--at the age of 74 years, +he left an estate which was considered of such colossal value that its +true value was concealed for fear of further enraging the discontented +people. + + +EFFECTS OF THE LAND SEIZURES. + +The seizure of these vast estates and the arbitrary exclusion of the +many from the land produced a combustible situation. An instantaneous +and distinct cleavage of class divisions was the result. Intrenched in +their possessions the landed class looked down with haughty disdain upon +the farming and laboring classes. On the other hand, the farm laborer +with his sixteen hours work a day for a forty-cent wage, the carpenter +straining for his fifty-two cents a day, the shoemaker drudging for his +seventy-three cents a day and the blacksmith for his seventy cents,[22] +thought over this injustice as they bent over their tasks. They could +sweat through their lifetime at honest labor, producing something of +value and yet be a constant prey to poverty while a few men, by means of +bribes, had possessed themselves of estates worth tens of thousands of +pounds and had preëmpted great stretches of the available lands. + +In consulting extant historical works it is noticeable that they give +but the merest shadowy glimpse of this intense bitterness of what were +called the lower classes, and of the incessant struggle now raging, now +smouldering, between the landed aristocracy and the common people. +Contrary to the roseate descriptions often given of the independent +position of the settlers at that time, it was a time when the use and +misuse of law brought about sharp divisions of class lines which arose +from artificially created inequalities, economically and politically. +With the great landed estates came tenantry, wage slavery and chattel +slavery, the one condition the natural generator of the others. + +The rebellious tendency of the poor colonists against becoming tenants, +and the usurpation of the land, were clearly brought out by Bellomont in +a letter written on Nov. 28, 1700, to the Lords of Trade. He complained +that "people are so cramped here for want of land that several families +within my own knowledge and observation are remov'd to the new country +(a name they give to Pennsylvania and the Jerseys) for, to use Mr. +Graham's expression to me, and that often repeated, too, what man will +be such a fool as to become a base tenant to Mr. Dellius, Colonel +Schuyler, Mr. Livingston (and so he ran through the whole role of our +mighty landgraves) when for crossing Hudson's River that man can, for a +song, purchase a good freehold in the Jerseys." + +If the immigrant happened to be able to muster a sufficient sum he +could, indeed, become an independent agriculturist in New Jersey and in +parts of Pennsylvania and provide himself with the tools of trade. But +many immigrants landed with empty pockets and became laborers dependent +upon the favor of the landed proprietors. As for the artisans--the +carpenters, masons, tailors, blacksmiths--they either kept to the cities +and towns where their trade principally lay, or bonded themselves to the +lords of the manors. + + +ATTEMPT AT CONFISCATION THWARTED. + +Bellomont fully understood the serious evils which had been injected +into the body politic and strongly applied himself to the task of +confiscating the great estates. One of his first proposals was to urge +upon the Lords of Trade the restriction of all governors throughout the +colonies from granting more than a thousand acres to any man without +leave from the king, and putting a quit rent of half a crown on every +hundred acres, this sum to go to the royal treasury. This suggestion was +not acted upon. He next attacked the assembly of New York and called +upon it to annul the great grants. In doing this he found that the most +powerful members of the assembly were themselves the great land owners +and were putting obstacle after obstacle in his path. After great +exertions he finally prevailed upon the assembly to vacate at least two +of the grants, those to Evans and Bayard. The assembly did this probably +as a sop to Bellomont and to public opinion, and because Evans and +Bayard had lesser influence than the other landed functionaries. But the +owners of the other estates tenaciously held them intact. The people +regarded Bellomont as a sincere and ardent reformer, but the landed men +and their following abused him as a meddler and destructionist. +Despairing of getting a self-interested assembly to act, Bellomont +appealed to the Lords of Trade: + +"If your Lordships mean I shall go on to break the rest of the +extravagant grants of land by Colonel Fletcher or other governors, by +act of assembly, I shall stand in need of a peremptory order from the +King so to do."[23] A month later he insisted to his superiors at home +that if they intended that the corrupt and extravagant grants should be +confiscated--"(which I will be bold to say by all the rules of reason +and justice ought to be done) I believe it must be done by act of +Parliament in England, for I am a little jealous I shall not have +strength enough in the assembly of New York to break them." The majority +of this body, he pointed out, were landed men, and when their own +interest was touched, they declined to act contrary to it. Unless, added +Bellomont, "the power of our Palatines, Smith, Livingston, the Phillips, +father and son[24]--and six or seven more were reduced ... the country +is ruined."[25] + +Despite some occasional breaches in its intrenchments, the landocracy +continued to rule everywhere with a high hand, its power, as a whole, +unbroken. + + +HOW THE LORDS OF THE SOIL LIVED. + +A glancing picture of one of these landed proprietors will show the +manner in which they lived and what was then accounted their luxury. As +one of the "foremost men of his day," in the colonies Colonel Smith +lived in befitting style. This stern, bushy-eyed man who robbed the +community of a vast tract of land and who, as chief justice, was +inflexibly severe in dealing punishment to petty criminals and ever +vigilant in upholding the rights of property, was lord of the Manor of +St. George, Suffolk County. The finest silks and lace covered his +judicial person. His embroidered belts, costing £110, at once attested +his great wealth and high station. He had the extraordinary number of +one hundred and four silver buttons to adorn his clothing. When he +walked a heavy silver-headed cane supported him, and he rode on a fancy +velvet saddle. His three swords were of the finest make; occasionally he +affected a Turkish scimeter. Few watches in the colonies could compare +with his massive silver watch. His table was embellished with heavy +silver plate, valued at £150, on which his coat-of-arms was engraved. +Twelve negro slaves responded to his nod; he had a large corps of +bounded apprentices and dependant laborers. His mansion looked down on +twenty acres of wheat and twenty of corn; and as for his horses and +cattle they were the envy of the country. In his last year thirty horses +were his, fourteen oxen, sixty steers, forty-eight cows and two +bulls.[26] He lived high, drank, swore, cheated--and administered +justice. + +One of the best and most intimate descriptions of a somewhat +contemporaneous landed magnate in the South is that given of Robert +Carter, a Virginia planter, by Philip Vickers Fithian,[27] a tutor in +Carter's family. Carter came to his estate from his grandfather, whose +land and other possessions were looked upon as so extensive that he was +called "King" Carter. + +Robert Carter luxuriated in Nomini Hall, a great colonial mansion in +Westmoreland County. It was built between 1725 and 1732 of brick covered +with strong mortar, which imparted a perfectly white exterior, and was +seventy-six feet long and forty wide. The interior was one of unusual +splendor for the time, such as only the very rich could afford. There +were eight large rooms, one of which was a ball-room thirty feet long. +Carter spent most of his leisure hours cultivating the study of law and +of music; his library contained 1,500 volumes and he had a varied +assortment of musical instruments. He was the owner of 60,000 acres of +land spread over almost every county of Virginia, and he was the master +of six hundred negro slaves. The greater part of a prosperous iron-works +near Baltimore was owned by him, and near his mansion he built a flour +mill equipped to turn out 25,000 bushels of wheat a year. Carter was not +only one of the big planters but one of the big capitalists of the age; +all that he had to do was to exercise a general supervision; his +overseers saw to the running of his various industries. Like the other +large landholders he was one of the active governing class; as a member +of the Provincial Council he had great influence in the making of laws. +He was a thorough gentleman, we are told, and took good care of his +slaves and of his white laborers who were grouped in workhouses and +little cottages within range of his mansion. Within his domain he +exercised a sort of benevolent despotism. He was one of the first few to +see that chattel slavery could not compete in efficiency with white +labor, and he reckoned that more money could be made from the white +laborer, for whom no responsibility of shelter, clothing, food and +attendance had to be assumed than from the negro slave, whose sickness, +disability or death entailed direct financial loss. Before his death he +emancipated a number of his slaves. This, in brief, is the rather +flattering depiction of one of the conspicuously rich planters of the +South. + + +THE NASCENT TRADING CLASS. + +Land continued to be the chief source of the wealth of the rich until +after the Revolution. The discriminative laws enacted by England had +held down the progress of the trading class; these laws overthrown, the +traders rose rapidly from a subordinate position to the supreme class in +point of wealth. + +No close research into pre-Revolutionary currents and movements is +necessary to understand that the Revolution was brought about by the +dissatisfied trading class as the only means of securing absolute +freedom of trade. Notwithstanding the view often presented that it was +an altruistic movement for the freedom of man, it was essentially an +economic struggle fathered by the trading class and by a part of the +landed interests. Admixed was a sincere aim to establish free political +conditions. This, however, was not an aim for the benefit of all +classes, but merely one for the better interests of the propertied +class. The poverty-stricken soldiers who fought for their cause found +after the war that the machinery of government was devised to shut out +manhood suffrage and keep the power intact in the hands of the rich. Had +it not been for radicals such as Jefferson, Paine and others it is +doubtful whether such concessions as were made to the people would have +been made. The long struggle in various States for manhood suffrage +sufficiently attests the deliberate aim of the propertied interests to +concentrate in their own hands, and in that of a following favorable to +them, the voting power of the Government and of the States. + +With the success of the Revolution, the trading class bounded to the +first rank. Entail and primogeniture were abolished and the great +estates gradually melted away. For more than a century and a half the +landed interests had dominated the social and political arena. As an +acknowledged, continuous organization they ceased to exist. Great +estates no longer passed unimpaired from generation to generation, +surviving as a distinct entity throughout all changes. They perforce +were partitioned among all the children; and through the vicissitudes of +subsequent years, passed bit by bit into many hands. Altered laws caused +a gradual disintegration in the case of individual holdings, but brought +no change in instances of corporate ownership. The Trinity Corporation +of New York City, for example, has held on to the vast estate which it +was given before the Revolution except such parts as it voluntarily has +sold. + + +DISINTEGRATION OF THE GREAT ESTATES. + +The individual magnate, however, had no choice. He could no longer +entail his estates. Thus, estates which were very large before the +Revolution, and which were regarded with astonishment, ceased to exist. +The landed interests, however, remained paramount for several decades +after the Revolution by reason of the acceleration which long possession +and its profits had given them. Washington's fortune, amounting at his +death, to $530,000, was one of the largest in the country and consisted +mainly of land. He owned 9,744 acres, valued at $10 an acre, on the Ohio +River in Virginia, 3,075 acres, worth $200,000, on the Great Kenawa, and +also land elsewhere in Virginia and in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, +Kentucky, the City of Washington and other places.[28] About half a +century later it was only by persistent gatherings of public +contributions that his very home was saved to the nation, so had his +estate become divided and run down. After a long career, Benjamin +Franklin acquired what was considered a large fortune. But it did not +come from manufacture or invention, which he did so much to encourage, +but from land. His estate in 1788, two years before his death, was +estimated to be worth $150,000, mostly in land.[29] By the opening +decades of the nineteenth century few of the great estates in New York +remained. One of the last of the patroons was Stephen Van Rensselaer, +who died at the age of 75 on Jan. 26, 1839, leaving ten children. Up to +this time the manor had devolved upon the eldest son. Although it had +been diminished somewhat by various cessions, it was still of great +extent. The property was divided among the ten children, and, according +to Schuyler, "In less than fifty years after his death, the seven +hundred thousand acres originally in the manor were in the hands of +strangers."[30] + +Long before old Van Rensselaer passed away he had seen the rise and +growth of the trading and manufacturing class and a new form of landed +aristocracy, and he observed with a haughty bitterness how in point of +wealth and power they far overshadowed the well-nigh defunct old feudal +aristocracy. A few hundred thousand dollars no longer was the summit of +a great fortune; the age of the millionaire had come. The lordly, +leisurely environment of the old landed class had been supplanted by +feverish trading and industrial activity which imposed upon society its +own newer standards, doctrines and ideals and made them uppermost +factors. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] "Land Nationalization,":122-125. + +[10] Colonial Documents, vii:654-655. + +[11] Colonial Documents, iv:673-674. + +[12] "A Short History of the English Colonies in America":402. + +[13] Yet, this fortune seeker, who had incurred the contempt of every +noble English mind, is described by one of the class of +power-worshipping historians as follows: "Fame and wealth, so often the +idols of _Superior Intellect_, were the prominent objects of this +aspiring man."--Williamson's "History of Maine," 1:305. + +[14] The Public Domain: Its History, etc.:38. + +[15] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth:66, 84, etc. Their claim to +inherit proprietary rights was bought at the time of the Revolutionary +War by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for £130,000 sterling or about +$580,000. + +[16] Colonial Documents, iv:463. + +[17] Ibid.:535. + +[18] Ibid.:39. + +[19] Colonial Documents, iv:528. One of Bellomont's chief complaints was +that the landgraves monopolized the timber supply. He recommended the +passage of a law vesting in the King the right to all trees such as were +fit for masts of ships or for other use in building ships of war. + +[20] "Colonial New York," 1:285-286. + +[21] According to Reynolds's "Albany Chronicles," Livingston was in +collusion with Captain Kidd, the sea pirate. Reynolds also tells that +Livingston loaned money at ten per cent. + +[22] Wright's "Industrial Evolution in the United States"; see also his +article "Wages" in Johnson's Encyclopædia. The New York Colonial +Documents relate that in 1699 in the three provinces of Bellomont's +jurisdiction, "the laboring man received three shillings a day, which +was considered dear," iv:588. + +[23] Colonial Documents, iv:533-554. + +[24] Frederick and his son Adolphus. Frederick was the employer of the +pirate, Captain Samuel Burgess of New York, who at first was sent out by +Phillips to Madagascar to trade with the pirates and who then turned +pirate himself. From the first voyage Phillips and Burgess cleared +together £5,000, the proceeds of trade and slaves. The second voyage +yielded £10,000 and three hundred slaves. Burgess married a relative of +Phillips and continued piracy, but was caught and imprisoned in Newgate. +Phillips spent great sums of money to save him and succeeded. Burgess +resumed piracy and met death from poisoning in Africa while engaged in +carrying off slaves.--"The Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted +Pirates":177-183. This work was a serious study of the different sea +pirates. + +[25] Colonial Docs, iv:533-534. On November 27, 1700, Bellomont wrote to +the Lords of the Treasury: "I can supply the King and all his dominions +with naval stores (except flax and hemp) from this province and New +Hampshire, but then your Lordships and the rest of the Ministers must +break through Coll. Fletcher's most corrupt grants of all the lands and +woods of this province which I think is the most impudent villainy I +ever heard or read of any man," iv:780. + +[26] This is the inventory given in "Abstracts of Wills," 1:323. + +[27] "Journal and Letters," 1767-1774. + +[28] Sparks' "Life of Washington," Appendix, ix:557-559. + +[29] Bigelow's "Life of Franklin," iii:470. + +[30] "Colonial New York," 1:232. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE RISE OF THE TRADING CLASS + + +The creation of the great landed estates was accompanied by the slow +development of the small trader and merchant. Necessarily, they first +established themselves in the sea ports where business was concentrated. + +Many obstacles long held them down to a narrow sphere. The great +chartered companies monopolized the profitable resources. The land +magnates exacted tribute for the slightest privilege granted. Drastic +laws forbade competition with the companies, and the power of law and +the severities of class government were severely felt by the merchants. +The chartered corporations and the land dignitaries were often one group +with an identity of men and interests. Against their strength and +capital the petty trader or merchant could not prevail. Daring and +enterprising though he be, he was forced to a certain compressed routine +of business. He could sell the goods which the companies sold to him but +could not undertake to set up manufacturing. And after the companies had +passed away, the landed aristocracy used its power to suppress all undue +initiative on his part. + + +THE MANORIAL LORDS MONOPOLIZE TRADE. + +This was especially so in New York, where all power was concentrated in +the hands of a few landowners. "To say," says Sabine, "that the +political institutions of New York formed a feudal aristocracy is to +define them with tolerable accuracy. The soil was owned by a few. The +masses were mere retainers or tenants as in the monarchies of +Europe."[31] The feudal lord was also the dominant manufacturer and +trader. He forced his tenants to sign covenants that they should trade +in nothing else than the produce of the manor; that they should trade +nowhere else but at his store; that they should grind their flour at his +mill, and buy bread at his bakery, lumber at his sawmills and liquor at +his brewery. Thus he was not only able to squeeze the last penny from +them by exorbitant prices, but it was in his power to keep them +everlastingly in debt to him. He claimed, and held, a monopoly in his +domain of whatever trade he could seize. These feudal tenures were +established in law; woe to the tenant who presumed to infract them! He +became a criminal and was punished as a felon. The petty merchant could +not, and dared not, compete with the trading monopolies of the manorial +lords within these feudal jurisdictions. In such a system the merchant's +place for a century and a half was a minor one, although far above that +of the drudging laborer. Merchants resorted to sharp and frequently +dubious ways of getting money together. They bargained and sold +shrewdly, kept their wits ever open, turned sycophant to the aristocracy +and a fleecer of the laborer. + +It would appear that in New York, at least, the practice of the most +audacious usury was an early and favorite means of acquiring the +property of others. These others were invariably the mechanic or +laborer; the merchant dared not attempt to overreach the aristocrat +whose power he had good reason to fear. Money which was taken in by +selling rum and by wheedling the unsophisticated Indians into yielding +up valuable furs, was loaned at frightfully onerous rates. The loans +unpaid, the lender swooped mercilessly upon the property of the +unfortunate and gathered it in. + +The richest merchant of his period in the province of New York was +Cornelius Steenwyck, a liquor merchant, who died in 1686. He left a +total estate of £4,382 and a long list of book debts which disclosed +that almost every man in New York City owed money to him, partly for +rum, in part for loans.[32] The same was true of Peter Jacob Marius, a +rich merchant who died in 1706, leaving behind a host of debtors, "which +included about all the male population on Manhattan Island."[33] This +eminent counter-man was "buried like a gentleman." At his funeral large +sums were spent for wine, cookies, pipes and tobacco, beer, spice for +burnt wine and sugar--all according to approved and reverent Dutch +fashion. The actual currency left by some of these rich men was a +curious conglomeration of almost every stamp, showing the results of a +mixed assemblage of customers. There were Spanish pistoles, guineas, +Arabian coin, bank dollars, Dutch and French money--a motley assortment +all carefully heaped together. Without doubt, those enterprising pirate +captains, Kidd and Burgess, and their crews, were good customers of +these accommodating and undiscriminating merchants. It was a time when +money was triply valued, for little of it passed in circulation. To a +people who traded largely by barter and whose media of exchange, for a +long time, were wampum, peltries and other articles, the touch and clink +of gold and silver were extremely precious and fascinating. Buccaneers +Kidd and Burgess deserved the credit for introducing into New York much +of the variegated gold and silver coin, and it was believed that they +long had some of the leading merchants as their allies in disposing of +their plundered goods, in giving them information and affording them +protection. + + +THE TRADERS' METHODS. + +By one means or another, some of the New York merchants of the period +attained a standing in point of wealth equal to not a few of the land +magnates. William Lawrence of Flushing, Long Island, was "a man of great +wealth and social standing." Like the rest of his class he affected to +despise the merchant class. After his death, an inventory showed his +estate to be worth £4,032, mostly in land and in slaves, of which he +left ten.[34] While the landed men often spent much of their time +carousing, hunting, gambling, and dispersing their money, the merchants +were hawk-eyed alert for every opportunity to gather in money. They +wasted no time in frivolous pursuits, had no use for sentiment or +scruples, saved money in infinitesimal ways and thought and dreamed of +nothing but business. + +Throughout the colonies, not excepting Pennsylvania, it was the general +practice of the merchants and traders to take advantage of the Indians +by cunning and treacherous methods. The agents of the chartered +companies and the land owners first started the trick of getting the +Indians drunk, and then obtaining, for almost nothing, the furs that +they had gathered--for a couple of bottles of rum, a blanket or an axe. +After the charters of the companies were annulled or expired, the +landgraves kept up the practice, and the merchants improved on it in +various ingenious ways. "The Indians," says Felt,[35] "were ever ready +to give up their furs for knives, hatchets, beads, blankets, and +especially were anxious to obtain tobacco, guns, powder, shot and strong +water; the latter being a powerful instrument enabling the cunning +trader to perpetuate the grossest frauds. Immense quantities of furs +were shipped to Europe at a great profit." + +This description appropriately applied also to New York, New Jersey, and +the South. In New York there were severe laws against Indians who got +drunk, and in Massachusetts colony an Indian found drunk was subject to +a fine of ten shillings or whipping, at the discretion of the +magistrate. As to the whites who, for purposes of gain, got the Indians +drunk, the law was strangely inactive. Everyone knew that drink might +incite the Indians to uprisings and imperil the lives of men, women and +children. But the considerations of trade were stronger than even the +instinct of self-preservation and the practice went on, not infrequently +resulting in the butchery of innocent white victims and in great cost +and suspense to the whole community. + +Strict laws which pronounced penalties for profaneness and for not +attending church, connived at the systematic defrauding and swindling of +the Indians of land and furs. Two strong considerations were held to +justify this. The first was that the Indians were heathen and must give +way to civilization; that they were fair prey. The demands of trade, +upon which the colonies flourished was the second. The fact was that the +code of the trading class was everywhere gradually becoming the dominant +one, even breaking down the austere, almost ascetic, Puritan moral +professions. Among the common people--those who were ordinary wage +laborers--the methods of the rich were looked upon with suspicion and +enmity, and there was a prevalent consciousness that wealth was being +amassed by one-sided laws and fraud. Some of the noted sea pirates of +the age made this their strong justification for preying upon +commerce.[36] + +In Virginia the life of the community depended upon agriculture; +therefore slavery was thought to be its labor prop and was joyfully +welcomed and earnestly defended. In Massachusetts and New York trading +was an elemental factor, and whatever swelled the volume and profits was +accounted a blessing to the community and was held justified. Laws, the +judges who enforced them, and the spirit of the age reflected not so +much the morality of the people as their trading necessities. The one +was often mistaken for the other. + + +THE BONDING OF LABORERS. + +This condition was shown repeatedly in the trade conflicts of the +competing merchants, their system of bonded laborers and in the long +contests between the traders of the colonies and those of England, +culminating in the Revolution. In the churches the colonists prayed to +God as the Father of all men and showed great humility. But in actual +practice the propertied men recognized no such thing as equality and +dispensed with humility. The merchants imitated in a small way the +seignorial pretensions of the land nabobs. Few merchants there were who +did not deal in negro slaves, and few also were there who did not have a +bonded laborer or two, whose labor they monopolized and whose career was +their property for a long term of years. Limited bondage, called +apprenticeship, was general. + +Penniless boys, girls and adults were impressed by sheer necessity into +service. Nicholas Auger, 10 years old, binds himself, in 1694, to +Wessell Evertson, a cooper, for a term of nine years, and swears that +"he will truly serve the commandments of his master Lawfull, shall do no +hurt to his master, nor waste nor purloin his goods, nor lend them to +anybody at Dice, or other unlawful game, shall not contract matrimony, +nor frequent taverns, shall not absent himself from his master's service +day or night." In return Evertson will teach Nicholas the trade of a +cooper, give him "apparell, meat, drink and bedding" and at the +expiration of the term will supply him with "two good suits of wearing +apparell from head to foot." Cornelius Hendricks, a laborer, binds +himself in 1695 as an apprentice and servant to John Molet for five +years. Hendricks is to get £3 current silver money and two suits of +apparell--one for holy days, the other for working days, and also board +is to be provided. Elizabeth Morris, a spinster, in consideration of her +transportation from England to New York on the barkentine, "Antegun," +binds herself in 1696 as a servant to Captain William Kidd for four +years for board. When her term is over she is to get two dresses. These +are a few specific instances of the bonding system--a system which +served its purpose in being highly advantageous to the merchants and +traders. + + +THE FISHERIES OF NEW ENGLAND. + +Toward the close of the seventeenth century the merchants of Boston were +the richest in the colonies. Trade there was the briskest. By 1687, +according to the records of the Massachusetts Historical Society, there +were ten to fifteen merchants in Boston whose aggregate property +amounted to £50,000, or about £5,000 each, and five hundred persons who +were worth £3,000 each. Some of these fortunes came from furs, timber +and vending merchandise. + +But the great stimuli were the fisheries of the New England coast. +Bellomont in 1700 ascribed the superior trade of Massachusetts to the +fact that Fletcher had corruptly sold the best lands in New York +province and had thus brought on bad conditions. Had it not been for +this, he wrote, New York "would outthrive the Massachusetts Province and +quickly outdoe them in people and trade." While the people of the South +took to agriculture as a main support, and the merchants of New York +were contented with the more comfortable method of taking in coin over +counters, a large proportion of the 12,000 inhabitants of Boston and +those of Salem and Plymouth braved dangers to drag the sea of its spoil. +They developed hardy traits of character, a bold adventurousness and a +singular independence of movement which in time engendered a bustling +race of traders who navigated the world for trade. + +It was from shipping that the noted fortunes of the early decades of the +eighteenth century came. The origin of the means by which these fortunes +were got together lay greatly in the fisheries. The emblem of the +codfish in the Massachusetts State House is a survival of the days when +the fisheries were the great and most prolific sources of wealth and the +chief incentive of all kinds of trade. A tremendous energy was shown in +the hazards of the business. So thoroughly were the fisheries recognized +as important to the life of the whole New England community that vessels +were often built by public subscription, as was instanced in Plymouth, +where public subscription on one occasion defrayed the expense.[37] + +In response to the general incessant demand for ships, the business of +shipbuilding soon sprang up; presently there were nearly thirty ship +yards in Boston alone and sixty ships a year were built. It was a +lucrative industry. The price of a vessel was dear, while the wages of +the carpenters, smiths, caulkers and sparmakers were low. Not a few of +the merchants and traders or their sons who made their money by +debauching and cheating the Indians went into this highly profitable +business and became men of greater wealth. By 1700 Boston was shipping +50,000 quintals of dried codfish every year. The fish was divided into +several kinds. The choice quality went to the Catholic countries, where +there was a great demand for it, principally to Bilboa, Lisbon and +Oporto. The refuse was shipped to the West India Islands for sale to the +negro slaves and laborers. The price varied. In 1699 it was eighteen +shillings a quintal; the next year, we read, it had fallen to twelve +shillings because the French fisheries had glutted the market +abroad.[38] + + +"FORCE AS GOOD AS FORCE." + +Along with the fisheries, considerable wealth was extracted in New +England, as elsewhere in the colonies, from the shipment of timber. +Sharp traders easily got the advantage of Indians and landowners in +buying the privilege of cutting timber. In some cases, particularly in +New Hampshire, which Allen claimed to own, the timber was simply taken +without leave. The word was passed that force was as good as force, +fraud as good as fraud. Allen had got the province by force and fraud; +let him stop the timber cutters if he dare. Ship timber was eagerly +sought in European ports. One Boston merchant is recorded as having +taken a cargo of this timber to Lisbon and clearing a profit of £1,600 +on an expenditure of £300. "Everybody is excited," wrote Bellomont on +June 22, 1700, to the Lords Commissioners for Trades and Plantations. +"Some of the merchants of Salem are now loading a ship with 12,000 feet +of the noblest ships timber that was ever seen."[39] + +The whale fishery sprang up about this time and brought in great +profits. The original method was to sight the whale from a lookout on +shore, push out in a boat, capture him and return to the shore with the +carcass. The oil was extracted from the blubber and readily sold. As +whales became scarce around the New England islands the whalers pushed +off into the ocean in small vessels. Within fifty years at least sixty +craft were engaged in the venture. By degrees larger and larger vessels +were built until they began to double Cape Horn, and were sometimes +absent from a year and a half to three years. The labors of the cruise +were often richly rewarded with a thousand barrels of sperm oil and two +hundred and fifty barrels of whale oil. + + +BRITISH TRADERS' TACTICS. + +By the middle of the seventeenth century the colonial merchants were in +a position to establish manufactures to compete with the British. A +seafaring race and a mercantile fleet had come into a militant +existence; and ambitious designs were meditated of conquering a part of +the import and export trade held by the British. The colonial shipowner, +sending tobacco, corn, timber or fish to Europe did not see why he +should not load his ship with commodities on the return trip and make a +double profit. It was now that the British trading class peremptorily +stepped in and used the power of government to suppress in its infancy a +competition that alarmed them. + +Heavy export duties were now declared on every colonial article which +would interfere with the monopoly which the British trading class held, +and aimed to hold, while the most exacting duties were put on +non-British imports. Colonial factories were killed off by summary +legislation. In 1699 Parliament enacted that no wool yarn or woolen +manufactures of the American colonies should be exported to any place +whatever. This was a destructive bit of legislation, as nearly every +colonial rural family kept sheep and raised flax and were getting expert +at the making of coarse linen and woolen cloths. No sooner had the +colonists begun to make paper than that industry was likewise choked. +With hats it was the same. The colonists had scarcely begun to export +hats to Spain, Portugal and the West Indies before the British Company +of Hatters called upon the Government to put a stop to this colonial +interference with their trade. An act was thereupon passed by Parliament +forbidding the exportation of hats from any American colony, and the +selling in one colony of hats made in another. Colonial iron mills began +to blast; they were promptly declared a nuisance, and Parliament ordered +that no mill or engine for slitting or rolling iron be used, but +graciously allowed pig and bar iron to be imported from England into the +colonies. Distilleries were common; molasses was extensively used in the +making of rum and also by the fishermen; a heavy duty was put upon +molasses and sugar as also on tea, nails, glass and paints. Smuggling +became general; a narrative of the adroit devices resorted to would make +an interesting tale. + +These restrictive acts brought about various momentous results. They not +only arrayed the whole trading class against Great Britain, and in turn +the great body of the colonists, but they operated to keep down in size +and latitude the private fortunes by limiting the ways in which the +wealth of individuals could be employed. Much money was withdrawn from +active business and invested in land and mortgages. Still, despite the +crushing laws with which colonial capitalists had to contend, the +fisheries were an incessant source of profit. By 1765 they employed +4,000 seamen and had 28,000 tons of shipping and did a business +estimated at somewhat more than a million dollars. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] "Lives of the Loyalists,":18. + +[32] "Abstracts of Wills," ii:444-445. + +[33] Ibid., 1:323-324. + +[34] "Abstracts of Wills," 1:108. + +[35] "An Historical Account of Massachusetts Currency." See also +Colonial Documents, iii:242, and the Records of New Amsterdam. See the +chapters on the Astor fortune in Part II for full details of the methods +in debauching and swindling the Indians in trading operations. + +[36] Thus Captain Bellamy's speech in 1717 to Captain Baer of Boston, +whose sloop he had just sunk and rifled: "I am sorry that they [his +crew] won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a +mischief when it is not for my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink +her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, +and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich +men have made for their own security--for the cowardly whelps have not +the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery. But damn +ye altogether; damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and ye who serve +them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They villify us, the +scoundrels do, when there is only this difference: they rob the poor +under cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under protection +of our own courage. Had you better not make one of us than sneak after +these villains for employment." Baer refused and was put ashore.--"The +Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates":129-130. + +[37] "A Commercial Sketch of Boston," Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, 1839, +1:125. + +[38] Colonial Documents, iv:790. + +[39] Ibid., 678. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SHIPPING FORTUNES + + +Thus it was that at the time of the Revolution many of the consequential +fortunes were those of shipowners and were principally concentrated in +New England. Some of these dealt in merchandise only, while others made +large sums of money by exporting fish, tobacco, corn, rice and timber +and lading their ships on the return with negro slaves, for which they +found a responsive market in the South. Many of the members of the +Continental Congress were ship merchants, or inherited their fortunes +from rich shippers, as, for instance, Samuel Adams, Robert Morris, Henry +Laurens of Charleston, S. C., John Hancock, whose fortune of $350,000 +came from his uncle Thomas, Francis Lewis of New York and Joseph Hewes +of North Carolina. Others were members of various Constitutional +conventions or became high officials in the Federal or State +governments. The Revolution disrupted and almost destroyed the colonial +shipping, and trade remained stagnant. + + +FORTUNES FROM PRIVATEERING. + +Not wholly so, for the hazardous venture of privateering offered great +returns. George Cabot of Boston was the son of an opulent shipowner. +During the Revolution, George, with his brother swept the coast with +twenty privateers carrying from sixteen to twenty guns each. For four or +five years their booty was rich and heavy, but toward the end of the +war, British gun-boats swooped on most of their craft and the brothers +lost heavily. George subsequently became a United States Senator. Israel +Thorndike, who began life as a cooper's apprentice and died in 1832 at +the age of 75, leaving a fortune, "the greatest that has ever been left +in New England,"[40] made large sums of money as part owner and +commander of a privateer which made many successful cruises. With this +money he went into fisheries, foreign commerce and real estate, and +later into manufacturing establishments. One of the towering rich men of +the day, we are told that "his investments in real estate, shipping or +factories were wonderfully judicious and hundreds watched his movements, +believing his pathway was safe." The fortune he bequeathed was ranked as +immense. To each of his three sons he left about $500,000 each, and +other sums to another son, and to his widow and daughters. In all, the +legacies to the surviving members of his family amounted to about +$1,800,000.[41] + +Another "distinguished merchant," as he was styled, to take up +privateering was Nathaniel Tracy, the son of a Newburyport merchant. +College bred, as were most of the sons of rich merchants, he started out +at the age of 25 with a number of privateers, and for many years +returned flushed with prizes. To quote his appreciative biographer: "He +lived in a most magnificent style, having several country seats or large +farms with elegant summer houses and fine fish ponds, and all those +matters of convenience or taste that a British nobleman might think +necessary to his rank and happiness. His horses were of the choicest +kind and his coaches of the most splendid make." But alas! this gorgeous +career was abruptly dispelled when unfeeling British frigates and +gun-boats hooked in his saucy privateers and Tracy stood quite ruined. + +Much more fortunate was Joseph Peabody. As a young man Peabody enlisted +as an officer on Derby's privateer "Bunker Hill." His second cruise was +on Cabot's privateer "Pilgrim" which captured a richly cargoed British +merchantman. Returning to shore he studied for an education, later +resuming the privateer deck. Some of his exploits, as narrated by George +Atkinson Ward in "Hunt's Lives of American Merchants," published in +1856, were thrilling enough to have found a deserved place in a gory +novel. With the money made as his share of the various prizes, he bought +a vessel which he commanded himself, and he personally made sundry +voyages to Europe and the West Indies. By 1791 he had amassed a large +fortune. There was no further need of his going to sea; he was now a +great merchant and could pay others to take charge of his ships. These +increased to such an extent that he built in Salem and owned +eighty-three ships which he freighted and dispatched to every known part +of the world. Seven thousand seamen were in his employ. His vessels were +known in Calcutta, Canton, Sumatra, St. Petersburg and dozens of other +ports. They came back with cargoes which were distributed by coasting +vessels among the various American ports. It was with wonderment that +his contemporaries spoke of his paying an aggregate of about $200,000 in +State, county and city taxes in Salem, where he lived.[42] He died on +Jan. 5, 1844, aged 84 years. + +Asa Clapp, who at his death in 1848, at the age of 85 years, was +credited with being the richest man in Maine,[43] began his career +during the Revolution as an officer on a privateer. After the war he +commanded various trading vessels, and in 1796 established a shipping +business of his own, with headquarters at Portland. His vessels traded +with Europe, the East and West Indies and South America. In his later +years he went into banking. Of the size of his fortune we are left in +ignorance. + + +A GLANCE AT OTHER SHIPPING FORTUNES. + +These are instances of rich men whose original capital came from +privateering, which was recognized as a legitimate method of reprisal. +As to the inception of the fortunes of other prominent capitalists of +the period, few details are extant in the cases of most of them. Of the +antecedents and life of Thomas Russell, a Boston shipper, who died in +1796, "supposedly leaving the largest amount of property which up to +that time had been accumulated in New England," little is known. The +extent of his fortune cannot be learned. Russell was one of the first, +after the Revolution, to engage in trade with Russia, and drove many a +hard bargain. He built a stately mansion in Charleston and daily +traveled to Boston in a coach drawn by four black horses. In business he +was inflexible; trade considerations aside he was an alms-giver. Of +Cyrus Butler, another shipowner and trader, who, according to one +authority, was probably the richest man in New England[44]--and who, +according to the statement of another publication[45]--left a fortune +estimated at from three to four millions of dollars, few details +likewise are known. He was the son of Samuel Butler, a shoemaker who +removed from Edgartown, Mass., to Providence about 1750 and became a +merchant and shipowner. Cyrus followed in his steps. When this +millionaire died at the age of 82 in 1849, the size of his fortune +excited wonderment throughout New England. It may be here noted as a +fact worthy of comment that of the group of hale rich shipowners there +were few who did not live to be octogenarians. + +The rapidity with which large fortunes were made was not a riddle. Labor +was cheap and unorganized, and the profits of trade were enormous. +According to Weeden the customary profits at the close of the eighteenth +century on muslins and calicoes were one hundred per cent. Cargoes of +coffee sometimes yielded three or four times that amount. Weeden +instances one shipment of plain glass tumblers costing less than $1,000 +which sold for $12,000 in the Isle of France.[46] + +The prospects of a dazzling fortune, speedily reaped, instigated owners +of capital to take the most perilous chances. Decayed ships, +superficially patched up, were often sent out on the chance that luck +and skill would get them through the voyage and yield fortunes. Crew +after crew was sacrificed to this frenzied rush for money, but nothing +was thought of it. Again, there were examples of almost incredible +temerity. In his biography of Peter Charndon Brooks, one of the +principal merchants of the day, and his father-in-law, Edward Everett +tells of a ship sailing from Calcutta to Boston with a youth of nineteen +in command. Why or how this boy was placed in charge is not explained. +This juvenile captain had nothing in the way of a chart on board except +a small map of the world in Guthrie's Geography. He made the trip +successfully. Later, when he became a rich Boston banker, the tale of +this feat was one of the proud annals of his life and, if true, +deservedly so.[47] + +Whitney's notable invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had given a +stupendous impetus to cotton growing in the Southern States. As the +shipowners were chiefly centered in New England the export of this +staple vastly increased their trade and fortunes. It might be thought, +parenthetically, that Whitney himself should have made a surpassing +fortune from an invention which brought millions of dollars to planters +and traders. But his inventive ability and perseverance, at least in his +creation of the cotton gin, brought him little more than a multitude of +infringements upon his patent, refusals to pay him, and vexatious and +expensive litigation to sustain his rights.[48] In despair, he turned, +in 1808, to the manufacture in New Haven of fire-arms for the +Government, and from this business managed to get a fortune. From the +Canton and Calcutta trade Thomas Handasyd Perkins, a Boston shipper, +extracted a fortune of $2,000,000. His ships made thirty voyages around +the world. This merchant peer lived to the venerable age of 90; when he +passed away in 1854 his fortune, although intact, had shrunken to modest +proportions compared with a few others which had sprung up. James Lloyd, +a partner of Perkins', likewise profited; in 1808 he was elected a +United States Senator and later reëlected. + +William Gray, described as "one of the most successful of American +merchants," and as one who was considered and taxed in Salem "as one of +the wealthiest men in the place, where there were several of the largest +fortunes that could be found in the United States," owned, in his +heyday, more than sixty sail of vessels. Some scant details are +obtainable as to the career and personality of this moneyed colossus of +his day. He began as an apprenticed mechanic. For more than fifty years +he rose at dawn and was shaved and dressed. His letters and papers were +then spread before him and the day's business was begun. At his death in +1825 no inventory of his estate was taken. The present millions of the +Brown fortune of Rhode Island came largely from the trading activities +of Nicholas Brown and the accretions of which increased population and +values have brought. Nicholas Brown was born in Providence in 1760, of a +well-to-do father. He went to Rhode Island College (later named in his +honor by reason of his gifts) and greatly increased his fortune in the +shipping trade. + +It is quite needless, however, to give further instances in support of +the statement that nearly all the large active fortunes of the latter +part of the eighteenth and the early period of the nineteenth century, +came from the shipping trade and were mainly concentrated in New +England. The proceeds of these fortunes frequently were put into +factories, canals, turnpikes and later into railroads, telegraph lines +and express companies. Seldom, however, has the money thus employed +really gone to the descendants of the men who amassed it, but has since +passed over to men who, by superior cunning, have contrived to get the +wealth into their own hands. This statement is an anticipation of facts +that will be more cognate in subsequent chapters, but may be +appropriately referred to here. There were some exceptions to the +general condition of the large fortunes from shipping being compactly +held in New England. Thomas Pym Cope, a Philadelphia Quaker, did a brisk +shipping trade, and founded the first regular line of packets between +Philadelphia and Baltimore; with the money thus made he went into canal +and railroad enterprises. And in New York and other ports there were a +number of shippers who made fortunes of several millions each. + + +THE WORKERS' MEAGER SHARE. + +Obviously these millionaires created nothing except the enterprise of +distributing products made by the toil and skill of millions of workers +the world over. But while the workers made these products their sole +share was meager wages, barely sufficient to sustain the ordinary +demands of life. Moreover, the workers of one country were compelled to +pay exorbitant prices for the goods turned out by the workers of other +countries. The shippers who stood as middlemen between the workers of +the different countries reaped the great rewards. Nevertheless, it +should not be overlooked that the shippers played their distinct and +useful part in their time and age, the spirit of which was intensely +ultra-competitive and individualistic in the most sordid sense. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[40] "Hunt's Merchant's Magazine," 11:516-517. + +[41] Allen's "Biographical Dictionary," Edition of 1857:791. + +[42] Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants":382. + +[43] Allen's "Biographical Dictionary," Edit. of 1857:227. + +[44] Stryker's "American Register" for 1849:241. + +[45] "The American Almanac" for 1850:324. + +[46] "An Economic and Social History of New England," 11:825. + +[47] Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants":139. + +[48] Life of Eli Whitney, "Our Great Benefactors":567. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SHIPPERS AND THEIR TIMES + + +Unfortunately only the most general and eulogistic accounts of the +careers of most of the rich shippers have appeared in such biographies +as have been published. + +Scarcely any details are preserved of the underlying methods and +circumstances by which these fortunes were amassed. Sixty years ago, +when it was the unqualified fashion to extol the men of wealth as great +public benefactors and truckle to them, and when sociological inquiry +was in an undeveloped stage, there might have been some excuse for this. +But it is extremely unsatisfactory to find pretentious writers of the +present day glossing over essential facts or not taking the trouble to +get them. A "popular writer," who has pretended to deal with the origin +of one of the great present fortunes, the Astor fortune, and has given +facts, although conventionally interpreted, as to one or two of Astor's +land transactions,[49] passes over with a sentence the fundamental facts +as to Astor's shipping activities, and entirely ignores the peculiar +special privileges, worth millions of dollars, that Astor, in +conjunction with other merchants, had as a free gift from the +Government. This omission is characteristic, inasmuch as it leaves the +reader in complete ignorance of the kind of methods Astor used in +heaping up millions from the shipping trade--millions that enabled him +to embark in the buying of land in a large and ambitious way. Certainly +there is no lack of data regarding the two foremost millionaires of the +first decades of the nineteenth century--Stephen Girard and John Jacob +Astor. The very names of nearly all of the other powerful merchants of +the age have receded into the densest obscurity. But both those of +Girard and Astor live vivifyingly, the first by virtue of a memorable +benefaction, the second as the founder of one of the greatest fortunes +in the world. + + +COMMERCE SURCHARGED WITH FRAUD. + +Because of their unexcelled success, these two were the targets for the +bitter invective or the envy of their competitors on the one hand, and, +on the other, of the laudation of their friends and beneficiaries. Harsh +statements were made as to the methods of both, but, in reality, if we +but knew the truth, they were no worse than the other millionaires of +the time except in degree. The whole trading system was founded upon a +combination of superior executive ability and superior cunning--not +ability in creating, but in being able to get hold of, and distribute, +the products of others' creation. + +Fraudulent substitution was an active factor in many, if not all, of the +shipping fortunes. The shippers and merchants practiced the grossest +frauds upon the unsophisticated people. Walter Barrett, that pseudonymic +merchant, who took part in them himself, and who writes glibly of them +as fine tricks of trade, gives many instances in his volumes dealing +with the merchants of that time. + +The firm of F. & G. Carnes, he relates, was one of the many which made a +large fortune in the China trade. This firm found that Chinese +yellow-dog wood, when cut into proper sizes, bore a strong superficial +resemblance to real Turkey rhubarb. The Carnes brothers proceeded to +have the wood packed in China in boxes counterfeiting those of the +Turkey product. They then made a regular traffic importing this spurious +and deleterious stuff and selling it as the genuine Turkey article at +several times the cost. It entirely superseded the real product. This +firm also sent to China samples of Italian, French and English silks; +the Chinese imitated them closely, and the bogus wares were imported +into the United States where they were sold as the genuine European +goods. The Carneses were but a type of their class. Writing of the trade +carried on by the shipping class, Barrett says that the shippers sent to +China samples of the most noted Paris and London products in sauces, +condiments, preserves, sweetmeats, syrups and other goods. The Chinese +imitated them even to fac-similies of printed Paris and London labels. +The fraudulent substitutions were then brought in cargoes to the United +States where they were sold at fancy prices. + + +MERCHANTS THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY. + +This was the prevalent commercial system. The most infamous frauds were +carried on; and so dominant were the traders' standards that these +frauds passed as legitimate business methods. The very men who profited +by them were the mainstays of churches, and not only that, but they were +the very same men who formed the various self-constituted committees +which demanded severe laws against paupers and petty criminals. A study +of the names of the men, for instance, who comprised the New York +Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, 1818-1823, shows that nearly +all of them were shippers or merchants who participated in the current +commercial frauds. Yet this was the class that sat in judgment upon the +poverty of the people and the acts of poor criminals and which dictated +laws to legislatures and to Congress. + +Girard and Astor were the superfine products of this system; they did in +a greater way what others did in a lesser way. As a consequence, their +careers were fairly well illumined. The envious attacks of their +competitors ascribed their success to hard-hearted and ignoble +qualities, while their admirers heaped upon them tributes of praise for +their extraordinary genius. Both sets exaggerated. Their success in +garnering millions was merely an abnormal manifestation of an ambition +prevalent among the trading class. Their methods were an adroit +refinement of methods which were common. The game was one in which, +while fortunes were being amassed, masses of people were thrown into the +direst poverty and their lives were attended by injustice and suffering. +In this game a large company of eminent merchants played; Girard and +Astor were peers in the playing and got away with the greater share of +the stakes. + + +POST-REVOLUTIONARY CONDITIONS. + +Before describing Girard's career, it is well to cast a retrospective +fleeting glance into conditions following the Revolution. + +Despite the lofty sentiments of the Declaration of +Independence--sentiments which were submerged by the propertied class +when the cause was won--the gravity of law bore wholly in favor of the +propertied interests. The propertyless had no place or recognition. The +common man was good enough to shoulder a musket in the stress of war but +that he should have rights after the war, was deemed absurd. In the +whole scheme of government neither the feelings nor the interests of the +worker were thought of. + +The Revolution brought no immediate betterment to his conditions; such +slight amelioration as came later was the result of years of agitation. +No sooner was the Revolution over than in stepped the propertied +interests and assumed control of government functions. They were +intelligent enough to know the value of class government--a lesson +learned from the tactics of the British trading class. They knew the +tremendous impact of law and how, directly and indirectly, it worked +great transformations in the body social. While the worker was +unorganized, unconscious of what his interests demanded, deluded by +slogans and rallying-cries which really meant nothing to him, the +propertied class was alert in its own interests. + + +PROPERTY'S RULE INTRENCHED. + +It proceeded to intrench itself in political as well as in financial +power. The Constitution of the United States was so drafted as to take +as much direct power from the people as the landed and trading interests +dared. Most of the State Constitutions were more pronounced in rigid +property discriminations. In Massachusetts, no man could be governor +unless he were a Christian worth a clear £1,000; in North Carolina if he +failed of owning the required £1,000 in freehold estate; nor in Georgia +if he did not own five hundred acres of land and £4,000, nor in New +Hampshire if he lacked owning £500 in property. In South Carolina he had +to own £1,500 in property clear of all debts. In New York by the +Constitution of 1777, only actual residents having freeholds to the +value of £100 free of all debts, could vote for governor and other State +officials. The laws were so arranged as effectually to disfranchise +those who had no property. In his "Reminiscenses" Dr. John W. Francis +tells of the prevalence for years in New York of a supercilious class +which habitually sneered at the demand for political equality of the +leather-breeched mechanic with his few shillings a day. + +Theoretically, religious standards were the prevailing ones; in +actuality the ethics and methods of the propertied class were all +powerful. The Church might preach equality, humility and the list of +virtues; but nevertheless that did not give the propertyless man a vote. +Thus it was, that in communities professing the strongest religious +convictions and embodying them in Constitutions and in laws and customs, +glaring inconsistencies ran side by side. The explanation lay in the +fact that as regarded essential things of property, the standards of the +trading class had supplanted the religious. Even the very admonition +given by pastors to the poor, "Be content with your lot," was a +preachment entirely in harmony with the aims of the trading class which, +in order to make money, necessarily had to have a multitude of workers +to work for it and from whose labor the money, in its finality, had to +come. In the very same breath that they advised the poverty-stricken to +reverence their superiors and to expect their reward in heaven, the +ministers glorified the aggrandizing merchants as God's chosen men who +were called upon to do His work.[50] + +Since the laws favored the propertied interests, it was correspondingly +easy for them to get direct control of government functions and +personally exercise them. In New England rich shipowners rose at once to +powerful elective and appointive officers. Likewise in New York rich +landowners, and in the South, plantation men were selected for high +offices. Law-making bodies, from Congress down, were filled with +merchants, landowners, plantation men and lawyers, which last class was +trained, as a rule, by association and self-interest to take the views +of the propertied class and vote with, and for, it. A puissant +politico-commercial aristocracy developed which, at all times, was +perfectly conscious of its best interests. The worker was regaled with +flattering commendations of the dignity of labor and sonorous +generalizations and promises, but the ruling class took care of the +laws. + +By means of these partial laws, the propertied interests early began to +get tremendously valuable special privileges. Banking rights, canal +construction, trade privileges, government favors, public franchises all +came in succession. + + +THE RIGORS OF LAW ON THE POOR. + +At the same time that laws were enacted or were twisted to suit the will +of property, other laws were long in force oppressing the poor to a +terrifying degree. + +Poor debtors could be thrown in jail indefinitely, no matter how small a +sum they owned. In law, the laborer was accorded few rights. It was easy +to defraud him of his meager wages, since he had no lien upon the +products of his labor. His labor power was all that he had to sell, and +the value of this power was not safeguarded by law. But the products +created by his labor power in the form of property were fortified by the +severest laws. For the laborer to be in debt was equal to a crime, in +fact, in its results, worse than a crime. The burglar or pickpocket +would get a certain sentence and then go free. The poor debtor, +however, was compelled to languish in jail at the will of his creditor. + +The report of the Prison Discipline Society for 1829 estimated that +fully 75,000 persons were annually imprisoned for debt in the United +States and that more than one-half of these owed less than twenty +dollars.[51] And such were the appalling conditions of these debtors' +prisons that there was no distinction of sex, age or character; all of +the unfortunates were indiscriminately herded together. Sometimes, even +in the inclement climate of the North, the jails were so poorly +constructed, that there was insufficient shelter from the elements. In +the newspapers of the period advertisements may be read in which +charitable societies or individuals appeal for food, fuel and clothing +for the inmates of these prisons. The thief and the murderer had a much +more comfortable time of it in prison than the poor debtor. + + +LAW KIND TO THE TRADERS. + +With the law-making mercantile class the situation was very different. +The state and national bankruptcy acts, as apply to merchants, bankers, +storekeepers--the whole commercial class--were so loosely drafted and so +laxly enforced and judicially interpreted, that it was not hard to +defraud creditors and escape with the proceeds. A propertied bankrupt +could conceal his assets and hire adroit lawyers to get him off +scot-free on quibbling technicalities--a condition which has survived +to the present time, though in a lesser degree.[52] + +But imprisonment for debt was not the only fate that befell the +propertyless. According to the "Annual Report of the Managers of the +Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in New York City," there were +12,000 paupers in New York City in 1820.[53] Many of these were +destitute Irish who, after having been plundered and dispossessed by the +absentee landlords and the capitalists of their own country, were +induced to pay their last farthing to the shippers for passage to +America. There were laws providing that ship masters must report to the +Mayors of cities and give a bond that the destitutes that they brought +over should not become public charges. These laws were systematically +and successfully evaded; poor immigrants were dumped unceremoniously at +obscure places along the coast from whence they had to make their way, +carrying their baggage and beds, to the cities the best that they could. +Cadwallader D. Colden, mayor of New York for some years, tells, in his +reports, of harrowing cases of death after death resulting from +exposure due to this horrible form of exploitation. + +Now when the immigrant or native found himself in a state of near, or +complete, destitution and resorted to the pawnbrokers's or to theft, +what happened? The law restricted pawnbrokers from charging more than +seven per cent on amounts more than $25, but on amounts below that they +were allowed to charge twenty-five per cent. which, as the wage value of +money then went, was oppressively high. Of course, the poor with their +cheap possessions seldom owned anything on which they could get more +than $25; consequently they were the victims of the most grinding +legalized usury. Occasionally some legislative committee recognized, +although in a dim and unanalytic way, this onerous discrimination of law +against the propertyless. "Their [the pawnbrokers'] rates of interest," +an Aldermanic committee reported in 1832, "have always been exorbitant +and exceedingly oppressive. It has from time to time been regulated by +law, and its sanctions have (as is usual upon most occasions when +oppression has been legalized) been made to fall most heavily upon the +poor." The committee continued with the following comments which were +naïve in the extreme considering that for generations all law had been +made by and for the propertied interests: "It is a singular fact that +the smallest sums advanced have always been chargeable with the highest +rates of interest.... It is a fact worthy of consideration that by far +the greater number of loans effected at these establishments are less +than one dollar, and of the whole twelve-fifteenths are in sums less +than one dollar and a half."[54] + +On the other hand, the propertied class not only was able to raise money +at a fairly low rate of interest, but, as will appear, had the free use +of the people's money, through the power of government, to the extent of +tens of millions of dollars. + + +THE PENALTIES OF POVERTY. + +If a man were absolutely destitute and took to theft as the only means +of warding off starvation for himself or his family, the whole force of +law at once descended heavily upon him. In New York State the law +decreed it grand larceny to steal to the value of $25, and in other +States the statutes were equally severe. For stealing $25 worth of +anything the penalty was three years in prison at hard labor. The +unfortunate was usually put in the convict chain-gang and forced to work +along the roads. Street-begging was prohibited by drastic laws; poverty +was substantially a crime. The moment a propertyless person stole, the +assumption at once was that he was _prima facie_ a criminal; but let the +powerful propertied man steal and government at once refused to see the +criminal _intent_; if he were prosecuted, the usual outcome was that he +never went to jail. Hundreds of specific instances could be given to +prove this. One of the most noted of these was that of Samuel Swartwout, +who was Collector of the Port of New York for a considerable period and +who, at the same time, was a financier and large land-speculation +promoter. It came out in 1838 that he had stolen the enormous sum of +$1,222,705.69 from the Government,[55] which money he had used in his +schemes. He was a fugitive from justice for a time, but upon his return +was looked upon extenuatingly as the "victim of circumstances" and he +never languished in jail. + +Money was the standard of everything. The propertied person could commit +any kind of crime, short of murder, and could at once get free on bail. +But what happened to the accused who was poor? Here is a contemporaneous +description of one of the prisons of the period: + + "In Bridewell, white females of every grade of character, from the + innocent who is in the end acquitted, down to the basest wretch + that ever disgraced the refuges of prostitution, are crowded into + the same abandoned abode. With the white male prisons, the case is + little altered.... And so it is with the colored prisoners of both + sexes. Hundreds are taken up and sent to these places, who, after + remaining frequently several weeks, are found to be innocent of + the crime alleged and are then let loose upon the community."[56] + +"Let loose upon the community." Does not this clause in itself convey +volumes of significance of the attitude of the propertied interests, +even when banded together in a pseudo "charitable" enterprise, toward +the poverty-stricken? While thus the charitable societies were holding +up the destitute to scorn and contumely as outcasts and were loftily +lecturing down to the poor on the evils of intemperance and +gambling--practices which were astoundingly prevalent among the rich--at +no time did they make any attempt to alter laws so glaringly unjust that +they practically made poverty a distinct crime, subject to long terms of +imprisonment. + +For instance, if a rich man were assaulted and made a complaint, all +that he had to do was to give bail to insure his appearance as a +witness. But if a poor man or woman were cheated or assaulted and could +not give bail to insure his or her appearance at the trial as a +complaining witness, the law compelled the authorities to lock up that +man or woman in prison. In the debates in the New York Constitutional +Convention of 1846, numerous cases were cited of this continuing +barbarity in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states. In +Maryland a young woman was assaulted and preferred criminal charges. As +she could not give bail she was locked up for eighteen months as a +detained witness. This was but one instance in thousands of similar +cases. + + +MASTER AND BONDED MAN. + +For an apprenticed laborer to quit his master and job was a crime in +law; once caught he was forthwith bundled off to jail, there to await +the dispensation of his master. No matter how cruelly his master +ill-treated him, however dissatisfied he was, the apprenticed laborer in +law had no rights. Almost every day the newspapers of the eighteenth, +and the early part of the nineteenth, century contained offers of +rewards for the apprehension of fugitive apprentice laborers; from a +survey of the Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and other colonial +and state newspapers it is clear that thousands of these apprentices had +to resort to flight to escape their bondage. This is a specimen +advertisement: + +TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD. + + RAN away from the subscriber, an Apprentice Boy, named William + Rustes, about 18 years and 3 months old, by trade a house + carpenter, of a dark complexion, dark eye brows, black eyes and + black hair, about 5 feet, 8 inches high, his dress unknown as he + took with him different kinds of clothes. The above reward will be + paid to any person that will secure him in gaol or return him to + his master. + + GEORGE LORD, + No. 12 First Street.[57] + +In contradistinction to the scorpion-like laws which worked such +injustice to the poor and which made a mockery of doctrines of equality +before the law, the propertied interests endowed themselves, by their +control of government, with invaluable exemptions and peculiarly +profitable special privileges. + +Even where, in civil cases, all men, theoretically, had an equal chance +in courts of equity, litigation was made so expensive, whether purposely +or not, that justice was really a one-sided pastime, in which the rich +man could easily wear out the poor contestant. This, however, is not the +place for a dissertation on that most remarkable of noteworthy +sorcerer's arts, the making of justice an expensive luxury, while still +deluding the people with the notion that the law knows no preferences. +The preferences which are more to the point at present are those in +which government force is used to enrich the already rich and impoverish +the impoverished still further. At the very time that property was +bitterly resisting enlightened pleas for the abolition of imprisonment +for debt, for the enactment of a mechanic's lien law, and for the +extension of the suffrage franchise it was using the public money of the +whole people for its personal and private enterprises. In works dealing +with those times it is not often that we get penetration into the +underlying methods of the trading class. But a lucid insight is +inadvertently given by Walter Barrett (who, for sixty years, was in the +mercantile trade), in his smug and conventional, but quaintly +entertaining, volumes, "The Merchants of Old New York." This strong +instance shows like a flashlight that while the success of the shippers +was attributed to a fine category of energetic qualities, the benevolent +assistance of the United States Government was, in a large measure, +responsible for part of their accumulations. + + +THE SHIPPERS' HUGE GRAFT. + +The Griswolds of New York owned the ship, "Panama." She carried spelter, +lead, iron and other products to China and returned with tea, false +cinnamon and various other Chinese goods. The duty on these was +extremely high. But the Government was far more lenient to the trading +class than the trader was to the poor debtor. It generously extended +credit for nine, twelve and eighteen months before it demanded the +payment of the tariff duties. What happened under this system? As soon +as the ship arrived, the cargo was sold at a profit of fifty per cent. +The Griswolds, for example, would pocket their profits and instead of +using their own capital in further ventures, they would have the +gratuitous use of Government money, that is to say, the people's money, +for periods of from six months to a year and a half. Thus the endless +chain was kept up. According to Barrett, this was the customary attitude +of the Government toward merchants: it was anything but unusual for a +merchant to have the free use of Government money to the sum of four or +five hundred thousand dollars.[58] + +"John Jacob Astor," says Barrett in a view of admiration, "at one period +of his life had several vessels operating in this way. They would go to +the Pacific and carry furs from thence to Canton. These would be sold at +large profits. Then the cargoes of tea would pay enormous duties which +Astor did not have to pay to the United States for a year and a half. +His tea cargoes would be sold for good four and six months paper, or +perhaps cash; so that for eighteen or twenty years John Jacob Astor had +what was actually a free-of-interest loan from the Government of over +_five millions_ of dollars."[59] + +"One house," continues Barrett, "was Thomas H. Smith & Sons. This firm +went enormously into the Canton trade, and, although possessing +originally but a few thousand dollars, Smith imported to such an extent +that when he failed he owed the United States three millions and not a +cent has ever been paid." Was Smith imprisoned for debt? Not at all. + +It is such revelations as these that indicate how it was possible for +the shippers to pile up great fortunes at a time when "a house that +could raise $260,000 in specie had an uncommon capital." They showed how +the same functions of government which were used as an engine of such +oppressive power against the poor, were perverted into highly efficient +auxiliary of trading class aims and ambitions. By multifarious subtle +workings, these class laws inevitably had a double effect. They poured +wealth into the coffers of the merchant-class and simultaneously tended +to drive the masses into poverty. The gigantic profits taken in by +merchants had to be borne by the worker, perhaps not superficially, but +in reality so. They came from his slender wages, from the tea and cotton +and woolen goods that he used, the sugar and the coffee and so on. In +this indirect way the shippers absorbed a great part of the products of +his labor; what they did not expropriate the landlord did. Then when the +laborer fell in debt to the middleman tradesman to jail he went.[60] + + +UNITE AGAINST THE WORKER. + +The worker denounced these discriminations as barbarous and unjust. But +he could do nothing. The propertied class, with its keen understanding +of what was best for its interests, acted and voted, and usually +dragooned the masses of enfranchised into voting, for men and measures +entirely favorable to its designs. Sometimes these interests conflicted +as they did when a part of New England became manufacturing centers and +favored a high protective tariff in opposition to the importing trades, +the plantation owners and the agricultural class in general. Then the +vested class would divide, and each side would appeal with passionate +and patriotic exhortations to the voting elements of the people to +sustain it, or the country would go to ruin. But when the working class +made demands for better laws, the propertied class, as a whole, united +to oppose the workers bitterly. However it differed on the tariff, or +the question of state or national banks, substantially the whole trading +class solidly combated the principle of manhood suffrage and the +movements for the wiping out of laws for imprisonment for debt, for +mechanic's liens and for the establishment of shorter hours of work. + +Political institutions and their offspring in the form of laws being +generally in the control of the trading class, the conditions were +extraordinarily favorable for the accumulation of large fortunes, +especially on the part of the shipowners, the dominant class. The grand +climax of the galaxy of American fortunes during the period from 1800 to +1831--the greatest of all the fortunes up to the beginning of the third +decade of that century--was that of Girard. He built up what was looked +up to as the gigantic fortune of about ten millions of dollars and far +overtopped every other strainer for money except Astor, who survived him +seventeen years, and whose wealth increased during that time to double +the amount that Girard left. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[49] "The Astor Fortune," McClure's Magazine, April, 1905. + +[50] Innumerable were the sermons and addresses poured forth, all to the +same end. To cite one: The Rev. Daniel Sharp of the Third Baptist +Meeting House, Boston, delivered a sermon in 1828 on "The Tendency of +Evil Speaking Against Rulers." It was considered so powerful an argument +in favor of obedience that it was printed in pamphlet form (Beals, Homer +& Co., Printers), and was widely distributed to press and public. + +[51] Various writers assert that twenty dollars was the average minimum. +In many places, however, the great majority of debts were for less than +ten dollars. Thus, for the year ending November 26, 1831, nearly one +thousand citizens had been imprisoned for debt in Baltimore. Of this +number more than half owed less than ten dollars, and of the whole +number, only thirty-four individually had debts exceeding one hundred +dollars.--Reports of Committees, First Session, Twenty-fourth Congress, +Vol. II, Report No. 732:3. + +[52] In his series of published articles, "The History of the +Prosecution of Bankrupt Frauds," the author has brought out +comprehensive facts on this point. + +[53] The eminent merchants who sat on this committee had their own +conclusive opinion of what produced poverty. In commenting on the growth +of paupers they ascribed pauperism to seven sources. (1) Ignorance, (2) +Intemperance, (3) Pawnbrokers, (4) Lotteries, (5) Charitable +Institutions, (6) Houses of Ill-Fame, (7) Gambling. + +No documents more wonderfully illustrate the bourgeois type of +temperament and reasoning than their reports. The people of the city +were ignorant because 15,000 of the 25,000 families did not attend +church. Pawnbrokers were an incentive to theft, cunning and lack of +honest industry, etc., etc. Thus their explanations ran. In referring to +mechanics and paupers, the committee described them as "the middling and +inferior classes." Is it any wonder that the working class justly views +"charitable" societies, and the spirit behind them, with intense +suspicion and deep execration? + +[54] Documents of the Board of Assistant Aldermen of New York City, +1831-32, Doc. No. 45:1. + +[55] House Executive Document, No. 13, Twenty-fifth Congress, Third +Session; also, House Report, No. 313. + +[56] Report for 1821 of the "Society for the Prevention of Pauperism." + +[57] "New York Gazette and General Advertiser", Aug. 5, 1797. The +rewards offered for the apprehension of fugitive apprentices varied. An +advertisement in the same newspaper, issue of July 3, 1797, held out an +offer of five dollars reward for an indented German boy who had +"absconded." The fear was expressed that he would attempt to board some +ship, and all persons were notified not to harbor or conceal him as they +would be "proceeded against as the law directs". That old apprentice law +has never been repealed in New York State. + +[58] The Government reports bear out Barrett's statements, although in +saying this it must be with qualifications. The shippers engaged in the +East India and China trade were more favored, it seems, than other +classes of shippers, which discrimination engendered much antagonism. +"Why," wrote the Mercantile Society of New York to the House Committee +on Manufactures in 1821, "should the merchant engaged in the East India +trade, who is the overgrown capitalist, have the extended credit of +twelve months in his duties, the amount of which on one cargo furnishes +nearly a sufficient capital for completing another voyage, before his +bonds are payable?" The Mercantile Society recommended that credits on +duties be reduced to three and six months on merchandise imported from +all quarters of the globe.--Reports of Committees, Second Session, +Sixteenth Congress, 1820-21, Vol. I, Document No. 34. + +[59] "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:31-33. Barrett was a great +admirer of Astor. He inscribed Vol. iii, published in 1864, to Astor's +memory. + +[60] The movement to abolish imprisonment for debt was a protracted one +lasting more than a quarter of a century, and was acrimoniously opposed +by the propertied classes, as a whole. By 1836, however, many State +legislatures had been induced to repeal or modify the provisions of the +various debtors' imprisonment acts. In response to a recommendation by +President Andrew Jackson that the practise be abolished in the District +of Columbia, a House Select Committee reported on January 17, 1832, that +"the system originated in cupidity. It is a confirmation of power in the +few against the many; the Patrician against the Plebeian." On May 31, +1836, the House Committee for the District of Columbia, in reporting on +the debtors' imprisonment acts, said: "They are disgraceful evidences of +the ingenious subtlety by which they were woven into the legal system we +adopted from England, and were obviously intended to increase and +confirm the power of a wealthy aristocracy by rendering poverty a crime, +and subjecting the liberty of the poor to the capricious will of the +rich."--Reports of Committees, Second Session, Twenty-second Congress, +1832-33, Report No. 5, and Reports of Committees, First Session, +Twenty-fourth Congress, 1836, Report No. 732, ii:2. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GIRARD--THE RICHEST OF THE SHIPPERS + + +Girard was born at Bordeaux, France, on May 21, 1750, and was the eldest +of five children of Captain Pierre Girard, a mariner. When eight years +old he became blind in one eye, a loss and deformity which subjected his +sensibilities to severe trials and which had the effect of rendering him +morose and sour. It was his lament in later life that while his brothers +had been sent to college, he was the ugly duckling of the family and +came in for his father's neglect and a shrewish step-mother's +waspishness. At about fourteen years of age he relieved himself of these +home troubles and ran away to sea. During the nine years that he sailed +between Bordeaux and the West Indies, he rose from cabin-boy to mate. +Evading the French law which required that no man should be made master +of a ship unless he had sailed two cruises in the royal navy and was +twenty-five years old, Girard got the command of a trading vessel when +about twenty-two years old. While in this service he clandestinely +carried cargoes of his own which he sold at considerable profit. In May, +1776, while en route from New Orleans to a Canadian port, he became +enshrouded in a fog off the Delaware Capes, signaled for aid, and when +the fog had cleared away sufficiently for an American ship, near by, to +come to his assistance, learned that war was on. He thereupon scurried +for Philadelphia, where he sold vessel and cargo, of which latter only +a part belonged to him, and with the proceeds opened up a cider and wine +bottling and grocery business in a small store on Water street. + +Girard made money fast; and in July, 1777, married Mary Lum, a woman of +his own class. She is usually described as a servant girl of great +beauty and as one whose temper was of quite tempestuous violence. This +unfortunate woman subsequently lost her reason; undoubtedly her +husband's meannesses and his forbidding qualities contributed to the +process. One of his most favorable biographers thus describes him: "In +person he was short and stout, with a dull repulsive countenance, which +his bushy eyebrows and solitary eye almost made hideous. He was cold and +reserved in manner, and was disliked by his neighbors, the most of whom +were afraid of him."[61] + +During the British occupation of Philadelphia he was charged by the +revolutionists with extreme double-dealing and duplicity in pretending +to be a patriot, and taking the oath of allegiance to the colonies, +while secretly trading with the British. None of his biographers deny +this. While merchant after merchant was being bankrupted from disruption +of trade, Girard was incessantly making money. By 1780 he was again in +the shipping trade, his vessels plying between American ports and New +Orleans and San Domingo; not the least of his profits, it was said, +came from slave-trading. + +[Illustration: STEPHEN GIRARD. +(From an Engraving.)] + + +HOW HE BUILT HIS SHIPS. + +A troublous partnership with his brother, Captain Jean Girard, lasted +but a short time; the brothers could not agree. At the dissolution in +1790 Stephen Girard's share of the profits amounted to $30,000. Girard's +greatest stroke came from the insurrection of the San Domingo negroes +against the French several years later. He had two vessels lying in the +harbor of one of the island ports. At the first mutterings of danger, a +number of planters took their valuables on board one of these ships and +scurried back to get the remainder. The sequel, as commonly narrated, is +represented thus: The planters failed to return, evidently falling +victims to the fury of the insurrectionists. The vessels were taken to +Philadelphia, and Girard persistently advertised for the owners of the +valuables. As no owners ever appeared, Girard sold the goods and put the +proceeds, $50,000, into his own bank account. "This," says Houghton, +"was a great assistance to him, and the next year he began the building +of those splendid ships which enabled him to engage so actively in the +Chinese and West India trades." + +From this time on his profits were colossal. His ships circumnavigated +the world many times and each voyage brought him a fortune. He practiced +all of those arts of deception which were current among the trading +class and which were accepted as shrewdness and were inseparably +associated with legitimate business methods. In giving one of his +captains instructions he wrote, as was his invariable policy, the most +explicit directions to exercise secretiveness and cunning in his +purchases of coffee at Batavia. Be cautious and prudent, was his +admonition. Keep to yourself the intention of the voyage and the amount +of specie that you have on board. To satisfy the curious, throw them off +the scent by telling them that the ship will take in molasses, rice and +sugar, if the price is very low, adding that the whole will depend upon +the success in selling the small Liverpool cargo. If you do this, the +cargo of coffee can be bought ten per cent cheaper than it would be if +it is publicly known there is a quantity of Spanish dollars on board, +besides a valuable cargo of British goods intended to be invested in +coffee for Stephen Girard of Philadelphia. + +By 1810 we see him ordering the Barings of London to invest in shares of +the Bank of the United States half a million dollars which they held for +him. When the charter expired, he was the principal creditor of that +bank; and he bought, at a great bargain, the bank and the cashier's +house for $120,000. On May 12, 1812, he opened the Girard Bank, with a +capital of $1,200,000, which he increased the following year by $100,000 +more.[62] + + +A DICTATOR OF FINANCE. + +His wealth was now overshadowingly great; his power immense. He was a +veritable dictator of the realms of finance; an assiduous, repellent +little man, with his devil's eye, who rode roughshod over every obstacle +in his path. His every movement bred fear; his veriest word could bring +ruin to any one who dared cross his purposes. The war of 1812 brought +disaster to many a merchant, but Girard harvested fortune from the +depths of misfortune. "He was, it must be said," says Houghton, "hard +and illiberal in his bargains, and remorseless in exacting the last cent +due him." And after he opened the Girard Bank: "Finding that the +salaries which had been paid by the government were higher than those +paid elsewhere, he cut them down to the rate given by the other banks. +The watchman had always received from the old bank the gift of an +overcoat at Christmas, but Girard put a stop to this. He gave no +gratuities to any of his employees, but confined them to the +compensation for which they had bargained; yet he contrived to get out +of them service more devoted than was received by other men who paid +higher wages and made presents. Appeals to him for aid were unanswered. +No poor man ever came full-handed from his presence. He turned a deaf +ear to the entreaties of failing merchants to help them on their feet +again. He was neither generous nor charitable. When his faithful cashier +died, after long years spent in his service, he manifested the most +hardened indifference to the bereavement of the family of that +gentleman, and left them to struggle along as best they could." + +Further, Houghton unconsciously proceeds to bring out several incidents +which show the exorbitant profits Girard made from his various business +activities. In the spring of 1813, one of his ships was captured by a +British cruiser at the mouth of the Delaware. Fearing that his prize +would be recaptured by an American war ship if he sent her into port, +the English Admiral notified Girard that he would ransom the ship for +$180,000 in coin. Girard paid the money; and, even after paying that +sum, the cargo of silks, nankeens and teas yielded him a profit of half +a million dollars. His very acts of apparent public spirit were means by +which he scooped in large profits. Several times, when the rate of +exchange was so high as to be injurious to general business, he drew +upon Baring Bros. for sums of money to be transferred to the United +States. This was hailed as a public benefaction. But what did Girard do? +He disposed of the money to the Bank of the United States and charged +ten per cent. for the service. + + +BRIBERY AND INTIMIDATION. + +The reëstablishment and enlarged sway of this bank were greatly due to +his efforts and influence; he became its largest stockholder and one of +its directors. No business institution in the first three decades of the +nineteenth century exercised such a sinister and overshadowing influence +as this chartered monopoly. The full tale of its indirect bribery of +politicians and newspaper editors, in order to perpetuate its great +privileges and keep a hold upon public opinion, has never been set +forth. But sufficient facts were brought out when, after years of +partizan agitation, Congress was forced to investigate and found that +not a few of its own members for years had been on the payrolls of the +bank.[63] + +In order to get its charter renewed from time to time and retain its +extraordinary special privileges, the United States Bank systematically +debauched politics and such of the press as was venal; and when a +critical time came, as it did in 1832-34, when the mass of the people +sided with President Jackson in his aim to overthrow the bank, it +instructed the whole press at its command to raise the cry of "the +fearful consequences of revolution, anarchy and despotism," which +assuredly would ensue if Jackson were reëlected. To give one instance of +how for years it had manipulated the press: The "Courier and Enquirer" +was a powerful New York newspaper. Its owners, Webb and Noah, suddenly +deserted Jackson and began to denounce him. The reason was, as revealed +by a Congressional investigation, that they had borrowed $50,000 from +the United States Bank which lost no time in giving them the alternative +of paying up or supporting the bank.[64] + +Girard's share in the United States Bank brought him millions of +dollars. With its control of deposits of government funds and by the +provisions of its charter, this bank swayed the whole money marts of the +United States and could manipulate them at will. It could advance or +depress prices as it chose. Many times, Girard with his fellow directors +was severely denounced for the arbitrary power he wielded. But--and let +the fact be noted--the denunciation came largely from the owners of the +State banks who sought to supplant the United States Bank. The struggle +was really one between two sets of capitalistic interests. + +Shipping and banking were the chief sources of Girard's wealth, with +side investments in real estate and other forms of property. He owned +large tracts of land in Philadelphia, the value of which increased +rapidly with the growth of population; he was a heavy stockholder in +river navigation companies and near the end of his life he subscribed +$200,000 toward the construction of the Danville & Pottsville Railroad. + + +THE SOLITARY CROESUS. + +He was at this time a solitary, crusty old man living in a four-story +house on Water street, pursued by the contumely of every one, even of +those who flattered him for mercenary purposes. Children he had none, +and his wife was long since dead. His great wealth brought him no +comfort; the environment with which he surrounded himself was mean and +sordid; many of his clerks lived in better style. There, in his dingy +habitation, this lone, weazened veteran of commerce immersed himself in +the works of Voltaire, Diderot, Paine and Rousseau, of whom he was a +profound admirer and after whom some of his best ships were named. + +This grim miser had, after all, the one great redeeming quality of being +true to himself. He made no pretense to religion and had an abhorrence +of hypocrisy. Cant was not in his nature. Out into the world he went, a +ferocious shark, cold-eyed for prey, but he never cloaked his motives +beneath a calculating exterior of piety or benevolence. Thousands upon +thousands he had deceived, for business was business, but himself he +never deceived. His bitter scoffs at what he termed theologic +absurdities and superstitions and his terrific rebuffs to ministers who +appealed to him for money, undoubtedly called forth a considerable +share of the odium which was hurled upon him. He defied the anathemas of +organized churchdom; he took hold of the commercial world and shook it +harshly and emerged laden with spoils. To the last, his volcanic spirit +flashed forth, even when, eighty years old, he lay with an ear cut off, +his face bruised and his sight entirely destroyed, the result of being +felled by a wagon. + +In all his eighty-one years charity had no place in his heart. But +after, on Dec. 26, 1831, he lay stone dead and his will was opened, what +a surprise there was! His relatives all received bequests; his very +apprentices each got five hundred dollars, and his old servants +annuities. Hospitals, orphan societies and other charitable associations +all benefited. Five hundred thousand dollars went to the City of +Philadelphia for certain civic improvements; three hundred thousand +dollars for the canals of Pennsylvania; a portion of his valuable estate +in Louisiana to New Orleans for the improvement of that city. The +remainder of the estate, about six millions, was left to trustees for +the creation and endowment of a College for Orphans, which was promptly +named after him. + +A chorus of astonishment and laudation went up. Was there ever such +magnificence of public spirit? Did ever so lofty a soul live who was so +misunderstood? Here and there a protesting voice was feebly heard that +Girard's wealth came from the community and that it was only justice +that it should revert to the community; that his methods had resulted in +widows and orphans and that his money should be applied to the support +of those orphans. These protests were frowned upon as the mouthings of +cranks or the ravings of impotent envy. Applause was lavished upon +Girard; his very clothes were preserved as immemorial mementoes.[65] + + +"THE GREAT BENEFACTOR." + +All of the benefactions of the other rich men of the period waned into +insignificance compared to those of Girard. His competitors and compeers +had given to charity, but none on so great a scale as Girard. +Distinguished orators vied with one another in extolling his wonderful +benefactions,[66] and the press showered encomiums upon him as that of +the greatest benefactor of the age. To them this honestly seemed so, for +they were trained by the standards of the trading class, by the +sophistries of political economists and by the spirit of the age, to +concentrate their attention upon the powerful and successful only, while +disregarding the condition of the masses of the people. + +The pastimes of a king or the foibles of some noted politician or rich +man were things of magnitude and were much expatiated upon, while the +common man, singly or in mass, was of absolutely no importance. The +finely turned rhetoric of the orators, pleasing as it was to that +generation, is, judged by modern standards, well nigh meaningless and +worthless. In that highflown oratory, with its carefully studied +exordiums, periods and perorations can be clearly discerned the +reverence given to power as embodied by possession of property. But +nowhere do we see any explanation, or even an attempt at explanation, of +the basic means by which this property was acquired or of its effect +upon the masses of the people. Woefully lacking in facts are the +productions of the time as to how the great body of the workers lived +and what they did. Facts as to the rich are fairly available, although +not abundant, but facts regarding the rest of the population are +pitifully few. The patient seeker for truth--the mind which is not +content with the presentation of one side--finds, with some impatience, +that only a few writers thought it worth while to give even scant +attention to the condition of the working class. One of these few was +Matthew Carey, an orthodox political economist, who, in a pamphlet +issued in 1829[67], gave this picture which forms both a contrast and a +sequel to the accumulations of multimillionaires, of which Girard was +then the archetype: + + +A STARK CONTRAST PRESENTED. + + "Thousands of our laboring people travel hundreds of miles in + quest of employment on canals at 62-1/2 cents to 87-1/2 cents per + day, paying $1.50 to $2.00 a week for board, leaving families + behind depending upon them for support. They labor frequently in + marshy grounds, where they inhale pestiferous miasmata, which + destroy their health, often irrevocably. They return to their poor + families broken hearted, and with ruined constitutions, with a + sorry pittance, most laboriously earned, and take to their beds, + sick and unable to work. Hundreds are swept off annually, many of + them leaving numerous and helpless families. Notwithstanding their + wretched fate, their places are quickly supplied by others, + although death stares them in the face. Hundreds are most + laboriously employed on turnpikes, working from morning to night + at from half a dollar to three-quarters a day, exposed to the + broiling sun in summer and all the inclemency of our severe + winters. There is always a redundancy of wood-pilers in our + cities, whose wages are so low that their utmost efforts do not + enable them to earn more than from thirty-five to fifty cents per + day.... Finally there is no employment whatever, how disagreeable + or loathsome, or deleterious soever it may be, or however reduced + the wages, that does not find persons willing to follow it rather + than beg or steal." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[61] "Kings of Fortune":16--The pretentious title and sub-title of this +work, written thirty odd years ago by Walter R. Houghton, A.M., gives an +idea of the fantastic exaltation indulged in of the careers of men of +great wealth. Hearken to the full title: "Kings of Fortune--or the +Triumphs and Achievements of Noble, Self-made men.--Whose brilliant +careers have honored their calling, blessed humanity, and whose lives +furnish instruction for the young, entertainment for the old and +valuable lessons for the aspirants of fortune." Could any fulsome +effusion possibly surpass this? + +[62] "Mr. Girard's bank was a financial success from the beginning. A +few months after it opened for business its capital was increased to one +million three hundred thousand dollars. One of the incidents which +helped, at the outstart, to inspire the public with confidence in the +stability of the new institution was the fact that the trustees who +liquidated the affairs of the old Bank of the United States opened an +account in Girard's Bank, and deposited in its vaults some millions of +dollars in specie belonging to the old bank."--"The History of the +Girard National Bank of Philadelphia," by Josiah Granville Leach, LL.B., +1902. This eulogistic work contains only the scantiest details of +Girard's career. + +[63] The First Session of the Twenty-second Congress, 1831, iv, +containing reports from Nos. 460 to 463. + +[64] Ibid. + +An investigating committee appointed by the Pennsylvania Legislature in +1840, reported that during a series of years the Bank of the United +States (or United States Bank, as it was more often referred to) had +corruptly expended $130,000 in Pennsylvania for a re-charter.--Pa. House +Journal, 1842, Vol. II, Appendix, 172-531. + +[65] In providing for the establishment of Girard College, Girard stated +in his will: "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or +minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any station +or duty whatsoever in the said college; nor shall any such person be +admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor within the premises +appropriated to the purposes of said college."--The Will of the Late +Stephen Girard, Esq., 1848:22-23. + +An attempt was made by his relatives in France to break his will, one of +the grounds being that the provisions of his will were in conflict with +the Christian religion which was a part of the common law of +Pennsylvania. The attempt failed. + +[66] For example, an address by Edward Everett, at the Odeon, before the +Mercantile Library Association in Boston, September 13, 1838: "Few +persons, I believe, enjoyed less personal popularity in the community in +which he lived and to which he bequeathed his personal fortune.... A +citizen and a patriot he lived in his modest dwelling and plain garb; +appropriating to his last personal wants the smallest pittance from his +princely income; living to the last in the dark and narrow street in +which he made his fortune; and when he died bequeathed it for the +education of orphan children. For the public I do not believe he could +have done better," etc., etc.--Hunt's "Merchant's Magazine," 1830, 1:35. + +[67] "The Public Charities of Philadelphia." + + + + +PART II + + +THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES + + +[Illustration: GEN. STEPHEN VAN RENSSLAER. +The Last of the Patroons. +(From an Engraving.)] + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE ORIGIN OF HUGE CITY ESTATES + + +In point of succession and importance the next great fortunes came from +ownership of land in the cities. They far preceded fortunes from +established industries or from the control of modern methods of +transportation. Long before Vanderbilt and other of his contemporaries +had plucked immense fortunes from steamboat, railroad and street railway +enterprises, the Astor, Goelet, and Longworth fortunes were counted in +the millions. In the seventy years from 1800 the landowners were the +conspicuous fortune possessors; and, although fortunes of millions were +extracted from various other lines of business, the land fortunes were +preëminent. + +At the dawn of the nineteenth century and until about 1850, survivals of +the old patroon estates were to be met with. But these gradually +disintegrated. Everywhere in the North the tendency was toward the +partition of the land into small farms, while in the South the condition +was the reverse. The main fact which stood out was that the rich men of +the country were no longer those who owned vast tracts of rural land. +That powerful kind of landowner had well-nigh vanished. + + +THE MANORIAL LORDS PASS AWAY. + +For more than two centuries the manorial lords had been conspicuous +functionaries. Shorn of much power by the alterations of the Revolution +they still retained a part of their state and estate. But changing laws +and economic conditions drove them down and down in the scale until the +very names of many of them were gradually lost sight of. As they +descended in the swirl, other classes of rich men jutted into strong +view. Chief among these nascent classes were the landowners of the +cities, at first grabbling tradesmen and land speculators and finally +rising to the crowning position of multimillionaires. Originally, as we +have seen, the manorial magnate himself made the laws and decreed +justice; but in two centuries great changes had taken place. He now had +to fight for his very existence. + +Thus, to give one example, the manorial men in New York were confronted +in 1839 by a portentous movement. Their tenants were in a state of +unrest. On the Van Rensselaer, the Livingston and other of the old +feudal estates they rose in revolt. They objected to the continuing +system which gave the lords of these manors much the same rights over +them as a lord in England exercised over his tenants. Under the leases +that the manorial lords compelled their tenants to sign, there were +oppressive anachronisms. If he desired to entertain a stranger in his +house for twenty-four hours, the tenant was required to get permission +in writing. He was forced to obligate himself not to trade in any +Commodities except the produce of the manor. He could not get his flour +ground anywhere else than at the mill of the manor without violating his +lease and facing ejectment, nor could he buy anything at any place +except at the store of the manorial magnate. These were the rights +reserved to the manorial lords after the Revolution, because theirs were +the rights of private property; and as has often been set forth, +property absolutely dominated the laws and greatly nullified the spirit +of a movement made successful by the blood and lives of the masses in +the Revolutionary Army. Tardily, subsequent legislatures had abolished +all feudal tenures, but these laws were neither effective nor were +enforced by the authorities who reflected and represented the interests +of the proprietors of the manors. + +On their part the manorial men believed that self-interest, pride and +adherence to ancient traditions called for the perpetuation of their +arbitrary power of running their domains as they pleased. They refused +to acknowledge that law had any right to interfere in the managing of +what they considered their private affairs. Eager to avail themselves of +the police power of the law in dispossessing any fractious or +impecunious tenant and in suppressing protest meetings, they, at the +same time, denounced law as tyrannical when it sought to inject more +modern and humane conditions in the managing of their estates. They +stubbornly insisted upon a tenantry, and as obstinately contested any +forfeiture of what they deemed their property rights. + + +FEUDAL TENURES ABOLISHED. + +A long series of reprisals and an intense agitation developed. The +Anti-Renters mustered such sympathetic political strength and threw the +whole state into such a vortex of radical discussion, that the +politicians of the day, fearing the effects of such a movement, +practically forced the manorial magnates to compromise by selling their +land in small farms,[68] which they did at exorbitant prices. They made +large profits on the strength of the very movement which they had so +bitterly opposed. Affrighted at the ominous unrest of a large part of +the people and hoping to stem it, the New York Constitutional Convention +in 1846 adopted a Constitutional inhibition on all feudal tenures, an +inhibition so drafted that no legislature could pass a law contravening +it.[69] + +So, in this final struggle, passed away the last vestiges of the sway of +the all-powerful patroons of old. They had become archaic. It was +impossible for them to survive in the face of newer conditions, for they +represented a bygone economic and social era. Their power was one +accruing purely from the extent of their possessions and discriminative +laws. When these were wrenched from their grasp, their importance as +wielders of wealth and influence ceased. They might still boast of their +lineage, their aristocratic enclosure and culture and their social +altitude, but these were about the only remnants of consolation left. + +The time was unpropitious for the continuation of great wealth based +upon rural or small-town land. Many influences conspired to make this +land a variable property, while these same influences, or a part of +them, fixed upon city land an enhancing and graduating permanency of +value. The growth of the shipping trade built up the cities and +attracted workers and population generally. The establishment of the +factory system in 1790 had a two-fold effect. It began to drain country +sections of many of the younger generations and it immediately enlarged +the trading activities of the cities. Another and much more considerable +part of the farming population in the East was constantly migrating to +the West and Southwest with their promising opportunities. Some country +districts thinned out; others remained stationary. But whether the rural +census increased or not, there were other factors which sent up or down +the value of farming lands. The building of a canal would augment the +value of land in section and cause stimulation, and depress conditions +in another section not so favored. Even this stimulation, however, was +often transient. With each fresh settlement of the West and with the +construction of each pioneer railroad, new and complex factors turned up +which generally had a depreciating effect upon Eastern lands. A country +estate worth a large sum in one generation might very well succumb to a +mortgage in the next. + + +THE NEW ARISTOCRACY. + +But fortunes based upon land in the cities were indued with a +mathematical certainty and a perpetuity. City real estate was not +subject to the extreme fluctuating processes which so disordered the +value of rural land. All of the tendencies and currents of the times +favored the building up of an aristocracy based upon ownership of city +property. Compared to their present colossal proportions the cities were +then mere villages. There was a nucleus of perhaps a mile or two of +houses, beyond which were fields and orchards, meadows and wastes. These +could be bought for an insignificant sum. With the progressing growth +of commerce and population, with immigration continually going on, every +year witnessing a keener pressure for occupation of the land, the value +of this latter was certain to increase. There was no chance of its being +otherwise. + +Up to 1825 it was a mooted question whether the richest landowners would +arise in New York, Philadelphia, Boston or Baltimore. For many years +Philadelphia had been far in the lead in extent of commerce. But the +opening of the Erie Canal at once settled this question. At a bound New +York attained the rank of the foremost commercial city in the United +States, completely outstripping its competitors. While the trade of +these fell off precipitately, the population and trade of New York City +nearly doubled in a single decade. The value of land began to increase +stupendously. The swamps, rocky wastes and flats and the land under +water of a few years before became prolific sources of fortunes. Land +which had been worth a paltry sum ten or twenty years before sprang to a +considerable value and, in course of time, with the same causes in a +more intense ratio of operation, was vested with a value of hundreds of +millions of dollars. This being so, it was not surprising that the +richest landowners should appear first in New York City and should be +able to maintain their supremacy. + +The wealth of the landowners soon completely eclipsed that of the +shippers. Enormous as were the profits of the shipping business, they +were immediate only. In the contest for wealth it was inevitable that +the shippers should fall behind. Their business was one of peculiar +uncertainties. The hazards of the sea, the fluctuations and vicissitudes +of trade, the severe competition of the times, exposed their traffic to +many mutations. Many of the rich shipowners well understood this; the +surplus wealth derived from commerce on the seas they invested in land, +banks, factories, turnpikes, insurance companies, railroads and in some +instances, lotteries. Those shipping millionaires who clung exclusively +to the sea fell in the scale of the rich class, especially as the time +came when foreign shipping largely supplanted the trade hitherto carried +in American cutters. Other shippers who applied their surplus capital to +investments in other forms of trade and ownership advanced rapidly in +wealth. + + +CITY LAND THE SUPREME FACTOR. + +Between land ownership and other forms, however, there was a great +difference. Trade was then extremely individualistic; the artificial +controlling power called the corporation was in its earliest infantile +condition. The heirs of the owner of sixty line of sail might not +possess the same astuteness, the same knowledge, adroitness, and +cunning--or let us say, unscrupulousness--the same severe application as +the founder. Consequently the business would decay or fall into the +hands of others shrewder or more fortunate. As to factories the +condition was somewhat the same; and, after the organization of labor +unions the possibility of strikes was an ever-present danger to the +constant flow of profits. Banks were by no means fixed, unchangeable +establishments. Like other media of profit-making, the extent of their +power and profits depended upon prevailing conditions and very largely +upon the favoritism or policy of Government. At any time the party +controlling government functions might change and a radically different +policy in banking, tariff or other laws be put in force. + +These changing laws did not, it is true, vitally benefit the masses of +the people, for one set or other of the propertied interests almost +invariably benefited. The laws enacted were usually in response to a +demand made by contending propertied interests. The trade and political +struggles carried on by the commercial interests were a series of +incessant wars, in which every individual owner, firm or combination was +fiercely resisting competitors or striving for their overthrow. + + +THE INVULNERABLE LANDOWNER. + +But the landowner occupied a superior position which neither political +conditions nor the flux of changing circumstances could materially +assail. He was ardently individualistic also in that he demanded, and +was accorded, the unimpaired right to get land in any way that he +legally could, hold a monopoly of as much of it as he pleased, and +dispose of it as he willed. In the very act of asserting this +individualism he called upon Society, through its machinery of +Government, for the enactment of particular laws, to guarantee him the +sole possession of his land and uphold his claims and rights by force if +necessary. These were all the basic laws that he needed and these laws +did not change. From generation to generation they remained fixed, +immovable. The interests of all landowners were identical; those of the +traders were varying and conflicting. For long periods the landowner +could expect the continuance of existing fundamental laws regarding the +ownership of land, while the shipper, the factory owner, the banker did +not know what different set of laws might be enacted at any time. + +Furthermore, the landowner had an efficient and never-failing +auxiliary. He yoked society as a partner, but it was a partnership in +which the revenue went exclusively to the landowner. The principal +factor he depended upon was the work of collective humans in adding +greater and greater values to his land. Broadly speaking, his share +consisted in merely looking on; he had nothing to do except hold on to +his land. His sons, grandsons, his descendants down to remotest +posterity need do even less; they could leisurely hold on to their +inheritance, enlarge it, hire the necessary ability of superintendence +and vast and ever vaster riches would be theirs. Society worked +feverishly for the landowner. Every street laid and graded by the city; +every park plotted and every other public improvement; every child born +and every influx of immigrants; every factory, warehouse and dwelling +that went up;--all these and more agencies contributed toward the +abnormal swelling of his fortune. + + +A PROLIFIC BREEDER OF WEALTH. + +Under such a system land was the one great auspicious, facile and +durable means of rolling up an overshadowing fortune. Its exclusive +possession struck at the very root of human necessity. At a pinch people +can do without trade or money, but land they must have, even if only to +lie down on and starve. The impoverish, jobless worker, with disaster +facing him, must first perforce give up his precious few coins to the +landlord and take chances on food and the remainder. Especially is land +in demand in a complicated industrial system which causes much of the +population to gravitate to centers where industries and trade are +concentrated and congest there. + +A more formidable system for the foundation and amplification of lasting +fortunes has not existed. It is automatically self-perpetuating. And +that it is preëminently so is seen in the fact that the large shipping +fortunes of a century ago are now generally as completely forgotten as +the methods then used are obsolete. But the land has remained land; and +the fortunes then incubated have grown into mighty powers of great +national, and some of considerable international, importance. + +It was by favor of these propitious conditions that many of the great +fortunes, based upon land, were founded. According to the successive +census returns of the United States, by far the greater part of the +wealth of the country as regards real estate was, and is, concentrated +in the North Atlantic Division and the North Central Division, the one +taking in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the other +Chicago, Cincinnati and other cities.[70] It is in the large cities that +the great land fortunes are to be found. The greatest of these fortunes +are the Astor, Goelet and Rhinelander estates in the East and, in the +West, the Longworth and Field estates are notable examples. To deal with +all the conspicuous fortunes based upon land would necessitate an +interminable narrative. Suffice it for the purposes of this work to take +up a few of the superlatively great fortunes as representatives of those +based upon land. + + +VAST FORTUNES FROM LAND. + +The foremost of all American fortunes derived from land is the Astor +fortune. Its present bulk, embracing all the collateral family branches, +is estimated by some authorities at about $300,000,000. This, it is +generally believed, is an underestimate. As long ago as 1889, when the +population of New York City was much less than now, Thomas G. Shearman, +a keen student of land conditions, placed the collective wealth of the +Astors at $250,000,000.[71] The stupendous magnitude of this fortune +alone may at once be seen in its relation to the condition of the masses +of the people. An analysis of the United States census of 1900, compiled +by Lucien Sanial, shows that while the total wealth of the country was +estimated at about $95,000,000,000, the proletarian class, composed +chiefly of wage workers and a small proportion of those in professional +classes, and numbering 20,393,137 persons, owned only about +$4,000,000,000. It is by such a contrast, bringing out how one family +alone, the Astors, own more than many millions of workers, that we begin +to get an idea of the overreaching, colossal power of a single fortune. +The Goelet fortune is likewise vast; it is variously estimated at from +$200,000,000 to $225,000,000, although what its exact proportions are is +a matter of some obscurity. + +In the case of these great fortunes it is well nigh impossible to get an +accurate idea of just how much they reach. All of them are based +primarily upon ownership of land, but they also include many other forms +such as shares in banks, coal and other mines, railroads, city +transportation systems, gas plants, industrial corporations. Even the +most indefatigable tax assessors find it such a fruitless and elusive +task in attempting to discover what personal property is held by these +multimillionaires, that the assessment is usually a conjectural or +haphazard performance. The extent of their land holdings is known; these +cannot be hid in a safe deposit vault. But their other varieties of +property are carefully concealed from public and official knowledge. +Since this is so, it is entirely probable that the fortunes of these +families are considerably greater than is commonly estimated. The case +of Marshall Field, a Chicago Croesus, who left a fortune valued at +about $100,000,000, is a strong illustration. This man owned $30,000,000 +worth of real estate in Chicago alone. There was no telling, however, +what his whole estate amounted to, for he refused year after year to pay +taxes on more than a valuation of $2,500,000 of personal property. Yet, +after his death in 1906, an inventory of his estate filed in January, +1907, disclosed a clear taxable personal property of $49,977,270. He was +far richer than he would have it appear. + +Let us investigate the careers of some of these powerful landed men, the +founders of great fortunes, and inquire into their methods and into the +conditions under which they succeeded in heaping up their immense +accumulations. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[68] In 1847 and 1849 the Anti-Renters demonstrated a voting strength in +New York State of about 5,000. Livingston's title to his estate being +called into question, a suit was brought. The court decision favored +him. The Livingstons, it may be again remarked, were long powerful in +politics, and had had their members on the bench.--"Life of Silas +Wright," 179-226; "Last Leaves of American History":16-18, etc. + +[69] The debates in this convention showed that the feudal conditions +described in this chapter prevailed down to 1846.--New York +Constitution; Debates in Convention, 1846; 1052-1056. This is an extract +from the official convention report: "Mr. Jordan [a delegate] said that +it was from such things that relief was asked: which although the moral +sense of the community will not admit to be enforced, are still actually +in existence." + +[70] Of a total of $39,544,333,000, representing wealth in real estate +and improvements, the census of 1890 attributed $13,905,274,364 to the +North Atlantic Division and a trifle more than $15,000,000,000 to the +North Central Division. + +[71] The Forum (Magazine), November, 1889. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE INCEPTION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +The founder of the Astor fortune was John Jacob Astor, a butcher's son. +He was born in Waldorf, Germany, on July 17, 1763. At the age of +eighteen, according to traditional accounts, he went to London, where a +brother, George Peter, was in the business of selling musical +instruments. Two years later with "one good suit of Sunday clothes, +seven flutes and five pounds sterling of money"[72] he emigrated to +America. Landing at Baltimore he proceeded to New York City. + +Here he became an apprentice to George Dieterich, a baker at No. 351 +Pearl street, for whom he peddled cakes, as was the custom. Walter +Barrett insists that this was Astor's first occupation in New York. +Later, Astor went into business for himself. "For a long time," says +Barrett, "he peddled [fur] skins, and bought them where he could; and +bartered cheap jewelry, etc., from the pack he carried on his back."[73] +Another story is that he got a job beating furs for $2 a week and board +in the store of Robert Bowne, a New York merchant; that while in this +place he showed great zest in quizzing the trappers who came in to sell +furs, and that in this fashion he gained considerable knowledge of the +fur animals. The story proceeds that as Bowne grew older he entrusted to +Astor the task of making long and fatiguing journeys to the Indian +tribes in the Adirondacks and Canada and bargaining with them for furs. + + +ASTOR'S EARLY CAREER. + +Astor got together enough money to start in the fur business for himself +in 1786 in a small store on Water street. It is not unreasonable to +suppose that at this time he, in common with all the fur dealers of the +time, participated in the current methods of defrauding the Indians. It +is certain that he contrived to get their most valuable furs for a jug +of rum or for a few toys or notions. Returning from these strokes of +trade, he would ship large quantities of the furs to London where they +were sold at great profit. + +His marriage to Sarah Todd, a cousin of Henry Brevoort, brought him a +good wife, who had the shining quality of being economical, and an +accession of some means and considerable family connections. Remarkably +close-fisted, he weighed over every penny. As fast as his means +increased he used them in extending his business. By 1794 he was +somewhat of an expansive merchant. Scores of trappers and agents ravaged +the wilderness at his command. Periodically he shipped large quantities +of furs to Europe. His modest, even niggardly, ways of living in rooms +over his store were not calculated to create the impression that he was +a rich man. It was his invariable practice habitually to deceive others +as to his possessions and plans. But when, in 1800, he removed to No. +223 Broadway, at the corner of Vesey street, then a fashionable +neighborhood, he was rated, perforce, as a man of no inconsiderable +means. He was, in fact, as nearly as can be gathered, worth at this time +a quarter of a million dollars--a monumental fortune at a period when +a man who had $50,000 was thought rich; when a good house could be +rented for $350 a year and when $750 or $800 would fully defray the +annual expenses of the average well-living family. + +[Illustration: JOHN JACOB ASTOR. +The Founder of the Colossal Astor Fortune. +(From an Engraving.)] + +The great profits from the fur trade naturally led him into the business +of being his own shipowner and shipper, for he was a highly efficient +organizer and well understood the needlessness of middlemen. A beaver +skin bought for one dollar from the Indian or white trappers in Western +New York could be sold in London for six dollars and a quarter. On all +other furs there were the same large profits. But, in addition to these, +Astor saw that his profits could be still further increased by investing +the money that he received from the sale of his furs in England, in +English goods and importing them to the United States. By this process, +the profit from a single beaver skin could be made to reach ten dollars. +At that time the United States depended upon British manufactures for +many articles, especially certain grades of woolen goods and cutlery. +These were sold at exorbitant profit to the American people. This trade +Astor carried on in his own ships. + + +HIS METHODS IN BUSINESS. + +It is of the greatest importance to ascertain Astor's methods in his fur +trade, for it was fundamentally from this trade that he reaped the +enormous sums that enabled him to become a large landowner. What these +methods were in his earlier years is obscure. Nothing definite is +embodied in any documentary evidence. Not so, however, regarding the +methods of the greatest and most successful of his fur gathering +enterprises, the American Fur Company. The "popular writer" referred to +before says that the circumstances of Astor's fur and shipping +activities are well known. On the contrary, they are distinctly not well +known nor have they ever been set forth. None of Astor's biographers +have brought them out, if, indeed, they knew of them. And yet these +facts are of the most absolute significance in that they reveal the +whole foundation of the colossal fortune of the Astor family. + +The pursuit and slaughter of fur animals were carried on with such +indefatigable vigor in the East that in time that territory became +virtually exhausted. It became imperative to push out into the fairly +virgin regions of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and of the Rocky +Mountains. The Northwest Company, a corporation running under British +auspices, was then scouring the wilds west and northwest of the Great +Lakes. Its yearly shipments of furs were enormous.[74] Astor realized +the inconceivably vaster profits which would be his in extending his +scope to the domains of the far West, so prolific in opportunities for +furs. + +In 1808 he incorporated the American Fur Company. Although this was a +corporation, he was, in fact, the Company. He personally supplied its +initial capital of $500,000 and dictated every phase of its policy. His +first ambitious design was to found the settlement of Astoria in Oregon, +but the war of 1812 frustrated plans well under way, and the expedition +that he sent out there had to depart.[75] Had this plan succeeded, Astor +would have been, as he rightly boasted, the richest man in the world; +and the present wealth of his descendants instead of being $450,000,000 +would be manifold more. + + +MONOPOLY BASED ON FORCE. + +Thwarted in his project to get a monopoly of the incalculable riches of +furs in the extreme Northwest, he concentrated his efforts on that vast +region extending along the Missouri River, far north to the Great Lakes, +west to the Rocky Mountains and into the Southwest. It was a region +abounding in immense numbers of fur animals and, at that time, was +inhabited by the Indian tribes, with here and there a settlement of +whites. By means of Government favoritism and the unconcealed exercise +of both fraud and force, he obtained a complete monopoly, as complete +and arbitrary as ever feudal baron held over seignorial estates. +Nominally, the United States Government ruled this great sweep of +territory and made the laws and professed to execute them. In reality, +Astor's company was a law unto itself. That it employed both force and +fraud and entirely ignored all laws enacted by Congress, is as clear as +daylight from the Government reports of that period. + +The American Fur Company maintained three principal posts or depots of +receiving and distribution--one at St. Louis, one at Detroit, the third +at Mackinac. In response to an order from Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, +to send in complete reports of the fur trade, Joshua Pilcher reported +from St. Louis, December 1, 1831: + + About this time [1823] the American Fur Company had turned their + attention to the Missouri trade, and, as might have been expected, + soon put an end to all opposition. Backed, as it was, by any + amount of capital, and with skillful agents to conduct its affairs + at _every point_, it succeeded by the year 1827, in monopolizing + the trade of the Indians on the Missouri, and I have but little + doubt will continue to do so for years to come, as it would be + rather a hazardous business for small adventurers to rise in + opposition to it.[76] + +In that wild country where the Government, at best, had an insufficient +force of troops, and where the agents of the company went heavily armed, +it was distinctly recognized, and accepted as a fact, that no possible +competitor's men, or individual trader, dare intrude. To do it was to +invite the severest reprisals, not stopping short of outright murder. +The American Fur Company overawed and dominated everything; it defied +the Government's representatives and acknowledged no authority superior +to itself and no law other than what its own interests demanded. The +exploitation that ensued was one of the most deliberate, cruel and +appalling that has ever taken place in any country. + + +THE DEBAUCHING OF INDIANS. + +If there was any one serious crime at that time it was the supplying of +the Indians with whisky. The Government fully recognized the baneful +effects of debauching the Indians, and enacted strict laws with harsh +penalties. Astor's company brazenly violated this law, as well as all +other laws conflicting with its profit interests. It smuggled in +prodigious quantities of rum. The trader's ancient trick of getting the +Indians drunk and then swindling them of their furs and land was carried +on by Astor on an unprecedented scale. To say that Astor knew nothing of +what his agents were doing is a palliation not worthy of consideration; +he was a man who knew and attended to even the pettiest details of his +varied business. Moreover, the liquor was despatched by his orders +direct by ship to New Orleans and from thence up the Mississippi to St. +Louis and to other frontier points. The horrible effects of this traffic +and the consequent spoliation were set forth by a number of Government +officers. + +Col. J. Snelling, commanding the garrison at Detroit, sent an indignant +protest to James Barbour, Secretary of War, under date of August 23, +1825. "He who has the most whisky, generally carries off the most furs," +wrote Col. Snelling, and then continued: + + The neighborhood of the trading houses where whisky is sold, + presents a disgusting scene of drunkenness, debauchery and + misery; it is the fruitful source of all our difficulties, and of + nearly all the murders committed in the Indian country.... For the + accommodation of my family I have taken a house three miles from + town, and in passing to and from it, I have daily opportunities of + seeing the road strewed with the bodies of men, women and + children, in the last stages of brutal intoxication. It is true + there are laws in this territory to restrain the sale of whisky, + but they are not regarded....[77] + +Col. Snelling added that during that year there had been delivered by +contract to an agent of the North American Fur Company, at Mackinac (he +meant the American Fur Company which, as we have seen, had one of its +principal headquarters at that post and maintained a monopoly there), +3,300 gallons of whisky and 2,500 gallons of high wines. This latter +liquor was preferred by the agents, he pointed out, as it could be +"increased at pleasure." Col. Snelling went on: "I will venture to add +that an inquiry into the manner in which the Indian trade is conducted, +especially by the North American Fur Company, is a matter of no small +importance to the tranquillity of the borders."[78] + + +VIOLATION OF LAWS. + +A similar report was made the next winter by Thomas L. McKenney, +Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to the Secretary of War. In a +communication dated Feb. 14, 1826, McKenney wrote that "the forbidden +and destructive article, whisky, is considered so essential to a +lucrative commerce, as not only to still those feelings [of repugnance] +but lead the traders to brave the most imminent hazards, and evade, by +various methods the threatened penalties of law." The superintendent +proceeded to tell of the recent seizure by General Tipton, Indian Agent +at Fort Wayne, of an outfit in transit containing a considerable supply +of whisky, which was owned in large part, he says, by the American Fur +Company. He then continued: "The trader with the whisky, it must be +admitted, is certain of getting the most furs.... There are many +honorable and high-minded citizens in this trade, but expediency +overcomes their objections and reconciles them for the sake of the +profits of the trade."[79] + +In stating this fact, McKenney was unwittingly enunciating a profound +truth, the force of which mankind is only now beginning to realize, that +the pursuit of profit will transform natures inherently capable of much +good into sordid, cruel beasts of prey, and accustom them to committing +actions so despicable, so inhuman, that they would be terrified were it +not that the world is under the sway of the profit system and not merely +excuses and condones, but justifies and throws a glamour about, the +unutterable degradations and crimes which the profit system calls forth. + +Living in a more advanced time, in an environment adjusted to bring out +the best, instead of the worst, Astor and his henchmen might have been +men of supreme goodness and gentleness. As it was, they lived at a +period when it was considered the highest, most astute and successful +form of trade to resort to any means, however base, to secure profits. +Let not too much ignominy be cast upon their memories; they were but +creatures of their time; and their time was not that "golden age," so +foolishly pictured, but a wild, tempestuous, contending struggle in +which every man was at the throat of his fellowman, and in a vortex +which statesmen, college professors, editors, political economists, all +praised and sanctified as "progressive civilization." + +Like all other propertied interests, Astor's company regarded the law as +a thing to be rigorously invoked against the poor, the helpless and +defenseless, but as not to be considered when it stood in the way of the +claims, designs and pretensions of property. Superintendent McKenney +reported that all laws in the Indian country were inoperative--so much +dead matter. Andrew S. Hughes, reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 31, 1831, +to Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, wrote: + + .... The traders that occupy the largest and most important space + in the Indian country are the agents and engagees of the American + Fur Trade Company. They entertain, as I know to be the fact, no + sort of respect for our citizens, agents, officers or the + Government, or its laws or general policy. + +After describing the "baneful influence of these persons," Hughes went +on: + + The capital employed in the Indian trade must be very large, + especially that portion which is employed in the annual purchase + of whisky and alcohol into the Indian country for the purpose of + trade with the Indians. It is not believed that the superintendent + is ever applied to for a permit for the one-hundredth gallon that + is taken into the Indian country. The whisky is sold to the + Indians in the face of the [Government] agents. Indians are made + drunk, and, of course, behave badly.... + + +PROFIT AND ITS RESULTS. + +Not only, however, were the Indians made drunk with the express purpose +of befuddling and swindling them,[80] but in the very commission of this +act, an enormous profit was made on the sale of the whisky. Those who +may be inclined to recoil with horror at the historic contemplation of +this atrocity, will do well to remember that this was simply one +manifestation of the ethics of the trading class--the same class which +formed and ruled government, made and interpreted laws, and constituted +the leading, superior and exclusive groups of high society. Hughes +continued: + + I am informed that there is but little doubt, but a clear gain of + more than fifty thousand dollars has been made this year on the + sale of whisky to the Indians on the river Missouri; the _prices + are from $25 to $50 a gallon_. Major Morgan, United States sutler + at Cantonment Leavenworth, says that thousands of gallons of + alcohol has passed that post during the present year, destined for + the Indian country.[81] + +These official reports were supplemented by another on the same subject +from William M. Gordon to General William Clark, at that time +Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In his report, Gordon, writing from +St. Louis, pointed out that, "whisky, though not an authorized article, +has been a principal, and I believe a very lucrative one for the last +several years."[82] + +What a climax of trading methods, first to debauch the Indians +systematically in order to swindle them, and then make a large revenue +on the rum that enabled the company to do it! Undoubtedly it was by +these means that Astor became possessed of large tracts of land in +Wisconsin and elsewhere in the West. But the methods thus far enumerated +were but the precursors of others. When the Indians were made maudlin +drunk and bargained with for their furs were they paid in money? By no +means. The American Fur Company had another trick in reserve. Astor +employed the cunning expedient of exchanging merchandise for furs. Large +quantities of goods, especially woolens, made by underpaid adult and +child labor in England and America, and representing the sweat and +suffering of the labor of the workers, were regularly shipped by him to +the West. For these goods the Indians were charged one-half again or +more what each article cost after paying all expenses of +transportation.[83] Reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 24, 1831, in a +communication to the Secretary of War, Thomas Forsyth gave a description +of this phase of the American Fur Company's dealings. He said: + + In the autumn of every year [when the hunting season began] the + trader carefully avoids giving credit to the Indians on many + costly articles such as silver works, wampum, scarlet cloth, fine + bridles, etc., etc., as also a few woolens, such as blankets, + strouds, etc., unless it be to an Indian whom he knows will pay + all his debts. In that case he will allow the Indian, on credit, + everything he wishes. + + Traders always prefer giving credit on gunpowder, flints, lead, + knives, tomahawks, hoes, domestic cottons, etc.; which they do _at + the rate of 300 or 400 per cent_, and if one-fourth of the price + of these articles be paid, he is amply remunerated.[84] + +Nor were these the final injustices and infamies heaped upon the +untutored aborigines. It was not enough that they should be pillaged of +their possessions; that the rights guaranteed them by the solemn +treaties of Government should be blown aside like so much waste paper by +the armed force of the American Fur Company; that whole tribes should be +demoralized with rum and then defrauded; that shoddy merchandise, for +which generally no market could be found elsewhere, should be imposed +upon them at such incredibly high prices, that they were bound to be +beggared.[85] These methods were not enough. Never were human beings so +frightfully exploited as these ignorant, unsophisticated savages of the +West. Through the long winters they roamed the forests and the prairies, +and assiduously hunted for furs which eventually were to clothe and +adorn the aristocracy of America, Europe and Asia. When in the spring +they came in with their spoil, they were, with masterly cunning, +artfully made intoxicated and then robbed. Not merely robbed in being +charged ruinous prices for merchandise, but robbed additionally in the +weight of their furs. Forsyth relates that for every dollar in +merchandise that the Astor company exchanged for furs, the company +received $1.25 or $1.50 in fur values, undoubtedly by the trader's low +trick of short weighing. + + +A LONG RECORD OF VIOLENCE. + +In law the Indian was supposed to have certain rights, but Astor's +company not only ignored but flouted them. Now when the Indians +complained, what happened? Did the Government protect them? The +Government, and especially the courts, were quick and generous in +affording the greatest protection and the widest latitude to Astor's +company. But when the Indians resented the robberies and injustices to +which they were subjected beyond bearing, they were murdered. They were +murdered wantonly and in cold blood; and then urgent alarmist +representations would be sent to Washington that the Indians were in a +rebellious state, whereupon troops would be punitively hurried forth to +put them down in slaughter. In turn, goaded by an intense spirit of +revenge, the Indians would resort to primitive force and waylay, rob and +murder the white agents and traders.[86] + +From 1815 to 1831 more than 150 traders were robbed and killed by +Indians.[87] Many of these were Astor's men. But how many Indians were +killed by the whites has never been known, nor apparently was there any +solicitude as to whether the number was great or small. + +What did Astor pay his men for engaging in this degrading and dangerous +business? Is it not a terrifying commentary on the lengths to which men +are forced to go in quest of a livelihood, and the benumbing effects on +their sensibilities, that Astor should find a host of men ready to +seduce the Indians into a state of drunkenness, cheat and rob them, and +all this only to get robbed and perhaps murdered in turn? For ten or +eleven months in the year Astor's subaltern men toiled arduously through +forest and plain, risking sickness, the dangers of the wilderness and +sudden death. They did not rob because it benefited them; it was what +they were paid to do; and it was likewise expected of them that they +should look upon the imminent chances of death as a part of their +contract. + +For all this what was their pay? It was the trifling sum of $130 for the +ten or eleven months. But this was not paid in money. The poor wretches +who gave up their labor, and often their health and lives, for Astor +were themselves robbed, or their heirs, if they had any. Payment was +nearly always made in merchandise, which was sold at exorbitant prices. +Everything that they needed they had to buy at Astor's stores; by the +time that they had bought a year's supplies they not only had nothing +coming to them, but they were often actually in debt to Astor. + +But Astor--how did he fare? His profits from the fur trade of the West +were truly stupendous for that period. He, himself, might plead to the +Government that the company was in a decaying state of poverty. These +pleas deceived no one. It was characteristic of his habitual deceit that +he should petition the Government for a duty on foreign furs on the +ground that the company was being competed with in the American markets +by the British fur companies. At this very time Astor held a virtual +monopoly of fur trading in the United States. One need not be surprised +at the grounds of such a plea. Throughout the whole history of the +trading class, this pathetic and absurdly false plea of poverty has +incessantly been used by this class, and used successfully, to get +further concessions and privileges from a Government which reflected, +and represented, its interests. Curiously, enough, however, if a +mendicant used the same plea in begging a mite of alms on the streets, +the law has invariably regarded him as a vagrant to be committed to the +Workhouse. + + +ASTOR'S ENORMOUS PROFITS. + +At about the identical time that John Jacob Astor was persistently +complaining that the company was making no money, his own son and +partner, William B. Astor, was writing from New York on Nov. 25, 1831, +to the Secretary of War, that the company had a capital of about +$1,000,000 and that, "You may, however, estimate our annual returns at +half a million dollars."[88] Not less than $500,000 annual revenues on a +capital of $1,000,000! These were inconceivably large returns for the +time; Thomas J. Dougherty, Indian Agent at Camp Leavenworth, estimated +that from 1815 to 1830 the fur trade on the Missouri and its waters had +yielded returns amounting to $3,330,000 with a clear profit of +$1,650,000. This was unquestionably a considerable underestimate. + +It is hardly necessary to say that Astor, as the responsible head and +beneficiary of the American Fur Company, was never prosecuted for the +numerous violations of both penal and civil laws invariably committed +by his direction and for his benefit. With the millions that rolled in, +he was able to command the services of not only the foremost lawyers in +warding off the penalties of law, but in having as his paid retainers +some of the most noted and powerful politicians of the day.[89] Senator +Benton, of Missouri, a leading light in the Democratic party, was not +only his legal representative in the West and fought his cases for him, +but as United States Senator introduced in Congress measures which Astor +practically drafted and the purport of which was to benefit Astor and +Astor alone. Thus was witnessed a notorious violator of the law, +invoking aid of the law to enrich himself still further,--a condition +which need not arouse exceptional criticism, since the whole trading +class in general did precisely the same thing. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[72] Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":28. + +[73] "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:287. + +[74] The extent of its operations and the rapid slaughter of fur animals +may be gathered by a record of one year's work. In 1793 this company +enriched itself by 106,000 beaver skins, 2,100 bear skins, 1,500 fox +skins, 400 kit fox, 16,000 muskrat, 32,000 martin, 1,800 mink, 6,000 +lynx, 6,000 wolverine, 1,600 fisher, 100 raccoon, 1,200 dressed deer, +700 elk, 550 buffalo robes, etc. + +[75] Astor was accused by a Government agent of betraying the American +cause at the outbreak of this war. In addition to the American Fur +Company, Astor had other fur companies, one of which was the Southwest +Company. Under date of June 18, 1818, Matthew Irwin, U. S. factor or +agent at Green Bay, Wis., wrote to Thomas L. McKenney, U. S. +Superintendent of Indian Affairs: "It appears that the Government has +been under an impression [that] the Southwest Company, of which Mr. John +Jacob Astor is the head, is strictly an American company, and in +consequence, some privileges in relation to trade have been granted to +that company." Irwin went on to tell how Astor had obtained an order +from Gallatin, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, allowing him, Astor, to +land furs at Mackinac from the British post at St. Joseph's. Astor's +agent in this transaction was a British subject. "On his way to St. +Joseph's," Irwin continued, "he [Astor's British agent] communicated to +the British at Malden that war had been or would be declared. The +British made corresponding arrangements and landed on the Island of +Mackinac with regulars, Canadians and Indians before the commanding +officer there had notice that war would be declared. The same course was +about to be pursued at Detroit, before the arrival of troops with Gen. +Hull, who, having been on the march there, frustrated it." Irwin +declared that Astor's purpose was to save his furs from capture by the +British, and concluded: "Mr. Astor's agent brought the furs to Mackinac +_in company with the British troops_, and the whole transaction is well +known at Mackinac and Detroit."--U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, +Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:50-51. + +[76] Document No. 90, U. S. Senate, First Session, 22nd Congress, ii:30. + +[77] Document No. 58, U. S. Senate Docs. First Session, 19th +Congress:7-8. + +[78] Ibid. That the debauching of the Indians was long continuing was +fully evidenced by the numerous communications sent in by Government +representatives. The following is an extract from a letter written on +October 6, 1821, by the U. S. Indian Agent at Green Bay to the +Superintendent of Indian Affairs (or Indian Trade): "Mr. Kinzie, son to +the sub Indian Agent at Chicago, _and agent for the American Fur +Company_, has been detected in selling large quantities of whisky to the +Indians at and near Milwaukee of Lake Michigan."--Senate Docs., First +Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:54. + +[79] Doc. No. 58:10. + +[80] Of this fact there can be no doubt. Writing on February 27, 1822, +to Senator Henry Johnson, chairman of the U. S. Senate Committee on +Indian Affairs, Superintendent McKenney said: ".... The Indians, it is +admitted, are good judges of the articles in which they deal, and, +generally when they are permitted to be sober, they can detect attempts +to practise fraud upon them. The traders knowing this (however, few of +the Indians are permitted to trade without a previous preparation in the +way of liquor,) would not be so apt to demand exorbitant prices.... This +may be illustrated by the fact, as reported to this office by Matthew +Irwin, that previous to the establishment of the Green Bay factory +[agency] as much as one dollar and fifty cents had been demanded by the +traders of the Indians, and received, for a brass thimble, and eighteen +dollars for one pound of tobacco!"--U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, +Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Document No. 60:40. + +[81] Document No. 90, U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, 22nd Congress, +ii:23-24. + +[82] Ibid:54. + +[83] For a white 3 point blanket which cost $4.00 they were charged $10; +for a beaver trap costing $2.50, the charge was $8; for a rifle costing +$11 they had to pay $30; a brass kettle which Astor could buy at 48 +cents a pound, he charged the Indians $30 for; powder cost him 20 cents +a pound; he sold it for $4 a pound; he bought tobacco for 10 cents a +pound and sold it at the rate of five small twists for $6, etc., etc., +etc. + +[84] Document No. 90:72. + +[85] Many of the tribes, the Government reports show, not only yielded +up to Astor's company the whole of their furs, but were deeply in debt +to the company. In 1829 the Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes owed Farnham & +Davenport, agents for the American Fur Company among those tribes, +$40,000; by 1831 the debts had risen to $50,000 or $60,000. The Pawnees +owed fully as much, and the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Sioux and other +tribes were heavily in debt.--Doc. No. 90:72. + +[86] Forsyth admits that in practically all of these murders the whites +were to blame.--Doc. No. 90:76. + +[87] Doc. No. 90.--This is but a partial list. The full list of the +murdered whites the Government was unable to get. + +[88] Document No. 90:77. + +[89] Some of the original ledgers of the American Fur Company were put +on exhibition at Anderson's auction rooms in New York city in March, +1909. One entry showed that $35,000 had been paid to Lewis Cass for +services not stated. Doubtless, Astor had the best of reasons for not +explaining that payment; Cass was, or had been, the Governor of Michigan +Territory, and he became the identical Secretary of War to whom so many +complaints of the crimes of Astor's American Fur Company were made. + +The author personally inspected these ledgers. The following are some +extracts from a news account in the New York "Times," issue of March 7, +1909, of the exhibition of the ledgers: + +"They cover the business of the Northern Department from 1817 to 1835, +and consist of six folio volumes of about 1,000 pages each, in two stout +traveling cases, fitted with compartments, lock and key. It is said that +these books were missing for nearly seventy-five years, and recently +escaped destruction by the merest accident. + +"The first entry is April 1, 1817. There are two columns, one for +British and the other for American money. An entry, May 3, 1817, shows +that Lewis Cass, then Governor of Michigan Territory and afterward +Democratic candidate for the Presidency against Gen. Zachary Taylor, the +successful Whig candidate, took about $35,000 of the Astor money from +Montreal to Detroit, in consideration of something which is not set +down." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GROWTH OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +While at the outposts, and in the depths, of the Western wilderness an +armed host was working and cheating for Astor, and, in turn, being +cheated by their employer; while, for Astor's gain, they were violating +all laws, debauching, demoralizing and beggaring entire tribes of +Indians, slaying and often being themselves slain in retaliation, what +was the beneficiary of this orgy of crime and bloodshed doing in New +York? + +For a long time he lived at No. 223 Broadway in a large double house, +flanked by an imposing open piazza supported by pillars and arches. In +this house he combined the style of the ascending capitalist with the +fittings and trappings of the tradesman. It was at once residence, +office and salesroom. On the ground floor was his store, loaded with +furs; and here one of his sons and his chief heir, William B. could be +seen, as a lad, assiduously beating the furs to keep out moths. Astor's +disposition was phlegmatic and his habits were extremely simple and +methodical. He had dinner regularly at three o'clock, after which he +would limit himself to three games of checkers and a glass of beer. Most +of his long day was taken up with close attention to his many business +interests of which no detail escaped him. However execrated he might be +in the Indian territories far in the West, he assumed, and somewhat +succeeded in being credited with, the character of a patriotic, +respectable and astute man of business in New York. + + +ASTOR SUPERIOR TO LAW. + +During (taking a wide survey) the same series of years that he was +directing gross violations of explicit laws in the fur-producing +regions--laws upon the observance of which depended the very safety of +the life of men, women and children, white and red, and which laws were +vested with an importance corresponding with the baneful and bloody +results of their infraction--Astor was turning other laws to his +distinct advantage in the East. Pillaging in the West the rightful and +legal domain, and the possessions, of a dozen Indian tribes, he, in the +East, was causing public money to be turned over to his private treasury +and using it as personal capital in his shipping enterprises. + +As applied to the business and landowning class, law was notoriously a +flexible, convenient, and highly adaptable function. By either the tacit +permission or connivance of Government, this class was virtually, in +most instances, its own law-regulator. It could consistently, and +without being seriously interfered with, violate such laws as suited its +interests, while calling for the enactment or enforcement of other laws +which favored its designs and enhanced its profits. We see Astor +ruthlessly brushing aside, like so many annoying encumbrances, even +those very laws which were commonly held indispensable to a modicum of +fair treatment of the Indians and to the preservation of human life. +These laws happened to conflict with the amassing of profits; and always +in a civilization ruled by the trading class, laws which do this are +either unceremoniously trampled upon, evaded or repealed. + +For all the long-continued violations of law in the West, and for the +horrors which resulted from his exploitation of the Indians, was Astor +ever prosecuted? To repeat, no; nor was he disturbed even by such a +triviality as a formal summons. Yet, to realize the full enormity of +acts for which he was responsible, and the complete measure of immunity +that he enjoyed, it is necessary to recall that at the time the +Government had already begun to assume the role of looking upon the +Indians as its wards, and thus of theoretically extending to them the +shield of its especial protection. If Government allowed a people whom +it pleased to signify as its wards to be debauched, plundered and slain, +what kind of treatment could be expected for the working class as to +which there was not even the fiction of Government concern, not to +mention wardship? + + +LAW BREAKERS AND LAW MAKERS. + +But when it came to laws which, in the remotest degree, could be used or +manipulated to swell profits or to buttress property, Astor and his +class were untiring and vociferous in demanding their strict +enforcement. Successfully ignoring or circumventing laws objectionable +to them, they, at the same time, insisted upon the passage and exact +construction and severe enforcement of laws which were adjusted to their +interests. Law breakers, on the one hand, they were law makers on the +other. They caused to be put in statute, and intensified by judicial +precedent, the most rigorous laws in favor of property rights. They +virtually had the extraordinary power of choosing what laws they should +observe and what they should not. This choice was invariably at the +expense of the working class. Law, that much-sanctified product, was +really law only when applied to the propertyless. It confronted the poor +at every step, was executed with summary promptitude and filled the +prisons with them. Poverty had no choice in saying what laws it should +obey and what it should not. It, perforce, had to obey or go to prison; +either one or the other, for the laws were expressly drafted to bear +heavily upon it. + +It is illustrative, in the highest degree, of the character of +Government ruled by commercial interests, that Astor was allowed to +pillage and plunder, cheat, rob and (by proxy) slaughter in the West, +while, in the East, that same Government extended to him, as well as to +other shippers, the free use of money which came from the taxation of +the whole people--a taxation always weighted upon the shoulders of the +worker. In turn, this favored class, either consciously or +unconsciously, voluntarily or involuntarily, cheated the Government of +nearly half of the sums advanced. From the foundation of the Government +up to 1837, there were nine distinct commercial crises which brought +about terrible hardships to the wage workers. Did the Government step in +and assist them? At no time. But during all those years the Government +was busy in letting the shippers dig into the public funds and in being +extremely generous to them when they failed to pay up. From 1789 to 1823 +the Government lost more than $250,000,000 in duties,[90] all of which +sum represented what the shippers owed and did not, or could not, pay. +And no criminal proceedings were brought against any of these +defaulters. + +This, however, was not all that the Government did for the favored, +pampered class that it represented. Laws were severe against labor-union +strikes, which were frequently judicially adjudged conspiracies. +Theoretically, law inhibited monopoly, but monopolies existed, because +law ceases to be effective law when it is not enforced; and the +propertied interests took care that it was not enforced. Their own class +was powerful in every branch of Government. Furthermore, they had the +money to buy political subserviency and legal dexterity. The $35,000 +that Astor paid to Cass, the very official who, as Secretary of War, had +jurisdiction over the Indian tribes and over the Indian trade, and the +sums that Astor paid to Benton, were, it may well be supposed, only the +merest parts of the total sums that he disbursed to officials and +politicians, high and low. + + +ASTOR'S MONOPOLIES. + +Astor profited richly from his monopolies. His monopoly of furs in the +West was made a basis for the creation of other monopolies. China was a +voracious and highly profitable market for furs. In exchange for the +cargoes of these that he sent there, his ships would be loaded with teas +and silks. These products he sold at exorbitant prices in New York. His +profits from a single voyage sometimes reached $70,000; the average +profits from a single voyage were $30,000. During the War of 1812-15 tea +rose to double its usual price. Astor was invariably lucky in that his +ships escaped capture. At one period he was about the only merchant who +had a cargo of tea in the market. He exacted, and was allowed to exact, +his own price. + +Meanwhile, Astor was setting about making himself the richest and +largest landowner in the country. His were not the most extensive land +possessions in point of extent but in regard to value. He aimed at being +a great city, not a great rural, landlord. It was estimated that his +trade in furs and associated commerce brought him a clear annual revenue +of about two million dollars. This estimate was palpably inadequate. Not +only did he reap enormous profits from the fur trade, but also from +banking privileges in which he was a conspicuous factor. + +It was on one of his visits to London, so the recital goes, that he +first became possessed of the idea of founding an extraordinarily rich +landed family. He admired, it is told, the great landed estates of the +British nobility, and observed the prejudice against the caste of the +trader and the corresponding exalted position of the landowner. Whether +this story is true or not, it is evident that he was impressed with the +increasing power and the stability of a fortune founded upon land, and +how it radiated a certain splendid prestige. The very definition of the +word landlord--lord of the soil--signified the awe-compelling and +authoritative position of him who owned land--a definition heightened +and enforced in a thousand ways by the laws. + +The speculative and solid possibilities of New York City real estate +held out dazzling opportunities gratifying his acquisitiveness for +wealth and power--the wealth that fed his avarice, and the power flowing +from the dominion of riches. + + +ASTOR NOT AN EXCEPTION. + +It may here be observed that Astor's methods in trade or in acquiring of +land need not be indiscriminately condemned as an exclusive mania. Nor +should they be held up to the curiosity of posterity as a singular and +pernicious exhibition, detached from his time and generation, and +independent of them. Again and again the facts disclose that men such as +he were merely the representative crests of prevailing commercial and +political life. Substantially the whole propertied class obtained its +wealth by methods which, if not the same, had a strong relationship. His +methods differed nowise from those of many cotton planters of the South +who stole, on a monstrous scale,[91] Government land and then with the +wealth derived from their thefts, bought negro slaves, set themselves up +in the glamour of a patriarchal aristocracy and paraded a florid display +of chivalry and honor. And it was this same grandiose class that +plundered Whitney of the fruits of his invention of the cotton-gin and +shamelessly defrauded him.[92] + +Far more flagrant, however, were the means by which other Southern +plantation owners and business firms secured landed estates in Alabama, +Georgia and in other States. Their methods in expropriating the +reservations of such Indian tribes as the Creeks and Chickasaws were not +less fraudulent than those that Astor used elsewhere. They too, those +fine Southern aristocrats, debauched Indian tribes with whisky, and +after swindling them of their land, caused the Government to remove them +westward. The frauds were so extensive, and the circumstances so +repellant, that President Andrew Jackson, in 1833, ordered an +investigation. From the records of this investigation,--four hundred and +twenty-five solid pages of official correspondence--more than enough +details can be obtained.[93] + + +WHERE WAS FRAUD ABSENT? + +In Wisconsin the most valuable Government lands, containing rich +deposits of lead and other mineral ore, were being boldly appropriated +by force and fraud. The House Committee on Public Lands reported on +December 18, 1840, that with the connivance of local land agents, these +lands, since 1835, had been sold at private sale before they were even +subject to public entry.[94] "In consequence of which," the Committee +stated, "many tracts of land known to be rich and valuable mineral lands +for many years, and known to be such at the time of the entry, have been +entered by evil-minded persons, who have falsely made, or procured +others to make, the oath required by the land offices. Honest men have +been excluded from the purchase of these lands, while the dishonest and +unscrupulous have been permitted to enter them by means of false oath +and fraud."[95] + +These are but the merest glimpses of the widespread frauds in seizing +land, whether agricultural, timber or mineral. What of the mercantile +importers, the same class that the Government so greatly favored in +allowing it long periods in which to pay its customs duties? It was +defrauding the Government on the very importations on which it was +extended long-time credit for customs payments. The few official reports +available clearly indicate this. Great frauds were continuously going on +in the importations of lead.[96] Large quantities of sugar were imported +in the guise of molasses which, it was discovered, after being boiled a +few minutes, would produce an almost equal weight in brown sugar.[97] +Doubtless similar frauds were being committed in other lines of +importations. Between the methods of these divisions of the capitalist +class, and those of Astor, no basic difference can be discerned. + +Neither was there any essential difference between Astor's methods and +those of the manufacturing capitalists of the North who remorselessly +robbed Charles Goodyear of the benefits of his discovery of vulcanized +rubber and who drove him, after protracted litigation, into insolvency, +and caused him to die loaded down with worries and debts, a broken-down +man, at the age of 60.[98] As for that pretentious body of gentry who +professed to spread enlightenment and who set themselves high and +solemnly on a pinnacle as dispensers of knowledge and molders of public +opinion--the book, periodical and newspaper publishers--their methods at +bottom were as fraudulent as any that Astor ever used. They mercilessly +robbed and knew it, while making the most hypocritical professions of +lofty motives. Buried deep in the dusty archives of the United States +Senate is a petition whereon appear the signatures of Moore, Carlyle, +the two Disraelis, Milman, Hallam, Southey, Thomas Campbell, Sir Charles +Lyell, Bulwer Lytton, Samuel Rogers, Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau +and other British literary luminaries, great or small. In this petition +these authors, some of them representing the highest and finest in +literary, philosophical, historical, and scientific thought and +expression, implore Congress to afford them protection against the +indiscriminate theft of their works by American booksellers. Their +works, they set forth, are not only appropriated without their consent +but even contrary to their expressed desire. And there is no redress. +Their productions are mutilated and altered, yet their names are +retained. They instance the pathetic case of Sir Walter Scott. His works +have been published and sold from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, yet not a +cent has he received. "An equitable remuneration," they set forth, +"might have saved his life, and would, at least have relieved his +closing years from the burdens of debts and destructive toils."[99] + +How fares this petition read in the United States Senate on February 2, +1837? The booksellers, magazine, periodical and newspaper publishers +have before succeeded in defeating one copyright bill. They now bestir +themselves again; the United States Senate consigns the petition to the +archives; and the piracy goes on as industriously as ever. + + +LEGALIZED PIRACY IN ALL BRANCHES OF TRADE. + +What else could be expected from a Congress which represented the +commercial and landholding classes? No prodding was needed to cause it +to give the fullest protection to possessions in commerce, land and +negro slaves; these were concrete property. But thought was not +capitalized; it was not a manufactured product like iron or soap. +Nothing can express the pitying contempt or the lofty air of +patronization with which the dominant commercial classes looked down +upon the writer, the painter, the musician, the philosopher or the +sculptor. Regarding these "sentimentalists" as easy, legitimate and +defenseless objects of prey, and as incidental and impractical +hangers-on in a world where trade was all in all, the commercial classes +at all times affected a certain air of encouragement of the fine arts, +which encouragement, however, never attempted to put a stop to piracies +of publication or reproduction. How sordidly commercial that era was, to +what extremes its standards went, and how some of the basest forms of +theft were carried on and practically legalized, may be seen by the fate +of Peter Cardelli's petition to Congress. Cardelli was a Roman sculptor, +residing in the United States for a time. He prays Congress in 1820 to +pass an act protecting him from commercial pirates who make casts and +copies of his work and who profit at his expense. The Senate Committee +on Judiciary, to whom the petition is referred, rejects the plea. On +what ground? Because he "has not discovered any new invention on which +he can claim the right."[100] Could stupidity go further? + +All of the confluent facts of the time show conclusively that every +stratum of commercial society was permeated with fraud, and that this +fraud was accepted generally as a routine fixture of the business of +gathering property or profits. Astor, therefore, was not an isolated +phenomenon, but a typically successful representative of his time and +of the methods and standards of the trading class of that time. + +Whatever in the line of business yielded profits, that act, whether +cheating, robbing or slaughtering, was justified by some sophistry or +other. Astor did not debauch, spoliate, and incite slaughter because he +took pleasure in doing them. Perhaps--to extend charitable judgment--he +would have preferred to avoid them. But they were all part of the +formulated necessities of business which largely decreed that the +exercise of humane and ethical considerations was incompatible with the +zealous pursuit of wealth. + +In the wilderness of the West, Astor, operating through his agents, +could debauch, rob and slay Indians with impunity. As he was virtually +the governing body there, without fear of being hindered, he thus could +act in the most high-handed, arbitrary and forcible ways. In the East, +however, where law, or the forms of law, prevailed, he had to have +recourse to methods which bore no open trace of the brutal and +sanguinary. He had to become the insidious and devious schemer, acting +through sharp lawyers instead of by an armed force. Hence in his Eastern +operations he made deception a science and used every instrument of +cunning at his command. The result was precisely the same as in the +West, except that the consequences were not so overt, and the +perpetration could not be so easily distinguished. In the West, death +marched step by step with Astor's accumulating fortune; so did it in the +East, but it was not open and bloody as in the fur country. The +mortality thus accompanying Astor's progress in New York was of that +slow and indefinite, but more lingering and agonizing, kind ensuing from +want, destitution, disease and starvation. + +Astor's supreme craft was at no time better shown than by the means by +which he acquired possession of an immense estate in Putnam County, New +York. During the Revolution, a tract consisting of 51,012 acres held by +Roger Morris and Mary his wife, Tories, had been confiscated by New York +State. This land, it is worth recalling, was part of the estate of +Adolphus Phillips, the son of Frederick who, as has been set forth, +financed and protected the pirate Captain Samuel Burgess in his +buccaneer expeditions, and whose share of the Burgess' booty was +extremely large.[101] Mary Morris was a descendant of Adolph Phillips +and came into that part of the property by inheritance. The Morris +estate comprised nearly one-third of Putnam County. After confiscation, +the State sold the area in parts to various farmers. By 1809 seven +hundred families were settled on the property, and not a shadow of a +doubt had ever been cast on their title. They had long regarded it as +secure, especially as it was guaranteed by the State. + + +A NOTED LAND TRANSACTION. + +In 1809 a browsing lawyer informed Astor that those seven hundred +families had no legal title whatever; that the State had had no legal +right to confiscate the Morris property, inasmuch as the Morrises held a +life lease only, and no State could ever confiscate a life lease. The +property, Astor was informed, was really owned by the children of the +Morris couple, to whom it was to revert after the lease of their parents +was extinguished. Legally, he was told, they were as much the owners as +ever. Astor satisfied himself that this point would hold in the courts. +Then he assiduously hunted up the heirs, and by a series of strategic +maneuvers worthy of the pen of a Balzac, succeeded in buying their +claim for $100,000. + +In the thirty-three years which had elapsed since confiscation, the land +had been greatly improved. Suddenly came a notification to these +unsuspecting farmers that not they, but Astor, owned the land. All the +improvements that they had made, all the accumulated standing products +of the thirty-three years' labor of the occupants, he claimed as his, by +virtue of the fact that, in law, they were trespassers. Dumfounded, they +called upon him to prove his claim. Whereupon his lawyers, men saturated +with the terminology and intricacies of legal lore, came forward and +gravely explained that the law said so and so and was such and such and +that the law was incontestible in support of Astor's claim. The +hard-working farmers listened with mystification and consternation. They +could not make out how land which they or their fathers had paid for, +and which they had tilled and improved, could belong to an absentee who +had never turned a spade on it, had never seen it, all simply because he +had the advantage of a legal technicality and a document emblazoned with +a seal or two. + + +THE PUBLIC UPROAR OVER ASTOR'S CLAIM. + +They appealed to the Legislature. This body, influenced by the public +uproar over the transaction, refused to recognize Astor's title. The +whole State was aroused to a pitch of indignation. Astor's claim was +generally regarded as an audacious piece of injustice and robbery. He +contended that he was not subject to the provision of the statute +directing sales of confiscated estates which provided that tenants could +not be dispossessed without being paid for improvements. In fine, he +claimed the right to evict the entire seven hundred families without +being under the legal or moral necessity of paying them a single cent +for their improvements. In the state of public temper, the officials of +the State of New York decided to fight his claim. Astor offered to sell +his claim to the State for $667,000. But such was the public outburst at +the effrontery of a man who had bought what was virtually an extinct +claim for $100,000, and then attempting to hold up the State for more +than six times that sum, that the Legislature dared not consent. + +The contention went to the courts and there dragged along for many +years. Astor, however, won his point; it was decided that he had a valid +title. Finally in 1827 the Legislature allowed itself[102] to +compromise, although public opinion was as bitter as ever. The State +gave Astor $500,000 in five per cent stock, specially issued, in +surrender of his claim.[103] Thus were the whole people taxed to buy, at +an exorbitant price, the claim of a man who had got it by artifice and +whose estate eventually applied the interest and principal of that stock +to buying land in New York City. Thus also can a considerable part of +the Astor fortune be traced to Adolphus Phillips, son of Frederick, the +partner, protector and chief spoil-sharer of Captain Burgess, sea +pirate, and whose estate, the Phillips manor, had been obtained by +bribing Fletcher, the royal governor. + +But while Astor gradually appropriated vast tracts of land in +Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa and other parts of the West, and levied his +toll on one-third of Putnam County, it was in New York City that he +concentrated the great bulk of his real estate speculations. To buy +steadily on the scale that he did required a constant revenue. This +revenue, as we have seen, came from his fur trading methods and +activities and the profits and privileges of his shipping. But these +factors do not explain his entire agencies in becoming a paramount +landocrat. One of these was the banking privilege--a privilege so +ordained by law that it was one of the most powerful and insidious +suctions for sapping the wealth created by the toil of the producers, +and for enriching its owners at a most appalling sacrifice to the +working and agricultural classes. And above all, Astor in common with +his class, made the most valuable asset of Law, whether exploiting the +violation, or the enforcement, of it. + +If we are to accept the superficial, perfunctory accounts of Astor's +real estate investments in New York City, then he will appear in the +usual eulogistic light of a law-loving, sagacious man engaged in a +legitimate enterprise. The truth, however, lies deeper than that--a +truth which has been either undiscerned or glossed over by those +conventional writers who, with a panderer's instinct, give a +wealth-worshipping era the thing it wants to read, not what it ought to +know. Although apparently innocent and in accord with the laws and +customs of the times, Astor's real estate transactions were inseparably +connected with consecutive evasions, trickeries, frauds and violations +of law. Extraordinarily favorable as the law was to the propertied +classes, even that law was constantly broken by the very classes to whom +it was so partial. + +Simultaneously, while reaping large revenues from his fur trade among +the Indians in both the East and West, Astor was employing a different +kind of fraud in using the powers of city and State government in New +York in obtaining, for practically nothing, enormously valuable grants +of land and other rights and privileges which added to the sum total of +his growing wealth. + + +CORRUPT GRANTS OF CITY LAND. + +In this procedure he was but doing what a number of other contemporaries +such as Peter Goelet, the Rhinelanders, the Lorillards, the +Schermerhorns and other men who then began to found powerful landed +families, were doing at the same time. The methods by which these men +secured large areas of land, now worth huge sums, were unquestionably +fraudulent, although the definite facts are not as wholly available as +are, for instance, those which related to Fletcher's granting vast +estates for bribes in the seventeenth century, or the bribery which +corrupted the various New York legislatures beginning in the year 1805. +Nevertheless, considering the character of the governing politicians, +and the scandals that ensued from the granting and sales of New York +City land a century or more ago, it is reasonably certain that corrupt +means were used. The student of the times cannot escape from this +conclusion, particularly as it is borne out by many confirming +circumstances. + +New York City, at one time, owned a very large area of land which was +fraudulently granted or sold to private individuals. Considerable of +this granting or selling was done during the years when the corrupt +Benjamin Romaine was City Controller. Romaine was so badly involved in a +series of scandals arising from the grants and corrupt sales of city +land, that in 1806 the Common Council, controlled by his own party, the +Tammany machine, found it necessary to remove him from the office of +City Controller for malfeasance.[104] The specific charge was that he +had fraudulently obtained valuable city land in the heart of the city +without paying for it. Something had to be done to still public +criticism, and Romaine was sacrificed. But, in fact, he was far from +being the only venal official concerned in the current frauds. These +frauds continued no matter which party or what set of officials were in +power. Several years after Romaine was removed, John Bingham, a powerful +member of the Aldermanic Committee on Finance, which passed upon and +approved these various land grants, was charged by public investigators +with having caused the city to sell to his brother-in-law land which he +later influenced the city administration to buy back at an exorbitant +price. Spurred by public criticism the Common Council demanded its +reconveyance.[105] It is more than evident--it is indisputable--from the +records and the public scandals, that the successive city +administrations were corruptly conducted. The conservative newspaper +comments alone of the period indicate this clearly, if nothing else +does. + + +A PROCESS OF SPOLIATION. + +Neither Astor nor Goelet were directly active members of the changing +political cliques which controlled the affairs of the city. It is likely +that they bore somewhat the same relation to these cliques that the +politico-industrial magnates and financiers of to-day do; to all +appearances distinctly apart from participation in politics, and yet by +means of money, having a strong or commanding influence in the +background. But the Rhinelander brothers, William and Frederick, were +integral members of the political machine in power. Thus we find that in +1803, William Rhinelander was elected Assessor for the Fifth Ward (a +highly important and sumptuary office at that time), while both he and +Frederick were, at the same time, appointed inspectors of +elections.[106] + +The action of the city officials in disposing of city land to +themselves, to political accomplices and to favorites (who, it is +probable, although not a matter of proof, paid bribes) took two forms. +One was the granting of land under water, the other the granting of city +real estate. At that time the configuration of Manhattan Island was such +that it was marked by ponds, streams and marshes, while the marginal +lines of the Hudson River and the East River extended much further +inland than now. When an individual got what was called a water grant, +it meant land under shallow water, where he had the right to build +bulkheads and wharves and to fill in and make solid ground. Out of these +water grants was created property now worth hundreds upon hundreds of +millions of dollars. The value at that time was not great, but the +prospective value was immense. This fact was recognized in the official +reports of the day, which set forth how rapidly the city's population +and commerce were increasing. As for city land as such, the city not +only owned large tracts by reason of old grants and confiscations, but +it constantly came into possession of more because of non-payment of +taxes. + +The excuses by which the city officials covered their short-sighted or +fraudulent grants of the water rights and the city land were various. +One was that the gifts were for the purpose of assisting religious +institutions. This, however, was but an occasional excuse. The principal +excuse which was persisted in for forty years was that the city needed +revenue. This was a fact. The succeeding city administrations so +corruptly and extravagantly squandered the city's money that the city +was constantly in debt. Perhaps this debt was created for the very +purpose of having a plausible ground for disposing of city land. So it +was freely charged at that time. + + +THE CITY CREATES LANDLORDS. + +Let us see how the religious motive worked. On June 10, 1794, the city +gave to Trinity Church a water grant covering all that land from +Washington street to the North River between Chambers and Reade streets. +The annual rent was one shilling per running foot after the expiration +of forty-two years from June 10, 1794. Thus, for forty-two years, no +rent was charged. Shortly after the passage of this grant, Trinity +Church conveyed it to William Rhinelander, and also all that ground +between Jay and Harrison streets, from Greenwich street to the North +River. By a subsequent arrangement with Trinity Church and the city, all +of this land as well as certain other Trinity land became William +Rhinelander's property; and then, by agreement of the Common Council on +May 29, 1797, and confirmation of Nov. 16, 1807, he was given all rights +to the land water between high and low water mark, bounding his +property, for an absurdly low rental.[107] These water grants were +subsequently filled in and became of enormous value. + +Astor was as energetic as Rhinelander in getting grants from the city +officials. In 1806 he obtained two of large extent on the East Side--on +Mangin street between Stanton and Houston streets, and on South street +between Peck Slip and Dover street. On May 30, 1808, upon a favorable +report handed in by the Finance Committee, of which the notorious John +Bingham was a member, Astor received an extensive grant along the Hudson +bounding the old Burr estate which had come into his possession.[108] In +1810 he received three more water grants in the vicinity of Hubert, +Laight, Charlton, Hammersly and Clarkson streets, and on April 28, 1828, +three at Tenth avenue, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth +streets. These were some of the grants that he received. But they do not +include the land in the heart of the city that he was constantly buying +from private owners or getting by the evident fraudulent connivance of +the city officials. + +Having obtained the water grants and other land by fraud, what did the +grantees next proceed to do? They had them filled in, not at their own +expense, but largely at the expense of the municipality. Sunken lots +were filled in, sewers placed, and streets opened, regulated and graded +at but the merest minimum of expense to these landlords. By fraudulent +collusion with the city authorities they foisted much of the expense +upon the taxpayers. How much money the city lost by this process in the +early decades of the nineteenth century was never known. But in 1855 +Controller Flagg submitted to the Common Council an itemized statement +for the five years from 1850 in which he referred to "the startling fact +that the city's payments, in a range of five years [for filling in +sunken lots, regulating and grading streets, etc.], exceed receipts by +the sum of more than two millions of dollars."[109] + + +MANY PARTICIPANTS IN THE CURRENT FRAUDS. + +In the case of most of these so-called water fronts, there was usually a +trivial rental attached. Nearly always, however, this was commuted upon +payment of a small designated sum, and a full and clear title was then +given by the city. In this rush to get water-grants--grants many of +which are now solid land filled with business and residential +buildings--many of the ancestors of those families which pride +themselves upon their exclusive air participated. The Lorillards, the +Goelets, William F. Havemeyer, Cornelius Vanderbilt, W. H. Webb, W. H. +Kissam, Robert Lenox, Schermerhorn, James Roosevelt, William E. Dodge, +Jr.--all of these and many others--not omitting Astor's American Fur +Company--at various times down to, and including the period of, the +monumentally corrupt Tweed "ring," got grants from corrupt city +administrations. Some of these water rights, that is to say, such +fragmentary parts of them as pertained to wharves and bulkheads, New +York City, in recent years, has had to buy back at exorbitant prices. +From the organization of the Dock Department down to 1906 inclusive, New +York City had expended $70,000,000 for the purchase of bulkhead and +wharf property and for construction. + +During all the years from 1800 on, Astor, in conjunction with other +landholders, was manipulating the city government not less than the +State and Federal Government. Now he gets from the Board of Aldermen +title to a portion of this or that old country road on Manhattan which +the city closes up; again and again he gets rights of land under water. +He constantly solicits the Board of Aldermen for this or that right or +privilege and nearly always succeeds. No property or sum is too small +for his grasp. In 1832, when Eighth avenue, from Thirteenth to +Twenty-third streets is graded down and the earth removed is sold by the +city to a contractor for $3,049.44, Astor, Stephen D. Beekman and Jacob +Taylor petition that each get a part of the money for earth removed from +in front of their lots. This is considered such a petty attempt at +defrauding, that the Aldermen call it an "unreasonable petition" and +refuse to accede.[110] In 1834 the Aldermen allow him a part of the old +Hurlgate road, and Rhinelander a part of the Southampton road. Not a +year passes but that he does not get some new right or privilege from +the city government. At his request some streets are graded and +improved; the improvement of such other streets as is not to his +interest to have improved is delayed. Here sewers are placed; then they +are refused. Every function of city administration was incessantly used +by him. The cumulative effect of this class use of government was to +give him and others a constant succession of grants and privileges that +now have a prodigious value. + +But it should be noted that those who thus benefited, singularly enjoyed +the advantages of laws and practices. For city land that they bought +they were allowed to pay on easy terms; not infrequently the city had to +bring action for final payment. But the tenants of these landlords had +to pay rent on the day that it fell due, or within a few days of the +time; they could not be in arrears more than three days without having +to face dispossess proceedings. Nor was this all the difference. On +land which they corruptly obtained from the city and which, to a large +extent, they fraudulently caused to be filled in, regulated, graded or +otherwise improved at the expense of the whole community, the landlords +refused to pay taxes promptly, just as they refused to pay them on land +that they had bought privately. What was the result? "Some of our +wealthiest citizens," reported the Controller in 1831, "are in the habit +of postponing the payment of taxes for six months and more, and the +Common Council are necessitated to borrow money on interest to meet the +ordinary disbursements of the city."[111] If a man of very moderate +means were backward in payment of taxes, the city promptly closed him +out, and if a tenant of any of these delinquent landlords were +dispossessed for non-payment of rent, the city it was which undertook +the process of eviction. The rich landlord, however, could do as he +pleased, since all government represented his interests and those of his +class. Instead of the punishment for non-payment of taxes being visited +upon him, it was imposed upon the whole community in the form of +interest-bearing bonds. + + +PILLAGE, PROFITS AND LAND. + +The money that Astor secured by robbing the Indians and exploiting the +workers by means of monopolies, he thus put largely into land. In 1810, +a story runs, he offers to sell a Wall Street lot for $8,000. The price +is so low that a buyer promptly appears. "Yes, you are astonished," +Astor says. "But see what I intend to do with that eight thousand +dollars. That Wall Street lot, it is true, will be worth twelve thousand +dollars in a few years. But I shall take that eight thousand dollars +and buy eighty lots above Canal street and by the time your one lot is +worth twelve thousand dollars, my eighty lots will be worth eighty +thousand dollars." So goes one of the fine stories told to illustrate +his foresight, and to prove that his fortune came exclusively from that +faculty and from his industry. + +This version bears all the impress of being undoubtedly a fraud. Astor +was remarkably secretive and dissembling, and never revealed his plans +to anyone. That he bought the lots is true enough, but his attributed +loquacity is mythical and is the invention of some gushing eulogist. At +that time he was buying for $200 or $300 each many lots on lower +Broadway, then, for the most part, an unoccupied waste. What he was +counting upon was the certain growth of the city and the vastly +increasing values not that he would give his land, but which would +accrue from the labor of an enlarged population. These lots are now +occupied by crowded business buildings and are valued at from $300,000 +to $400,000 each. + +Throughout those years in the first decade of the nineteenth century he +was constantly buying land on Manhattan Island. Practically all of it +was bought, not with the idea of using it, but of holding it and +allowing future populations to make it a thousand times more valuable. +An exception was his country estate of thirteen acres at Hurlgate +(Hellgate) in the vicinity of Sixtieth street and the East River. It was +curious to look back at the fact that less than a century ago the upper +regions of Manhattan Island were filled with country estates--regions +now densely occupied by huge tenement houses and some private dwellings. +In those days, not less than in these, a country seat was considered a +necessary appendage to the possessions of a rich man. Astor bought that +Hurlgate estate as a country seat; but as such it was long since +discontinued although the land comprising it has never left the hold of +the Astor family. + +What were the intrinsic circumstances of the means by which he bought +land, now worth hundreds of millions of dollars? For once, we get a +gleam of the truth, but a gleam only, in the "popular writer's" account +when he says: "John Jacob Astor's record is constantly crossed by +embarrassed families, prodigal sons, mortgages and foreclosure sales. +Many of the victims of his foresight were those highest in church and +state. He thus acquired for $75,000 one-half of Governor George +Clinton's splendid Greenwich country place [in the old Greenwich village +on the west side of Manhattan Island].... After the Governor's death, he +kept persistently at the heirs, lent them money and acquired additional +slices of the family property.... Nearly two-thirds of the Clinton farm +is now held by Astor's descendants, and is covered by scores of business +buildings, from which is derived an annual income estimated at +$500,000." + + +THE FATE OF OTHERS HIS GAIN. + +In this transaction we see the beginnings of that period of conquest on +the part of the very rich using their surplus capital in effacing the +less rich--a period which really opened with Astor and which has been +vastly intensified in recent times. Clinton was accounted a rich man in +his day, but he was a pigmy in that respect compared to Astor. With his +incessant inflow of surplus wealth, Astor was in a position where on the +instant he could take advantage of the difficulties of less rich men and +take over to himself their property. A large amount of Astor's money was +invested in mortgages. In times of periodic financial and industrial +distress, the mortgagers were driven to extremities and could no longer +keep up their payments. These were the times that Astor waited for, and +it was in such times that he stepped in and possessed himself, at +comparatively small expense, of large additional tracts of land. + +It was this way that he became the owner of what was then the Cosine +farm, extending on Broadway from Fifty-third to Fifty-seventh streets +and westward to the Hudson River. This property, which he got for +$23,000 by foreclosing a mortgage, is now in the very heart of the city, +filled with many business, and every variety of residential, buildings, +and is rated as worth $6,000,000. By much the same means he acquired +ownership of the Eden farm in the same vicinity, coursing along Broadway +north from Forty-second street and slanting over to the Hudson River. +This farm lay under pledges for debt and attachments for loans. Suddenly +Astor turned up with a third interest in an outstanding mortgage, +foreclosed, and for a total payment of $25,000 obtained a sweep of +property now covered densely with huge hotels, theaters, office +buildings, stores and long vistas of residences and tenements--a +property worth at the very least $25,000,000. Any one with sufficient +security in land who sought to borrow money would find Astor extremely +accommodating. But woe betide the hapless borrower, whoever he was, if +he failed in his obligations to the extent of even a fraction of the +requirements covered by law! Neither personal friendship, religious +considerations nor the slightest feelings of sympathy availed. + +But where law was insufficient or non-existent, new laws were created +either to aggrandize the powers of landlordship, or to seize hold of +land or enchance its value, or to get extraordinary special privileges +in the form of banking charters. And here it is necessary to digress +from the narrative of Astor's land transactions and advert to his +banking activities, for it was by reason of these subordinately, as well +as by his greater trade revenues, that he was enabled so successfully to +pursue his career of wealth-gathering. The circumstances as to the +origin of certain powerful banks in which he and other landholders and +traders were large stockholders, the methods and powers of those banks, +and their effect upon the great body of the people, are component parts +of the analytic account of his operations. Not a single one of Astor's +biographers has mentioned his banking connections. Yet it is of the +greatest importance to describe them, inasmuch as they were closely +intertwined with his trade, on the one hand, and with his land +acquisitions, on the other. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[90] Doc. No. 13, State Papers, Second Session, 18th Congress, Vol. ii. + +[91] "Stole on a monstrous scale." The land frauds, by which many of the +Southern planters obtained estates in Louisiana, Mississippi and other +States were a national scandal. Benjamin F. Linton, United States +Attorney for Western Louisiana, reported to President Andrew Jackson on +August 27, 1835, that in seizing possession of Government land in that +region "the most shameful frauds, impositions and perjuries had been +committed in Louisiana." Sent to investigate, V. M. Garesche, an agent +of the Government Land Office, complained that he could get no one to +testify. "Is it surprising," he wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury, +"when you consider that those engaged in this business belong to every +class of society from the member of the Legislature (if I am informed +correctly) down to the quarter quarter-section settler!" Up to that time +the Government held title to immense tracts of land in the South and had +thrown it open to settlers. Few of these were able to get it, however. +Southern plantation men and Northern capitalists and speculators +obtained possession by fraud. "A large company," Garesche reported, "was +formed in New York for the purpose, and have an agent who is continually +scouring the country." The final report was a whitewashing one; hence, +none of the frauds was sent to jail.--Doc. No. 168, Twenty-fourth +Congress, 2d Session, ii:4-25, also Doc. No. 213, Ibid. + +[92] "America," admits Houghton, "never presented a more shameful +spectacle than was exhibited when the courts of the cotton-growing +regions united with the piratical infringers of Whitney's rights in +robbing their greatest benefactor.... In spite of the far-reaching +benefits of his invention, he had not realized one dollar above his +expenses. He had given millions upon millions of dollars to the +cotton-growing states, he had opened the way for the establishment of +the vast cotton-spinning interests of his own country and Europe, and +yet, after fourteen years of hard labor, he was a poor man, the victim +of wealthy, powerful, and, in his case, a dishonest class."--"Kings of +Fortune":337. All other of Whitney's biographers relate likewise. + +[93] See Senate Documents, First Session, 24th Congress, 1835, Vol. vi, +Doc. No. 425. A few extracts from the great mass of correspondence will +lucidly show the nature of the fraudulent methods. Writing from +Columbus, Georgia, on July 15, 1833, Col. John Milton informed the War +Department ... "Many of them [the Indians] are almost starved, and +suffer immensely for the things necessary to the support of life, and +are sinking in moral degradation. They have been much corrupted by white +men who live among them, who induce them to sell to as many different +individuals as they can, and then cheat them out of the proceeds."... +(p. 81.) Luther Blake wrote to the War Department from Fort Mitchell, +Alabama, on September 11, 1833 ... "Many, from motives of speculation, +have bought Indian reserves fraudulently in this way--take their bonds +for trifles, pay them ten or twenty dollars in something they do not +want, and take their receipts for five times the amount." (p. 86). On +February 1, 1834, J. H. Howard, of Pole-Cat Springs, Creek Nation, sent +a communication, by request, to President Jackson in which he said, ... +"From my own observation, I am induced to believe that a number of +reservations have been paid for at some nominal price, and the principal +consideration has been whisky and homespun" ... (p. 104). Gen. J. W. A. +Sandford, sent by President Jackson to the Creek country to investigate +the charges of fraud, wrote, on March 1, 1834, to the War Department, +... "It is but very recently that the Indian has been invested with an +individual interest in land, and the great majority of them appear +neither to appreciate its possession, nor to economize the money for +which it is sold; the consequence is, that the white man rarely suffers +an opportunity to pass by without swindling him out of both".... (p. +110). + +The records show that the principal beneficiaries of these swindles were +some of the most conspicuous planters, mercantile firms and politicians +in the South. Frequently, they employed dummies in their operations. + +[94] Reports of House Committees, Second Session, 26th Congress, +1840-41, Report No. 1. + +[95] Ibid., 1 and 2. + +[96] Executive Documents, First Session, 23rd Congress, 1833-34, Doc. +No. 132. + +[97] Senate Documents, First Session, 22nd Congress, 1831-33, Vol. iii, +Doc. No. 139. + +[98] "No inventor," reported the United States Commissioner of Patents +in 1858, "probably has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so +plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the +parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase as 'pirates.' The +spoliation of their incessant guerilla upon his defenseless rights have +unquestionably amounted to millions." + +[99] Doc. No. 134, Twenty-fourth Congress, 2d Session, Vol. ii. + +[100] Doc. 129, State Papers, 1819-21, Vol. ii. + +[101] See Part I, Chapter II. + +[102] "Allowed itself." The various New York legislatures from the end +of the eighteenth century on were hotbeds of corruption. Time after time +members were bribed to pass bills granting charters for corporations or +other special privileges. (See the numerous specific instances cited in +the author's "History of Tammany Hall," and subsequently in this work.) +The Legislature of 1827 was notoriously corrupt. + +[103] Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1815:216--Journal of the [New +York] Assembly, 1818:261; Journal of the Assembly, 1819. Also "A +Statement and Exposition of The Title of John Jacob Astor to the Lands +Purchased by him from the surviving children of Roger Morris and Mary, +his Wife"; New York, 1827. + +[104] MSS. Minutes of the (New York City) Common Council, xvi:239-40 and +405. + +[105] Ibid., xx: 355-356. + +[106] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xiii: 118 and 185. + +[107] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xvii: 141-144. See also Annual +Report of Controller for 1849, Appendix A. + +[108] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xviii: 411-414. + +[109] Doc. No. 33, Documents of the Board of Aldermen, xxii:26. + +[110] Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, 1832-33, iv: 416-418. + +[111] Controller's Reports for 1831:7. Also Ibid. for 1841:28. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +Astor flourished at that precise time when the traders and landowners, +flushed with revenues, reached out for the creation and control of the +highly important business of professionally dealing in money, and of +dictating, personally and directly, what the supply of the people's +money should be. + +This signalized the next step in the aggrandizement of individual +fortunes. The few who could center in themselves, by grace of +Government, the banking and manipulation of the people's money and the +restricting or inflating of money issues, were immediately vested with +an extraordinary power. It was a sovereign power at once coercive and +proscriptive, and a mighty instrument for transferring the produce of +the many to a small and exclusive coterie. Not merely over the labor of +the whole working class did this gripping process extend, but it was +severely felt by that large part of the landowning and trading class +which was excluded from holding the same privileges. The banker became +the master of the master. In that fierce, pervading competitive strife, +the banks were the final exploiters. Sparsely organized and wholly +unprotected, the worker was in the complete power of the trader, +manufacturer and landowner; in turn, such of these divisions of the +propertied class as were not themselves sharers in the ownership of +banks were at the mercy of the banking institutions. + +At any time upon some pretext or other, the banks could arbitrarily +refuse the latter class credit or accommodation, or harass its victims +in other ways equally as destructive. As business was largely done in +expectations of payment, in other words, credit, as it is now, this was +a serious, often a desperate, blow to the lagging or embarrassed +brothers in trade. Banks were virtually empowered by law to ruin or +enrich any individual or set of individuals. As the banks were then +founded and owned by men who were themselves traders or landholders, +this power was crushingly used against competitors. Armed with the +strong power of law, the banks overawed the mercantile world, thrived on +the industry, misfortune or ruin of others, and swayed politics and +elections. The bank men loaned money to themselves at an absurdly low +rate of interest. But for loans of money to all others they demanded a +high rate of interest which, in periods of commercial distress, +overwhelmed the borrowers. Nominally banks were restricted to a certain +standard rate of interest; but by various subterfuges they easily evaded +these provisions and exacted usurious rates. + + +BANKS AND THEIR POWER. + +These, however, were far from being the worst features. The most +innocent of their great privileges was that of playing fast and loose +with the money confidingly entrusted to their care by a swarm of +depositors who either worked for it, or for the matter of that, often +stole it; bankers, like pawnbrokers, ask no questions. The most +remarkable of their vested powers was that of manufacturing money. The +industrial manufacturer could not make goods unless he had the plant, +the raw material and the labor. But the banker, somewhat like the +fabled alchemists, could transmute airy nothing into bank-note money, +and then, by law, force its acceptance. The lone trader or landholder +unsupported by a partnership with law could not fabricate money. But let +trader and landholder band in a company, incorporate, then persuade, +wheedle or bribe a certain entity called a legislature to grant them a +certain bit of paper styled a charter, and lo! they were instantly +transformed into money manufacturers. + + +A MANDATE TO PREY. + +The simple mandate of law was sufficient authorization for them to prey +upon the whole world outside of their charmed circle. With this scrap of +paper they could go forth on the highways of commerce and over the farms +and drag in, by the devious, absorbent processes of the banking system, +a great part of the wealth created by the actual producers. As it was +with taxation, so was it with the burdens of this system; they fell +largely upon the worker, whether in the shop or on the farm. When the +business man and the landowner were compelled to pay exorbitant rates of +interest they but apparently had to meet the demands. What these classes +really did was to throw the whole of these extra impositions upon the +working class in the form of increased prices for necessaries and +merchandise and in augmented rents. + +But how were these State or Government authorizations, called charters, +to be obtained? Did not the Federal Constitution prohibit States from +giving the right to banks to issue money? Were not private money +factories specifically barred by that clause of the Constitution which +declared that no State "shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make +anything but gold or silver a tender in payment of debts?" + +Here, again, the power of class domination of Government came into +compelling effect. The onward sweep of the trading class was not to be +balked by such a trifling obstacle as a Constitutional provision. At all +times when the Constitution has stood in the way of commercial aims it +has been abrogated, not by repeal nor violent overthrow, but by the +effective expedient of judicial interpretation. The trading class +demanded State created banks with power of issuing money; and, as the +courts have invariably in the long run responded to the interests and +decrees of the dominant class, a decision was quickly forthcoming in +this case to the effect that "bills of credit" were not meant to cover +banknotes. This was a new and surprising construction; but judicial +decision and precedent made it virtually law, and law a thousandfold +more binding than any Constitutional insertion. + + +COURTS AND CONSTITUTION. + +The trading class had already learned the importance of the principle +that while it was essential to control law-making bodies, it was +imperative to have as their auxiliary the bodies that interpreted law. +To a large extent the United States since then has lived not under +legislative-made law, but under a purely separate and extraneous form of +law which has superseded the legislature product, namely, court law. +Although nowhere in the United States Constitution is there even the +suggestion that courts shall make law, yet this past century and more +they have been gradually building up a formidable code of +interpretations which substantially ranks as the most commanding kind of +law. And these interpretations have, on the whole, consistently +followed, and kept pace with, the changing interests of the dominant +class, whether traders, slaveholders, or the present trusts. + +This decision of the august courts opened the way for the greatest orgy +of corruption and the most stupendous frauds. In New York, +Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and other States a +continuous rush to get bank charters ensued. Most of the legislatures +were composed of men who, while perhaps, not innately corrupt, were +easily seduced by the corrupt temptations held out by the traders. There +was a deep-seated hostility, in many parts of the country, on the part +of the middling tradesmen--the shopkeepers and the petty merchants--to +any laws calculated to increase the power and the privileges of the +superior traders and the landowners. Among the masses of workers, most +of whom were, however, disfranchised, any attempt to vest the rich with +new privileges, was received with the bitterest resentment. But the +legislatures were approachable; some members who were put there by the +rich families needed only the word as to how they should vote, while +others, representing both urban and rural communities, were swayed by +bribes. By one means or another the traders and landholders forced the +various legislatures into doing what was wanted. + +Omitting the records of other States, a few salient facts as to what +took place in New York State will suffice to give a clear idea of some +of the methods of the trading class in pressing forward their conquests, +in hurling aside every impediment, whether public opinion or law, and in +creating new laws which satisfied their extending plans for a +ramification of profit-producing interests. If forethought, an +unswerving aim and singleness of execution mean anything, then there +was something sternly impressive in the way in which this rising +capitalist class went forward to snatch what it sought, and what it +believed to be indispensable to its plans. There was no hesitation, nor +were there any scruples as to niceties of methods; the end in view was +all that counted; so long as that was attained, the means used were +considered paltry side-issues. And, indeed, herein lies the great +distinction of action between the world-old propertied classes and the +contending proletariat; for whereas the one have always campaigned +irrespective of law and particularly by bribery, intimidation, +repression and force, the working class has had to confine its movement +strictly to the narrow range of laws which were expressly prepared +against it and the slightest violation of which has called forth the +summary vengeance of a society ruled actually, if not theoretically, by +the very propertied classes which set at defiance all law. + + +THE BANKING FRAUDS BEGIN. + +The chartered monopoly held by the traders who controlled the United +States Bank was not accepted passively by others of the commercial +class, who themselves wanted financial engines of the same character. +The doctrine of State's rights served the purpose of these excluded +capitalists as well as it did that of the slaveholders. + +The States began a course of reeling out bank charters. By 1799 New York +City had one bank, the Bank of New York; this admixed the terrorism of +trade and politics so overtly that presently an opposition application +for a charter was made. This solitary bank was run by some of the old +landowning families who fully understood the danger involved in the +triumph of the democratic ideas represented by Jefferson; a danger far +overestimated, however, since win as democratic principles did, the +propertied class continued its victorious march, for the simple reason +that property was able to divert manhood suffrage to its own account, +and to aggrandize itself still further on the ruins of every subsequent +similar reform expedient. What the agitated masses, for the most part, +of that period could not comprehend was that they who hold the +possession of the economic resources will indubitably sway the politics +of a country, until such time as the proletariat, no longer divided but +thoroughly conscious, organized, and aggressive, will avail itself of +its majority vote to transfer the powers of government to itself. The +Bank of New York injected itself virulently into politics and fought the +spread of democratic ideas with sordid but effective weapons. If a +merchant dared support what it denounced as heretical doctrines, the +bank at once black-listed him by rejecting his notes when he needed cash +most. + +It was now that Aaron Burr, that adroit leader of the opposition party, +stepped in. Seconded or instigated by certain traders, he set out to get +one of those useful and invaluable bank charters for his backers. The +explanation of how he accomplished the act is thus given: Taking +advantage of the epidemic of yellow fever then desolating New York City, +he, with much preliminary of philanthropic motives, introduced a bill +for the apparent beneficent purpose of diminishing the future +possibility of the disease by incorporating a company, called the +Manhattan Company, to supply pure, wholesome water. Supposing that the +charter granted nothing more than this, the explanation goes on, the +Legislature passed the bill, and was most painfully surprised and +shocked when the fact came out that the measure had been so deftly +drawn, that it, in fact, granted an unlimited charter, conferring +banking powers on the company.[112] + +This explanation is probably shallow and deficient. It is much more +likely that bribery was resorted to, considering the fact that the +granting of every successive bank charter was invariably accompanied by +bribery. Six years later the Mercantile Bank received a charter for a +thirteen years' period--a charter which, it was openly charged by +certain members of the Assembly, was secured by bribery. These charges +were substantially proved by the testimony before a legislative +investigating committee.[113] In 1811 the Mechanics' Bank was chartered +with a time limit under circumstances indicating bribery. + +Indeed, so often was bribing done and so pronounced were charges of +corruption at frequent sessions of the Legislature, that in 1812, the +Assembly, in an heroic spasm of impressive virtue, passed a resolution +compelling each member to pledge himself that he had neither taken, nor +would take, "any reward or profit, direct or indirect, for any vote on +any measure."[114] This resolution was palpably intended to blind the +public; for, in that identical year, the Bank of America received a +charter amid charges of flagrant corruption. One Assemblyman declared +under oath that he had been offered the sum of $500, "besides, a +handsome present for his vote."[115] All of the banks, except the +Manhattan, had limited charters; measures for the renewal of these were +practically all put through by bribery.[116] Thus, in 1818, the charter +of the Merchants' Bank was renewed until 1832, and renewed after that. +The chartering of the Chemical Bank (that staid and most eminently +respectable and solid New York institution of to-day) was accomplished +by bribery. The Chemical Bank was an outgrowth of the Chemical +Manufacturing Company, the plant and business of which were bought +expressly as an excuse to get a banking auxiliary. The Goelet brothers +were among the founders of this bank. In fact, many of the great landed +fortunes were inseparably associated with the frauds of the banking +system; money from land was used to bribe legislatures, and money made +from the banks was employed in buying more land. The promoters of the +Chemical Bank set aside a considerable sum of money and $50,000 in stock +for the bribery fund.[117] No sooner had it received its charter than it +began to turn out reams of paper money, based upon no value, which paper +was paid as wages to its employees as well as circulated generally. So +year after year the bribery went on industriously, without cessation. + + +BRIBERY A CRIME IN NAME ONLY. + +Were the bribers ever punished, their illicitly gotten charters declared +forfeited, and themselves placed under the ban of virtuous society? +Far, very far, from it! The men who did the bribing were of the very +pinnacle of social power, elegance and position, or quickly leaped to +that height by reason of their wealth. They were among the foremost +landholders and traders of the day. By these and a wide radius of +similar means, they amassed wealth or greatly increased wealth already +accumulated. The ancestors of some of the most conspicuous +multimillionaire families of the present were deeply involved in the +perpetration of all of those continuous frauds and crimes--Peter Goelet +and his sons, Peter P. and Robert, for instance, and Jacob Lorillard, +who, for many years, was president of the Mechanics' Bank. No stigma +attached to these wealth-graspers. Their success as possessors of riches +at once, by the automatic processes of a society which enthroned wealth, +elevated them to be commanding personages in trade, politics, orthodoxy +and the highest social spheres. The cropped convict, released from +prison, was followed everywhere by the jeers and branding of a society +which gloated over his downfall and which forever reminded him of his +infamy. But the men who waded on to wealth through the muck of base +practices and by means of crimes a millionfold more insidious and +dangerous than the offense of the convict, were not only honored as +leading citizens, but they became the extolled and unquestioned +dictators of that supreme trading society which made modes, customs and +laws. + +It was a society essentially built upon money; consequently he who was +dexterous enough to get possession of the spoils, experienced no +difficulty in establishing his place among the elect and anointed. His +frauds were forgotten or ignored; only the fact that he was a rich man +was remembered. And yet, what is more natural than to seek, and accept, +the obeisance lavished upon property, in a scheme of society where +property is crowned as the ruling power? In the rude centuries +previously mankind exalted physical prowess; he who had the greatest +strength and wielded the deftest strokes became victor of the judicial +combat and gathered in laurels and property. But now we have arrived at +the time when the cunning of mind supplants the cunning of muscle; +bribery takes the place of brawn; the contestants fight with statutes +instead of swords. And this newer plan, which some have decried as +degenerate, is a great advance over the old, for thereby has brute force +been legally abandoned in personal quarrels at least, and that cunning +of mind which has held sway, is the first evidence of the reign of mind, +which from a low order, will universally develop noble and supereminent +qualities charged with the good, and that alone, of the human race. + + +ASTOR'S BANKING ACTIVITIES. + +With this preliminary sketch, we can now proceed to a consideration of +how Astor profited from the banking system. We see that constantly the +bold spirits of the trading class, with a part of the money made or +plundered in some direction or other, were bribing representative bodies +to give them exceptional rights and privileges which, in turn, were made +the fertile basis for further spoliation. Astor was a stockholder in at +least four banks, the charters of which had been obtained or renewed by +trickery and fraud, or both. He owned 1,000 shares of the capital stock +of the Manhattan Company; 1,000 of the Merchant's Bank; 500 of the Bank +of America; 1,604 of the Mechanic's Bank. He also owned at one time +considerable stock in the National Bank, the charter of which, it was +strongly suspected had been obtained by bribery. + +There is no evidence that he, himself, did the actual bribing or was in +any way concerned in it. In all of the legislative investigations +following charges of bribery, the invariable practice was to throw the +blame upon the wicked lobbyists, while professing the most naïve +astonishment that any imputations should be cast upon any of the members +of the honorable Legislature. As for the bribers behind the scenes, +their names seldom or never were brought out or divulged. In brief, +these investigations were all of that rose-water order, generally termed +"whitewashing." But whether Astor personally bribed or not, he at any +rate consciously profited from the results of bribery; and, moreover, it +is not probable that his methods in the East were different, except in +form, from the debauching and exploitation that he made a system of in +the fur regions. It is not outside the realm of reasonable conjecture to +suppose that he either helped to debauch, or connived at the corruption +of legislatures, just as in another way he debauched Indian tribes. + +Furthermore his relations with Burr in one notorious transaction, are +sufficient to justify the conclusion that he held the closest business +relations with that political adventurer who lived next door to him at +No. 221 Broadway. This transaction was one which was partially the +outcome of the organization of the Manhattan Bank and was a source of +millions of dollars of profit to Astor and to his descendants. + +A century or more ago Trinity Church owned three times the extent of +even the vast real estate that it now holds. A considerable part of this +was the gift of that royal governor Fletcher, who, as has been set +forth, was such a master-hand at taking bribes. There long existed a +contention upon the part of New York State, a contention embodied in +numerous official records, that the land held for centuries by Trinity +Church was usurped; that Trinity's title was invalid and that the real +title vested in the people of the city of New York. In 1854-55 the Land +Commissioners of New York State, deeply impressed by the facts as +marshalled by Rutger B. Miller,[118] recommended that the State bring +suit. But with the filing of Trinity's reply, mysterious influences +intervened and the matter was dropped. These influences are frequently +referred to in aldermanic documents. + +To go back, however: In 1767 Trinity Church leased to Abraham Mortier, +for ninety-nine years, at a total annual rental of $269 a year, a +stretch of land comprising 465 lots in what is now the vicinity bounded +by Greenwich, Spring and Hudson streets. Mortier used it as a country +place until 1797 when the New York Legislature, upon the initiative of +Burr, developed a consuming curiosity as to how Trinity Church was +expending its income. This was a very ticklish question with the pious +vestrymen of Trinity, as it was generally suspected that they were +commingling business and piety in a way that might, if known, cause them +some trouble. The law, at that time, restricted the annual income of +Trinity Church from its property to $12,000 a year. A committee of +investigation was appointed; of this committee Burr was made chairman. + + +HOW ASTOR SECURED A LEASE. + +Burr never really made any investigation. Why? The reason soon came out, +when Burr turned up with a transfer of the Mortier lease to himself. He +at once obtained from the Manhattan Bank a $38,000 loan, pledging the +lease as security. When his duel with Hamilton forced Burr to flee the +country, Astor promptly came along and took the lease off his hands. +Astor, it was said, paid him $32,000 for it, subject to the Manhattan +Bank's mortgage. At any rate, Astor now held this extraordinarily +valuable lease.[119] He immediately released it in lots; and as the city +fast grew, covering the whole stretch with population and buildings, the +lease was a source of great revenue to him and to his heirs.[120] As a +Lutheran, Astor could not be a vestryman of Trinity Church. Anthony +Lispenard, however, it may be passingly noted, was a vestryman, and, as +such, mixed piety and business so well, that his heirs became possessed +of millions of dollars by the mere fact that in 1779, when a vestryman, +he got a lease, for eighty-three years of eighty-one Trinity lots +adjacent to the Astor leased land, at a total annual rental of +$177.50.[121] + +It was by the aid of the banking system that the trading class was +greatly enabled to manipulate the existing and potential resources of +the country and to extend invaluable favors to themselves. In this +system Astor was a chief participant. For many years the banks, +especially in New York State, were empowered by law to issue paper money +to the extent of three times the amount of their capital. The actual +specie was seized hold of by the shippers, and either hoarded, or +exported in quantities to Asia or Europe which, of course, would not +handle paper money. By 1819 the banks in New York had issued +$12,500,000, and the total amount of specie to redeem this fiat stuff +amounted to only $2,000,000. These banknotes were nothing more or less +than irresponsible promises to pay. What became of them? + + +WHAT THE WORKER GOT AS WAGES. + +What, indeed, became of them? They were imposed upon the working class +as payment for labor. Although these banknotes were subject to constant +depreciation, the worker had to accept them as though they were full +value. But when the worker went to buy provisions or pay rent, he was +compelled to pay one-third, and often one-half, as much as the value +represented by those banknotes. Sometimes, in crises, he could not get +them cashed at all; they became pitiful souvenirs in his hands. This +fact was faintly recognized by a New York Senate Committee when it +reported in 1819 that every artifice in the wit of man had been devised +to find ways of putting these notes into circulation; that when the +merchant got this depreciated paper, he "saddled it upon the departments +of productive labor." "The farmer and the mechanic alike," went on the +report, "have been invited to make loans and have fallen victims to the +avarice of the banker. The result has been the banishment of metallic +currency, the loss of commercial confidence, fictitious capital, +increase of civil prosecutions and multiplication of crimes."[122] What +the committee did not see was that by this process those in control of +the banks had, with no expenditure, possessed themselves of a +considerable part of the resources of the country and had made the +worker yield up twice and three times as much of the produce of his +labor as he had to give before the system was started. + +The large amount of paper money, without any basis of value whatever, +was put out at a heavy rate of interest. When the merchant paid his +interest, he charged it up as extra cost on his wares; and when the +worker came to buy these same wares which he or some fellow-worker had +made, he was charged a high price which included three things all thrown +upon him: rent, interest and profit. The banks indirectly sucked in a +large portion of these three factors. And so thoroughly did the banks +control legislation that they were not content with the power of issuing +spurious paper money; they demanded, and got through, an act exempting +bank stock from taxation. + +Thus year after year this system went on, beggaring great numbers of +people, enriching the owners of the banks and virtually giving them a +life and death power over the worker, the farmer and the floundering, +struggling small business man alike. The laws were but slightly +altered. "The great profits of the banks," reported a New York Senate +Committee on banks and insurance in 1834, "arise from their issues. It +is this privilege which enables them, in fact, to coin money, to +substitute their evidences of debt for a metallic currency and to loan +more than their actual capitals. A bank of $100,000 capital is permitted +to loan $250,000; and thus receive an interest on twice and a half the +amount actually invested."[123] + + +THE WORKINGMEN'S PARTY PROTEST. + +It cannot be said that all of the workingmen were apathetic, or that +some did not see through the fraud of the system. They had good reason +for the deepest indignation and exasperation. The terrible injustices +piled upon them from every quarter--the low wages that they were forced +to accept, often in depreciated or worthless banknotes, the continually +increasing exactions of the landlords, the high prices squeezed out of +them by monopolies, the arbitrary discriminations of law--these were not +without their effect. The Workingmen's Party, formed in 1829 in New York +City, was the first and most ominous of these proletarian uprisings. Its +resolutions read like a proletarian Declaration of Independence, and +would unquestionably have resulted in the most momentous agitation, had +it not been that it was smothered by its leaders, and also because the +slavery issue long obscured purely economic questions. "Resolved," ran +its resolutions adopted at Military Hall, Oct. 19, 1829, + + in the opinion of this meeting, that the first appropriation of + the soil of the State to private and exclusive possession was + eminently and barbarously unjust. That it was substantially feudal + in its character, inasmuch as those who received enormous and + unequal possessions were _lords_ and those who received little or + nothing were _vassals_. That hereditary transmission of wealth on + the one hand and poverty on the other, has brought down to the + present generation all the evils of the feudal system, and that, + in our opinion, is the prime source of all our calamities. + +After declaring that the Workingmen's Party would oppose all exclusive +privileges, monopolies and exemptions, the resolutions proceeded: + + We consider it an exclusive privilege for one portion of the + community to have the _means of education in colleges_, while + another is restricted to common schools, or, perhaps, by extreme + poverty, even deprived of the limited education to be acquired in + those establishments. Our voice, therefore, shall be raised in + favor of a system of education which shall be equally open to + _all_, as in a real republic, it should be. + +Finally the resolutions told what the Workingmen's Party thought of the +bankers and the banking system. The bankers were denounced as "the +greatest knaves, impostors and paupers of the age." The resolutions went +on: + + As banking is now conducted, the owners of the banks receive + annually of the people of the State not less than two millions of + dollars in their paper money (and it might as well be pewter + money) for which there is and can be nothing provided for its + redemption on demand.... + +The mockery that went up from all that was held influential, respectable +and stable when these resolutions were printed, was echoed far and wide. +They were looked upon first as a joke, and then, when the Workingmen's +Party began to reveal its earnestness and strength, as an insolent +challenge to constituted authority, to wealth and superiority, and as a +menace to society. + + +RADICALISM VERSUS RESPECTABILITY. + +The "Courier and Enquirer," owned by Webb and Noah, in the pay of the +United States Bank, burst out into savage invective. It held the +Workingmen's Party up to opprobrium as an infidel crowd, hostile to the +morals and the institutions of society, and to the rights of property. +Nevertheless the Workingmen's Party proceeded with an enthusiastic, +almost ecstatic, campaign and polled 6,000 votes, a very considerable +number compared to the whole number of voters at the time. + +By 1831, however, it had gone out of existence. The reason was that it +allowed itself to be betrayed by the supineness, incompetence, and as +some said, the treachery, of its leaders, who were content to accept +from a Legislature controlled by the propertied interests various +mollifying sops which slightly altered certain laws, but which in no +great degree redounded to the benefit of the working class. For a few +bits of counterfeit, this splendid proletarian uprising, glowing with +energy, enthusiasm and hope, allowed itself to be snuffed out of +existence. + +What a tragedy was there! And how futile and tragic must inevitably be +the fate of any similar movement which depends not upon itself, not upon +its own intrinsic, collective strength and wisdom, but upon the say-so +of leaders who come forward to assume leadership. Representing only +their own timidity of thought and cowardice of action, they often end by +betraying the cause placed confidingly in their charge. That class which +for these immemorial generations has done the world's work, and as long +has been plundered and oppressed and betrayed, thus had occasion to +learn anew the bitter lesson taught by the wreckage of the past, that it +is from itself that the emancipation must come; that it is itself which +must essentially think, act and strike; that its forces, long torn +asunder and dispersed, must be marshalled in invulnerable compactness +and iron discipline; and so that its hosts may not again be routed by +strategy, no man or set of men should be entrusted with the irrevocable +power of executing its decrees, for too often has the courage, boldness +and strength of the many been shackled or destroyed by the compromising +weakness of the leaders. + + +THE PANIC OF 1837. + +Passing over the Equal Rights movement in 1834, which was a diluted +revival of the Workingmen's Party, and which, also, was turned into +sterility by the treachery of its leaders, we arrive at the panic of +1837, the time when Astor, profiting from misfortune on every side, +vastly increased his wealth. + +The panic of 1837 was one of those periodic financial and industrial +convulsions resulting from the chaos of capitalist administration. No +sooner had it commenced, than the banks refused to pay out any money, +other than their worthless notes. For thirty-three years they had not +only enjoyed immense privileges, but they had used the powers of +Government to insure themselves a monopoly of the business of +manufacturing money. In 1804 the Legislature of New York State had +passed an extraordinary law, called the restraining act. This +prohibited, under severe penalties, all associations and individuals not +only from issuing notes, but "from receiving deposits, making discounts +or transacting any other business which incorporated banks may or do +transact." Thus the law not only legitimatized the manufacture of +worthless money, but guaranteed a few banks a monopoly of that +manufacture. Another restraining act was passed in 1818. The banks were +invested with the sovereign privilege of depreciating the currency at +their discretion, and were authorized to levy an annual tax upon the +country, nearly equivalent to the interest on $200,000,000 of deposits +and circulation. On top of these acts, the Legislature passed various +acts compelling the public authorities in New York City to deposit +public money with the Manhattan Company. This company, although, as we +have seen, expressly chartered to supply pure water to the city of New +York, utterly failed to do so; at one stage the city tried to have its +charter revoked on the ground of failure to carry out its chartered +function, but the courts decided in the company's favor.[124] + +At the outbreak of the panic of 1837, the New York banks held more than +$5,500,000 of public money. When called upon to pay only about a million +of that sum, or the premium on it, they refused. But far worse was the +experience of the general public. When they frantically besieged the +banks for their money, the bank officials filled the banks with heavily +armed guards and plug-uglies with orders to fire on the crowd in case a +rush was attempted.[125] + +In every State conditions were the same. In May, 1837, not less than +eight hundred banks in the United States suspended payment, refusing a +single dollar to the Government whose deposits of $30,000,000 they held, +and to the people in general who held $120,000,000 of their notes. No +specie whatever was in circulation. The country was deluged with small +notes, colloquially termed shinplasters. Of every form and every +denomination from the alleged value of five cents to that of five +dollars, they were issued by every business individual or corporation +for the purpose of paying them off as wages to their employees. The +worker was forced to take them for his labor or starve. Moreover, the +shinplasters were so badly printed that it was not hard to counterfeit +them. The counterfeiting of them quickly became a regular business; +immense quantities of the stuff were issued. The worker never knew +whether the bills paid him for his work were genuine or counterfeit, +although essentially there was not any great difference in basic value +between the two.[126] + + +THE RESULTING WIDESPREAD DESTITUTION. + +Now the storm broke. Everywhere was impoverishment, ruination and +beggary. Every bank official in New York City was subject to arrest for +the most serious frauds and other crimes, but the authorities took no +action. On the contrary, so complete was the dominance of the banks over +Government,[127] that they hurriedly got the Legislature to pass an act +practically authorizing a suspension of specie payments. The +consequences were appalling. "Thousands of manufacturing, mercantile, +and other useful establishments in the United States," reported a New +York Senate Committee, "have been broken down or paralyzed by the +existing crisis.... In all our great cities numerous individuals, who, +by a long course of regular business, had acquired a competency, have +suddenly been reduced, with their families to beggary."[128] New York +City was filled with the homeless and unemployed. In the early part of +1838 one-third of all the persons in New York City who subsisted by +manual labor, were wholly or substantially without employment. Not less +than 10,000 persons were in utter poverty, and had no other means of +surviving the winter than those afforded by the charity of neighbors. +The almshouses and other public and charitable institutions overflowed +with inmates, and 10,000 sufferers were still uncared for. + +The prevailing system, as was pointed out even by the conventional and +futile reports of legislative committees, was one inevitably calculated +to fill the country with beggars, vagrants and criminals. This important +fact was recognized, although in a remote way, by De Beaumont and De +Tocqueville who, however, had no fundamental understanding of the deep +causes, nor even of the meaning of the facts which they so accurately +gathered. In their elaborate work on the penitentiary system in the +United States, published in 1833, they set forth that it was their +conclusion that in the four States, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut +and Pennsylvania, the prison system of which they had fully +investigated, almost all of those convicted for crimes from 1800 to 1830 +were convicted for offenses against property. In these four States, +collectively, with a population amounting to one-third of that of the +Union, not less than 91.29 out of every 100 convictions were for crimes +against property, while only 8.66 of every 100 were for crimes against +persons, and 4.05 of every 100 were for crimes against morals. In New +York State singly, 93.56 of every 100 convictions were for crimes +against property and 6.26 for crimes against persons.[129] + + +PROPERTY AND CRIME. + +Thus we see from these figures filled with such tragic eloquence, the +economic impulse working at bottom, and the property system corrupting +every form of society. But here a vast difference is to be noted. Just +as in England the aristocracy for centuries had made the laws and had +enforced the doctrine that it was they who should wield the police power +of the State, so in the United States, to which the English system of +jurisprudence had been transplanted, the propertied interests, +constituting the aristocracy, made and executed the laws. De Beaumont +and De Tocqueville passingly observed that while the magistrates in the +United States were plebeian, yet they followed out the old English +system; in other words, they enforced laws which were made for, and by, +the American aristocracy, the trading classes. + +The views, aims and interests of these classes were so thoroughly +intrenched in law that the fact did not escape the keen notice of these +foreign investigators. "The Americans, descendants of the English," they +wrote, "have provided in every respect for the rich and hardly at all +for the poor.... In the same country where the complainant is put in +prison, the thief remains at liberty, if he can find bail. Murder is the +only crime whose authors are not protected[130].... The mass of lawyers +see in this nothing contrary to their ideas of justice and injustice, +nor even to their democratic institutions."[131] + + +THE SYSTEM--HOW IT WORKED. + +The system, then, frequently forced the destitute into theft and +mendicancy. What resulted? Laws, inconceivably harsh and brutal, enacted +by, and in behalf of, property rights were enforced with a rigor which +seems unbelievable were it not that the fact is verified by the records +of thousands of cases. Those convicted for robbery usually received a +life sentence; they were considered lucky if they got off with five +years. The ordinary sentence for burglary was the same, with variations. +Forgery and grand larceny were punishable with long terms, ranging from +five to seven years. These were the laws in practically all of the +States with slight differences. But they applied to whites only. The +negro slave criminal had a superior standing in law, for the simple +reason that while the whites were "free" labor, negroes were property, +and, of course, it did not pay to send slaves to prison. In Maryland and +in most Southern States, where the slaveholders were both makers and +executors of law, the slaves need have no fear of prison. "The slaves, +as we have seen before, are not subject to the Penal Code of the +whites; they are hardly ever sent to prison. Slaves who commit grave +crimes are hung; those who commit heinous crimes not punishable with +death are sold out of the State. In selling him care is taken that his +character and former life are not known, _because it would lessen his +price_." Thus wrote De Beaumont and De Tocqueville; and in so writing +they handed down a fine insight into the methods of that Southern +propertied class which assumed so exalted an opinion of its honor and +chivalry. + +But the sentencing of the criminal was merely the beginning of a weird +life of horror. It was customary at that period to immure prisoners in +solitary confinement. There, in their small and reeking cells, filled +with damps and pestilential odors, they were confined day after day, +year after year, condemned to perpetual inactivity and silence. If they +presumed to speak, they were brutally lashed with the whip. They were +not allowed to write letters, nor to communicate with any member of +their family. But the law condescended to allow a minister to visit them +periodically in order to awaken their religious thoughts and preach to +them how bad a thing it was to steal! Many were driven stark mad or died +of disease; others dashed their brains out; while others, when finally +released, went out into the world filled with an overpowering hatred of +Society, and all its institutions, and a long-cherished thirst for +vengeance against it for having thus so cruelly misused them. + +Such were the laws made by the propertied classes. But they were not +all. When a convict was released, the law allowed only three dollars to +be given him to start anew with. "To starve or to steal is too often the +only alternative," wrote John W. Edmonds, president of the New York +board of prison inspectors in 1844.[132] If the released convict did +steal he was nearly always sent back to prison for life. + +Equally severe in their way were the laws applying to mendicants and +vagrants. Six months or a year in the penitentiary or workhouse was the +usual sentence. After the panic of 1837, crime, mendicancy, vagrancy and +prostitution tremendously increased, as they always do increase after +two events: war, which, when over, turns into civil life a large number +of men who cannot get work; and panics which chaotically uproot +industrial conditions and bring about widespread destitution. Although +undeniably great frauds had been committed by the banking class, not a +single one of that class went to jail. But large numbers of persons +convicted of crimes against property, and great batches of vagrants were +dispatched there, and also many girls and women who had been hurled by +the iron force of circumstances into the horrible business of +prostitution. + +These were some of the conditions in those years. Let it not, however, +be supposed that the traders, bankers and landowners were impervious to +their own brand of sensibilities. They dressed fastidiously, went to +church, uttered hallelujahs, gave dainty receptions, formed associations +to dole out alms and--kept up prices and rents. Notwithstanding the +general distress, rents in New York City were greater than were paid in +any other city or village upon the globe.[133] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[112] Hammond's "Political History of the State of New York," 1:129-130. + +[113] Journal of the [New York] Senate and Assembly, 1803:351 and 399. + +[114] Ibid., 1812:134. + +[115] Ibid., 1812:259-260. Frequently, in those days, the giving of +presents was a part of corrupt methods. + +[116] "The members [of the Legislature] themselves sometimes +participated in the benefits growing out of charters created by their +own votes; ... if ten banks were chartered at one session, twenty must +be chartered the next, and thirty the next. The cormorants could never +be gorged. If at one session you bought off a pack of greedy lobby +agents ... they returned with increased numbers and more voracious +appetite."--Hammond, ii:447-448. + +[117] Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1824:1317-1350. See also Chap. +VIII, Part II of this work. + +[118] "Letter and Authentic Documentary Evidence in Relation to the +Trinity Church Property," etc., Albany, 1855. Hoffman, the best +authority on the subject, says in his work published forty-five years +ago: "Very extensive searches have proved unavailing to enable me to +trace the sources of the title to much of this upper portion of Trinity +Church property."--"State and Rights of the Corporation of New York," +ii:189. + +[119] In all of the official communications of Trinity Church up to 1867 +this lease is referred to as the "Burr or Astor Lease."--"The +Communication of the Rector, Church Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity +Church in the city of New York in reply to a resolution of the House, +passed March 4, 1854"; Document No. 130, Assembly Docs. 1854. Also +Document No. 45, Senate Docs. 1856. Upon returning from exile Burr tried +to break his lease to Astor, but the lease was so astutely drawn that +the courts decided in Astor's favor. + +[120] In his descriptive work on New York City of a half century ago, +Matthew Hale Smith, in "Sunshine and Shadow in New York" (pp. 121-122), +tells this story: "The Morley [Mortier] lease was to run until 1867. +Persons who took the leases supposed that they took them for the full +term of the Trinity lease. [John Jacob] Astor was too far-sighted and +too shrewd for that. Every lease expired in 1864, leaving him [William +B. Astor, the founder's heir] the reversion for three years, putting him +in possession of all the buildings, and all of the improvements made on +the lots, and giving him the right of renewal." Smith's account is +faulty. Most of the leases expired in 1866. The value of the reversions +was very large. + +[121] Docs. No. 130 [New York] Assembly Docs., 1854:22-23. + +[122] Journal of the [New York] Senate, Forty-second Session, +1819:67-70. + +[123] Doc. No. 108, [New York] Senate Documents, 1834, Vol. ii. The +committee stated that banks in the State outside of New York City, after +paying all expenses, divided 11 per cent. among the stockholders in 1833 +and had on hand as surplus capital 16 per cent. on their capital. New +York City banks paid larger dividends. + +[124] People of the State of New York vs. Manhattan Co.--Doc. No. 62, +Documents of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, 1832-33, Vol. ii. + +[125] Doc. No. 68 [New York] Senate Docs., 1838, Vol. ii. + +[126] Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, +xiii:426-427. + +[127] In the course of this work, the word Government is frequently used +to signify not merely the functions of the National Government, but +those of the totality of Government, State and municipal, not less than +National. + +[128] Doc. No. 49 [New York] Senate Docs., 1838, Vol. ii. + +[129] "On the Penitentiary System in the United States," etc., by G. De +Beaumont and A. De Tocqueville, Appendix 17, Statistical Notes: 244-245. + +[130] A complete error. Walling, for more than thirty years +Superintendent of Police of New York City, says in his "Memoirs" that he +never knew an instance of a rich murderer who was hanged or otherwise +executed. And have we all not noted likewise? + +[131] "On the Penitentiary System," etc., 184-185. + +[132] Prison Association of New York, Annual Reports, 1844-46. It is +characteristic of the origin of all of these charity associations, that +many of the founders of this prison association were some of the very +men who had profited by bribery and theft. Horace Greeley was actuated +by pure humanitarian motives, but such incorporators as Prosper Wetmore, +Ulshoeffer, and others were, or had been, notorious in lobbying by +bribing bank charters through the New York Legislature. + +[133] "The New Yorker," Feb. 17, 1838. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MOMENTUM OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +It was at this identical time, in the panic of 1837, that Astor was +phenominally active in profiting from despair. "He added immensely to +his riches," wrote a contemporaneous narrator, "by purchases of State +stocks, bonds and mortgages in the financial crisis of 1836-37. He was a +willing purchaser of mortgages from needy holders at less than their +face; and when they became due, he foreclosed on them, and purchased the +mortgaged property at the ruinous prices which ranged at that +time."[134] + +If his seven per cent was not paid at the exact time, he inflexibly made +use of every provision of the law and foreclosed mortgages. The courts +quickly responded. To lot after lot, property after property, he took +full title. The anguish of families, the sorrow and suffering of the +community, the blank despair and ruination which drove many to beggary +and prostitution, others to suicide, all had no other effect upon him +than to make him more eagerly energetic in availing himself of the +misfortunes and the tragedies of others. + +Now was observable the operation of the centripetal principle which +applied to every recurring panic, namely, that panics are but the easy +means by which the very rich are enabled to get possession of more and +more of the general produce and property. The ranks of petty landowners +were much thinned out by the panic of 1837 and the number of independent +business men was greatly reduced; a considerable part of both classes +were forced down into the army of wageworkers. + + +ASTOR'S WEALTH MULTIPLIES. + +Within a few years after the panic of 1837 Astor's wealth multiplied to +an enormous extent. Business revived, values increased. It was now that +immigration began to pour in heavily. In 1843 sixty thousand immigrants +entered the port of New York. Four years later the number was 129,000 a +year. Soon it rose to 300,000 a year; and from that time on kept on ever +increasing. A large portion of these immigrants remained in New York +City. Land was in demand as never before; fast and faster the city grew. +Vacant lots of a few years before became congested with packed humanity; +landlordism and slums flourished side by side, the one as a development +of the other. The outlying farm, rocky and swamp lands of the New York +City of 1812, with its 100,000 population became the thickly-settled +metropolis of 1840, with 317,712 inhabitants and the well-nigh +half-million population of 1850. Hard as the laborer might work, he was +generally impoverished for the reason that successively rents were +raised, and he had to yield up more and more of his labor for the simple +privilege of occupying an ugly and cramped habitation. + +Once having fastened his hold upon the land, Astor never sold it. From +the first, he adopted the plan, since religiously followed, for the most +part, by his descendants, of leasing the land for a given number of +years, usually twenty-one. Large tracts of land in the heart of the +city he let lie unimproved for years while the city fast grew up all +around them and enormously increased their value. He often refused to +build, although there was intense pressure for land and buildings. His +policy was to wait until the time when those whom necessity drove to use +his land should come to him as supplicants and accept his own terms. For +a considerable time no one cared to take his land on lease at his +onerous terms. But, finally, such was the growth of population and +business, that his land was indispensable and it was taken on +leaseholds. + +Astor's exactions for leaseholds were extraordinarily burdensome. But he +would make no concessions. The lessee was required to erect his dwelling +or business place at his own expense; and during the period of the +twenty-one years of the lease, he not only had to pay rent in the form +of giving over to Astor five or six per cent of the value of the land, +but was responsible for all taxes, repairs and all other charges. When +the ground lease expired the buildings became Astor's absolute property. +The middleman landlord, speculative lessee or trading tenant who leased +Astor's land and put up tenements or buildings, necessarily had to +recoup himself for the high tribute that he had to pay to Astor. He did +this either by charging the worker exorbitant rents or demanding +excessive profits for his wares; in both of which cases the producers +had finally to foot the bill. + + +EVASION OF ASSESSMENTS BY THE LANDLORDS. + +The whole machinery of the law Astor, in common with all other +landlords, used ruthlessly in enforcing his rights as landlord or as +lessor or lessee. Not a single instance has come down of any act of +leniency on Astor's part in extending the time of tenants in arrears. +Whether sickness was in the tenant's family or not, however dire its +situation might be, out it was summarily thrown into the streets, with +its belongings, if it failed in the slightest in its obligations. + +While he was availing himself of the rigors of the law to oust tenants +in arrears, he was constantly violating the law in evading assessments. +But this practice was not by any means peculiar to Astor. Practically +the whole propertied class did it, not merely once, but so continually +that year after year official reports adverted to the fact. An +Aldermanic report on taxation in 1846 showed that thirty million dollars +worth of assessable property escaped taxation every year, and that no +bona fide efforts were made by the officials to remedy that state of +affairs.[135] The state of morality among the propertied classes--those +classes which demanded such harsh laws for the punishment of vagrants +and poor criminals--is clearly revealed by this report made by a +committee of the New York Board of Aldermen in 1847: + + For several years past the evasion of taxation on the part of + those engaged in the business of the city, and enjoying the + protection and benefits of its municipal government and its great + public improvements, has engaged the attention of the city + authorities, called forth reports of committees and caused + application to the Legislature for relief, but the demands of + justice and the dictates of sound policy have hitherto been + entirely unheeded. + +Necessarily they were unheeded, for the very obvious reason that it was +this same class which controlled the administration of government. This +class distorted the powers of government by calling either for the +drastic enforcement of laws operating for its interests, or for the +partial or entire immunity from other laws militating against its +interests and profit. The report thus continued: + + Our rich merchants and heavy capitalists ... find excuses to + remove their families to nearby points and thus escape all + taxation whatever, except for the premises that they occupy. _More + than 2,000 firms engaged in business_ in New York, whose capital + is invested and used in New York, and with an aggregate personal + property of $30,000,000, thus escape taxation.[136] + + +DEFRAUDING A FINE ART. + +The committee pointed out that at the taxable rate of 1 per cent the +city was, in that way, being cheated out of the sum of $225,000 or +$300,000 a year. These two thousand firms who every year defrauded the +city were the eminently respectable and influential merchants of the +city; most of them were devout church members; many were directors or +members of charitable societies to relieve the poor; and all of them, +with vast pretensions of superior character and ability, joined in +opposing any movement of the working classes for better conditions and +in denouncing those movements as hostile to the security of property and +as dangerous to the welfare of society. Each of these two thousand firms +year after year defrauded the city out of an average of $150 annually in +that one item, not to mention other frauds. Yet not once was the law +invoked against them. The taxation that they shirked fell upon the +working class in addition to all of those other myriad forms of indirect +taxation which the workers finally had to bear. Yet, as we have noted +before, if a poor man or woman stole property of the value of $25 or +more, conviction carried with it a long term in prison for grand +larceny. In every city--in Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Baltimore, +New Orleans and in every other place--the same, or nearly the same, +conditions prevailed. The rich evaded taxation; and if in the process it +was necessary to perjure themselves, they committed perjury with +alacrity. Astor was far from being an exception. He was but an +illustrious type of the whole of his class. + +But, how, in a Government theoretically democratic and resting on +popular suffrage, did the propertied interests get control of Government +functions? How were they able to sway the popular vote and make, or +evade, laws? + +By various influences and methods. In the first place, the old English +ideas of the superiority of aristocracy had a profound effect upon +American thought, customs and laws. For centuries these ideas had been +incessantly disseminated by preachers, pamphleteers, politicians, +political economists and editors. Where in England the concept applied +mainly to rank by birth, in America it was adapted to the native +aristocracy, the traders and landowners. In England it was an admixture +of rank and property; in America, where no titles of nobility existed, +it became exclusively a token of the propertied class. The people were +assiduously taught in many open and subtle ways to look up to the +inviolability of property, just as in the old days they had been taught +to look humbly up to the majesty of the king. Propertied men, it was +preached and admonished, represented the worth, stability, virtue and +intelligence of the community. They were the solid, substantial men. +What importance was to be attached to the propertyless? They, forsooth, +were regarded as irresponsible and vulgar; their opinions and +aspirations were held of small account. + + +HOW PUBLIC OPINION WAS MADE. + +The churches professed to preach to all; yet they depended largely upon +men of property for contributions; and moreover the clergy, at least the +influential of them, were propertied men themselves. The preachings of +the colleges and the doctrines of the political economists corresponded +precisely to the views the trading interests at different periods wanted +taught. Many of the colleges were founded with funds contributed or +bequeathed by traders. The newspapers were supported by the +advertisements of the propertied class. The various legislative bodies +were mainly, and the judicial benches wholly, recruited from the ranks +of the lawyer class; these lawyers either had, or sought to have, the +rich as clients;[137] few attorneys are overzealous for poor men's +cases. Still further, the lawyers were deeply impregnated, not with the +conception of law as it might be, but as it had been handed down through +the centuries. Encrusted creatures of precedent and self-interest, they +thoroughly accepted the doctrine that in the making and enforcement of +law their concern should be for the propertied interests. With few +exceptions they were aligned with the propertied. + +So that here were many influences all of which conspired to spread on +every hand, and drill deep in the minds of all classes, often even of +those who suffered so keenly by prevalent conditions, the idea that the +propertied men were the substantial element. Consequently with this idea +continuously driven into every stratum of society, it was not surprising +that it should be embodied in thoughts, customs, laws and tendencies. +Nor was it to be wondered at that when occasionally a proletarian +uprising enunciated radical principles, these principles should seem to +be abnormally ultra-revolutionary. All society, for the most part, +except a fragment of the working class, was enthralled by the spell of +property. + + +THE SANCTITY OF PROPERTY. + +Out of this prevailing idea grew many of the interpretations and partial +enforcements. A legislator, magistrate or judge might be the very +opposite of venal, and yet be irresistibly impelled by the force of +training and association to take the current view of the unassailable +rights and superiority of property. It would be biassed, in fact, +ridiculous to say that the privileges and exemptions enjoyed by the rich +were altogether the outcome of corruption by bribes. There is a much +more subtle and far more effective and dangerous form of corruption. +This is corruption of the mind. For innumerable centuries all government +had proceeded, perhaps not avowedly, but in reality, upon the settled +and consistent principle that the sanctity of property was superior to +considerations of human life, and that a man of property could not very +well be a criminal and a peril to the community. Under various disguises +church, college, newspaper, politician, judge, all were expositors of +this principle. + +The people were drugged with laudations of property. But these teachings +were supplemented by other methods which added to their effectiveness. +We have seen how after the Revolution the propertied classes withheld +suffrage from those who lacked property. They feared that property would +no longer be able to dominate Government. Gradually they were forced to +yield to the popular demand and allow manhood suffrage. This seemed to +them a new and affrighting force; if votes were to determine the +personnel and policy of Government, then the propertyless, being in the +majority, would overwhelm them eventually and pass an entirely new code +of laws. + +In one State after another, the propertied class were driven, after a +prolonged struggle, to grant citizens a vote, whether they had property +or not. In New York State unqualified manhood suffrage was adopted in +1822, but in other States it was more difficult to bring about this +revolutionary change. The fundamental suffrage law of New Jersey, for +instance, remained, for more than sixty years after the adoption of the +Declaration of Independence, in accordance with an act passed by the +Provincial Congress of New Jersey on July 2, 1776, two days before the +adoption of the Declaration of Independence, or according to some +authorities, on the very day of its adoption. Among other requirements +this act (1 Laws, N. J. p. 4.) decreed that the voter must be "worth £50 +proclamation money, clear estate within the colony." The fourth section +of an act passed by the New Jersey Legislature in June, 1820 (1 Laws +N. J. p. 741), expressly reenacted this same property qualification. By +about the year 1840, however, nearly all the States had adopted manhood +suffrage, so far as it applied to whites. The severest and most dramatic +conflict took place in Rhode Island. In 1762 an act had been passed +declaring that the possession of £40 was necessary to become qualified +as a voter. This law continued in force in Rhode Island for more than +eighty years. In the years 1811, 1819, 1824, 1829, 1832 and 1834 the +workingmen (or the mechanics, as the official reports styled them), made +the most determined efforts to have this property qualification +abolished, but the propertied classes, holding the legislative power, +declined to make any change. Under such a law it was easy for one-third +of the total number of resident male adults to have the exclusive +decisions in elections; the largest vote ever polled in Rhode Island, +was in the Presidential election of 1840, when 8,662 votes were cast, in +a total adult male population of permanent resident citizens of about +24,000. The result of this hostility of the propertied classes was a +rising in 1840 of the workingmen in what is slurringly misdescribed in +conventional history as "Dorr's Rebellion,"--an event the real history +of which has not as yet been told. This movement eventually compelled +the introduction in Rhode Island of suffrage without the property +qualification. + +How did the propertied classes meet this extension of suffrage +throughout the United States? + + +CORRUPTION AT THE POLLS. + +A systematic corruption of the voters was now begun. The policy of +bribing certain legislators to vote for bank, railroad, insurance +company and other charters was extended to reach down into ward +politics, and to corrupt the voters at the springs of power. With a +part of the money made in the frauds of trade or from exactions for +land, the propertied interests, operating at first by personal entry +into politics and then through the petty politicians of the day, packed +caucuses and primaries and bought votes at the polls. This was equally +true of both city and rural communities. In many of the rural sections +the morals of the people were exceedingly low, despite their +church-going habits. The cities contained, as they always do contain, a +certain quota of men, products of the industrial system, men of the +slums and alleyways, so far gone in destitution or liquor that they no +longer had manhood or principle. Along came the election funds of the +traders, landholders and bankers to corrupt these men still further by +the buying of their votes and the inciting of them to commit the crime +of repeating at the polls. Exalted society and the slums began to work +together; the money of the one purchased the votes of the other. Year +after year this corruption fund increased until in the fall of 1837 the +money raised in New York City by the bankers alone amounted to $60,000. +Although this sum was meager compared to the enormous corruption funds +which were employed in subsequent years, it was a sum which, at that +time, could do great execution. Ignorant immigrants were persuaded by +offerings of money to vote this way or that and to repeat their votes. +Presently the time came when batches of convicts were brought from the +prisons to do repeating, and overawe the polls in many precincts.[138] + +As for that class of voters who could not be bribed and who voted +according to their conceptions of the issues involved, they were +influenced in many ways:--by the partisan arguments of newspapers and of +political speech-makers. These agencies of influencing the body politic +were indirectly controlled by the propertied interests in one form or +another. A virtual censorship was exercised by wealth; if a newspaper +dared advocate any issue not approved by the vested interests, it at +once felt the resentment of that class in the withdrawal of +advertisements and of those privileges which banks could use or abuse +with such ruinous effect. + + +POLITICAL SUBSERVIENCY. + +Finally, both of the powerful political parties were under the +domination of wealth; not, to be sure, openly so, but insidiously. +Differences of issue there assuredly were, but these issues did not in +any way affect the basic structure of society, or threaten the overthrow +of any of the fundamental privileges held by the rich. The political +campaigns, except that later contest which decided the eventual fate of +chattel slavery, were, in actuality, sham battles. Never were the masses +so enthusiastic since the campaign of 1800 when Jefferson was elected, +as they were in 1832 when they sided with President Jackson in his fight +against the United States Bank. They considered this contest as one +between the people, on the one side, and, on the other, the monied +aristocracy of the country. The United States Bank was effaced; but the +State banks promptly took over that share of the exploitative process so +long carried on by the United States Bank and the people, as has already +been explained, were no better off than they were before. One set of +ruling capitalists had been put down only to make way for another. + +Both parties received the greater part of their campaign funds from the +men of large property and from the vested corporations or other similar +interests. Astor, for example, was always a liberal contributor, now to +the Whig party and again to the Democratic. In return, the politicians +elected by those parties to the legislature, the courts or to +administrative offices usually considered themselves under obligations +to that element which financed its campaigns and which had the power of +defeating their reëlection by the refusal of funds or by supporting the +opposite party. The masses of the people were simply pawns in these +political contests, yet few of them understood that all the excitement, +partisan activity and enthusiasm into which they threw themselves, +generally had no other significance than to enchain them still faster to +a system whose beneficiaries were continuously getting more and more +rights and privileges for themselves at the expense of the people, and +whose wealth was consequently increasing by precipitate bounds. + + +ASTOR BECOMES AMERICA'S RICHEST MAN. + +Astor was now the richest man in America. In 1847 his fortune was +estimated at fully $20,000,000. In all the length and breadth of the +United States there was no man whose fortune was within even +approachable distance of his. With wonderment his contemporaries +regarded its magnitude. How great it ranked at that period may be seen +by a contrast with the wealth of other men who were considered very +rich. + +In 1847 and 1852 a pamphlet listing the number of rich men in New York +was published under the direction of Moses Yale Beach, publisher of the +"New York Sun." The contents of this pamphlet were vouched for as +strictly accurate.[139] The pamphlet showed that there were at that time +perhaps twenty-five men in New York City who were ranked as +millionaires. The most prominent of these were Peter Cooper with an +accredited fortune of $1,000,000; the Goelets, $2,000,000; the +Lorillards, $1,000,000; Moses Taylor, $1,000,000; A. T. Stewart, +$2,000,000; Cornelius Vanderbilt, $1,500,000, and William B. Crosby, +$1,500,000. There were a few fortunes of $500,000 each, and several +hundred ranging from $100,000 to $300,000. The average fortunes graded +from $100,000 to $200,000. A similar pamphlet published in Philadelphia +showed that that city contained a bevy of nine millionaires, only two of +whose individual fortunes exceeded $1,000,000.[140] No facts are +available as to the private fortunes in Boston and other cities. +Occasionally the briefest mention would appear in the almanacs of the +period of the death of this or that rich man. There is a record of the +death of Alexander Milne, of New Orleans, in 1838 and of his bequest of +$200,000 to charitable institutions, and of the death of M. Kohne, of +Charleston, S. C., in the same year with the sole fact that he left +$730,000 in charitable bequests. In 1841 there appeared a line that +Nicholas Girod, of New Orleans, died leaving $400,000 to "various +objects," and a scant notice of the death of William Bartlett, of +Newburyport, Mass., coupled with the fact that he left $200,000 to +Andover Seminary. It is entirely probable that none of these men were +millionaires; otherwise the fact would have been brought out +conspicuously. Thus, when Pierre Lorillard, a New York snuff maker, +banker, and landholder, died in 1843, his fortune of $1,000,000 or so, +was considered so unusual that the word millionaire, newly-coined, was +italicized in the rounds of the press. Similarly in the case of Jacob +Ridgeway, a Philadelphia millionaire, who died in the same year. + +The passing away now of a man worth a mere million, calls forth but a +trifling, passing notice. Yet when Henry Brevoort died in New York City +in 1848, his demise was accounted an event in the annals of the day. His +property was estimated at a valuation of about $1,000,000, the chief +source of which came from the ownership of eleven acres of land in the +heart of the city. Originally his ancestors cultivated a truck farm and +ran a dairy on this land, and daily in the season carried vegetables, +butter and milk to market. Brevoort, the newspaper biography read, was a +"man of fine taste in painting, literature and intellectual pursuits of +every kind. He owned a large property in the fashionable part of the +city, where he erected a splendid house, elegantly adorned and furnished +in the Italian style; for he was quite a connoisseur in the arts." + +It can be at once seen in what transcendent degree Astor's wealth +towered far above that of every other rich man in the United States. + + +ASTOR'S TOWERING WEALTH. + +His fortune was the colossus of the times; an object of awe to all +wealth-strivers. Necessary as manufactures were in the social and +industrial system, they, as yet, occupied a strikingly subordinate and +inferior position as an agency in accumulating great fortunes. +Statistics issued in 1844 of manufactures in the United States showed a +total gross amount of $307,196,844 invested. Astor's wealth, then, was +one-fifteenth of the whole amount invested throughout the territory of +the United States in cotton and wool, leather, flax and iron, glass, +sugar, furniture, hats, silks, ships, paper, soap, candles, wagons--in +every kind of goods which the demands of civilization made +indispensable. + +The last years of this magnate were passed in an atmosphere of luxury, +laudation and power. On Broadway, by Prince street, he built a +pretentious mansion, and adorned it with works of art which were more +costly than artistic. Of medium height, he was still quite stout, but +his once full, heavy face and his deep set eyes began to sag from the +encroachments of extreme advanced age. He could be seen every weekday +poring over business reports at his office on Prince street--a +one-story, fireproof brick building, the windows of which were guarded +by heavy iron bars. The closing weeks of his life were passed at his +country seat at Eighty-eighth street and the East River. Infirm and +debilitated, so weak and worn that he was forced to get his nourishment +like an infant at a woman's breast, and to have exercise administered by +being tossed in a blanket, he yet retained his faculty of vigilantly +scrutinizing every arrear on the part of tenants, and he compelled his +agent to render daily accounts. Parton relates this story: + + One morning this gentleman [the agent] chanced to enter his room + while he was enjoying his blanket exercise. The old man cried out + from the middle of his blanket: + + "Has Mrs. ---- paid that rent yet?" + + "No," replied the agent. + + "Well, but she must pay it," said the poor old man. + + "Mr. Astor," rejoined the agent, "she can't pay it now; she has + had misfortunes, and we must give her time." + + "No, no," said Astor; "I tell you she can pay it and she will pay + it. You don't go the right way to work with her." + + The agent took leave, and mentioned the anxiety of the old + gentleman with regard to this unpaid rent to his son, who counted + out the requisite sum, and told the agent to give it to the old + man, as if he had received it from the tenant. + + "There," exclaimed Mr. Astor when he received the money. "I told + you that she would pay it if you went the right way to work with + her."[141] + + +THE DEATH OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. + +So, to the last breath, squeezing arrears out of tenants; his mind +focused upon those sordid methods which had long since become a religion +to him; contemplating the long list of his possessions with a radiant +exaltation; so Astor passed away. He died on March 29, 1848, aged +eighty-four years, four months; and almost as he died, the jubilant +shouts of the enthusiastic workingmen's processions throughout the city +resounded high and often. They were celebrating the French Revolution of +1848, intelligence of which had just arrived;--a Revolution brought +about by the blood of the Parisian workingmen, only to be subsequently +stifled by the stratagems of the bourgeoisie and turned into the +corrupt despotism of Napoleon III. + +The old trader left an estate valued at about $20,000,000. The bulk of +this descended to William B. Astor. The extent of wealth disclosed by +the will made a profound impression. Never had so rich a man passed +away; the public mind was not accustomed to the sight of millions of +dollars being owned by one man. One New York newspaper, the "Journal," +after stating that Astor's personal estate amounted to seven or nine +million dollars, and his real estate to perhaps more, observed: "Either +sum is quite out of our small comprehension; and we presume that with +most men, the idea of one million is about as large an item as that of +any number of millions." An entirely different and exceptional view was +taken by James Gordon Bennett, owner and editor of the New York +"Herald;" Bennett's comments were the one distinct contrast to the mass +of flowery praise lavished upon Astor's memory and deeds. He thus +expressed himself in the issue of April 5, 1848: + + We give in our columns an authentic copy of one of the greatest + curiosities of the age--the will of John Jacob Astor, disposing of + property amounting to about twenty million dollars, among his + various descendants of the first, second, third, and fourth + degrees.... If we had been an associate of John Jacob Astor ... + the first idea that we should have put into his head would have + been that _one-half of his immense property--ten millions at + least--belonged to the people of the city of New York_. During the + last fifty years of the life of John Jacob Astor, his property has + been augmented and increased in value by the aggregate + intelligence, industry, enterprise and commerce of New York, fully + to the amount of one-half its value. The farms and lots of ground + which he bought forty, twenty and ten and five years ago, have all + increased in value entirely by the industry of the citizens of New + York. Of course, it is plain as that two and two make four, that + the half of his immense estate, in its actual value, has accrued + to him by the industry of the community. + + +THE WONDER OF THE AGE. + +The analyst might well be tempted to smile at the puerility of this +logic. If Astor was entitled to one-half of the value created by the +collective industry of the community, why was he not entitled to all? +Why make the artificial division of one-half? Either he had the right to +all or to none. But this editorial, for all its defects of reasoning, +was an unusual expression of newspaper opinion, although of a single +day, and was smothered by the general course of that same newspaper in +supporting the laws and institutions demanded by the commercial +aristocracy. + +So the arch multimillionaire passed away, the wonder and the emulation +of the age. His friends, of whom he had a few, deeply mourned him, and +his bereaved family suffered a deep loss, for, it is related, he was a +kind and indulgent husband and father. He left a legacy of $400,000 for +the establishment of the Astor Library; for this and this alone his +memory has been preserved as that of a philanthropist. The announcement +of this legacy was hailed with extravagant joy; yet such is the value of +meretricious glory and the ideals of present society, that none has +remarked that the proceeds of one year's pillage of the Indians were +more than sufficient to found this much-praised benevolence. Thus does +society blind itself to the origin of the fortunes, a fraction of which +goes to gratify it with gifts. The whole is taken from the collective +labor of the people, and then a part is returned in the form of +institutional presents which are in reality bits of charity bestowed +upon the very people from whose exploitation the money has come. Astor, +no doubt, thought that, in providing for a public library, he was doing +a service to mankind; and he must be judged, not according to the +precepts and demands of the scarcely heard working class of his day with +its altruistic aspirations, nor of more advanced present ideas, but by +the standards of his own class, that commercial aristocracy which +arrogated to itself superiority of aims and infallibility of methods. + +He died the richest man of his day. But vast fortunes could not be +heaped up by him and his contemporaries without having their +corresponding effect upon the mass of the people. What was this effect? +At about the time that he died there was in New York City one pauper to +every one hundred and twenty-five inhabitants and one person in every +eighty-three of the population had to be supported at the public +expense.[142] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[134] "Reminiscences of John Jacob Astor," New York "Herald," March 31, +1848. + +[135] Doc. No. 24, Proceedings of the [New York City] Board of Assistant +Aldermen, xxix. The Merchant's Bank, for instance, was assessed in 1833 +at $6,000; it had cost that sum twenty years before and in 1833 was +worth three times as much. + +[136] Proceedings of the [New York City] Board of Assistant Aldermen, +xxix, Doc. No. 18. + +[137] Many eminent lawyers, elected or appointed to high official or +judicial office, were financially interested in corporations, and very +often profited in dubious ways. The case of Roger B. Taney, who, from +1836, was for many years, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the +United States, is a conspicuous example. After he was appointed United +States Secretary of the Treasury in 1833, the United States Senate +passed a resolution inquiring of him whether he were not a stockholder +in the Union Bank of Maryland, in which bank he had ordered public funds +deposited. He admitted that he was, but asserted that he had obtained +the stock before he had selected that bank as a depository of public +funds. (See Senate Docs., First Session, 23rd Congress, Vol. iii, Doc. +No. 238.) It was Taney, who as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the +United States, handed down the decision, in the Dred Scott case, that +negro slaves, under the United States Constitution, were not eligible to +citizenship and were without civil rights. + +[138] These frauds at the polls went on, not only in every State but +even in such newly-organized Territories as New Mexico. Many facts were +brought out by contestants before committees of Congress. (See +"Contested Elections," 1834 to 1865, Second Session, 38th Congress, +1864-65, Vol. v, Doc. No. 57.) In the case of Monroe vs. Jackson, in +1848, James Monroe claimed that his opponent was illegally elected by +the votes of convicts and other non-voters brought over from Blackwell's +Island. The majority of the House Elections Committee reported favoring +Monroe's being seated. Aldermanic documents tell likewise of the same +state of affairs in New York. (See the author's "History of Tammany +Hall.") Similar practices were common in Philadelphia, Baltimore and +other cities, and in country townships. + +[139] "The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the City of +New York." By Moses Yale Beach. + +[140] "Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of Philadelphia." By +a Member of the Philadelphia Bar, 1845. + +The misconception which often exists even among those who profess the +deepest scholarship and the most certainty of opinion as to the +development of men of great wealth was instanced by a misstatement of +Dr. Felix Adler, leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. In +an address on "Anti-Democratic Tendencies in American Life" delivered +some years ago, Dr. Adler asserted: "Before the Civil War there were +three millionaires; now there are 4,000." The error of this assertion is +evident. + +[141] Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":80-81. + +[142] Proceedings of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, xxix, Doc. No. 24. +This poverty was the consequence, not of any one phase of the existing +system, nor of the growth of any one fortune, but resulted from the +whole industrial system. The chief form of the exploitation of the +worker was that of his capacity as a producer; other forms completed the +process. A considerable number of the paupers were immigrants, who, +fleeing from exploitation at home, were kept in poverty in America, "the +land of boundless resources." The statement often made that there were +no tramps in the United States before the Civil War is wholly incorrect. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PROPULSION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +At the time of his father's death, William B. Astor, the chief heir of +John Jacob Astor's twenty million dollars, was fifty-six years old. A +tall, ponderous man, his eyes were small, contracted, with a rather +vacuous look, and his face was sluggish and unimpressionable. Extremely +unsocial and taciturn, he never betrayed emotion and generally was +destitute of feeling. He took delight in affecting a carelessly-dressed, +slouchy appearance as though deliberately notifying all concerned that +one with such wealth as he was privileged to ignore the formulas of +punctilious society. In this slovenly, stoop-shouldered man with his +cold, abstracted air no one would have detected the richest man in +America. + +Acquisitiveness was his most marked characteristic. Even before his +father's death he had amassed a fortune of his own by land speculations +and banking connections, and he had inherited $500,000 from his uncle +Henry, a butcher on the Bowery. It was said in 1846 that he possessed an +individual fortune of $5,000,000. During the last years of his father he +had been president of the American Fur Co., and he otherwise knew every +detail of his father's multifarious interests and possessions. + + +WILLIAM B. ASTOR'S PARSIMONY. + +He lived in what was considered a fine mansion on Lafayette place, +adjoining the Astor Library. The sideboards were heaped with gold plate, +and polyglot servants in livery stood obediently by at all times to +respond to his merest nod. But he cared little for this show, except in +that it surrounded him with an atmosphere of power. His frugality did +not arise from wise self-control, but from his parsimonious habits. He +scanned and revised the smallest item of expense. Wine he seldom +touched, and the average merchant spent more for his wardrobe than he +did. At a time when the rich despised walking and rode in carriages +drawn by fast horses, he walked to and from his business errands. This +severe economy he not only practiced in his own house, but he carried it +into every detail of his business. Arising early in the morning, he +attended to his private correspondence before breakfast. This meal was +served punctually at 9 o'clock. Then he would stride to his office on +Prince street. A contemporary writer says of him: + + He knew every inch of real estate that stood in his name, every + bond, contract and lease. He knew what was due when leases + expired, and attended personally to the matter. No tenants could + expend a dollar, or put in a pane of glass without his personal + inspection. His father sold him the Astor House [an hotel] for the + sum of one dollar. The lessees were not allowed to spend one cent + on the building, without his supervision and consent, unless they + paid for it themselves. + + In the upper part of New York hundreds of lots can be seen + enclosed by dilapidated fences, disfigured by rocks and waste + material, or occupied as [truck] gardens. They are eligibly + located, many of them surrounded by a fashionable population.... + Mr. Astor owned most of these corner lots but kept the corners for + a rise. He would neither sell nor improve them.... He knew that no + parties can improve the center of a block without benefiting the + corners. + + He was sombre and solitary, dwelt alone, mixed little with general + society, gave little and abhorred beggars.[143] + +It was a common saying of him "when he paid out a cent he wanted a cent +in return;" and as to his abject meannesses we forbear relating the many +stories of him. He pursued, in every respect, his father's methods in +using the powers of city government to obtain valuable water grants for +substantially nothing, and in employing his surplus wealth for further +purchases of land and in investments in other profitable channels. No +scruples of any kind did he allow to interfere with his constant aim of +increasing his fortune. His indifference to compunctions was shown in +many ways, not the least in his open support of notoriously corrupt city +and State administrations. + +This corruption was by no means one existing despite him and his class, +and one that was therefore accepted grudgingly as an irremediable evil. +Far from it. Corrupt government was welcomed by the landholding, trading +and banking class, for by it they could secure with greater facility the +perpetual rights, franchises, privileges and the exemptions which were +adapted to their expanding aims and riches. By means of it they were not +only enabled to pile up greater and greater wealth, but to set +themselves up in law as a conspicuously privileged body, distinct from +the mass of the people. + + +THE PURCHASE OF LAWS. + +Publicly they might pretend a proper and ostentatious horror of +corruption. Secretly, however, they quickly dispensed with what were to +them idle dronings of political cant. As capitalists they ascribed their +success to a rigid application and practicality; and being practical +they went about purchasing laws by the most short-cut and economical +method. They had the money; the office-holders had the votes and +governmental power; consequently the one bought the other. It was a +systematic corruption springing entirely from the propertied classes; +they demanded it, were responsible for it and kept it up. It worked like +an endless chain; the land, charters, franchises and privileges +corruptly obtained in one set of years yielded vast wealth, part of +which was used in succeeding years in getting more law-created sources +of wealth. If professional politicians had long since got into the habit +of expecting to be bought, it was because the landholders, traders and +bankers had accustomed them to the lucrative business of getting bribes +in return for extraordinary laws. + +Since the men of wealth, or embryo capitalists who by hook or crook +raised the funds to bribe, were themselves ready at all times to buy +laws in common councils, legislatures and in Congress, it naturally +followed that each of them was fully as eager to participate in the +immense profits accruing from charters, franchises or special grants +obtained by others of their own class. They never questioned the means +by which these laws were put through. They did not care. The mere fact +that a franchise was put through by bribery was a trite, immaterial +circumstance. The sole, penetrating question was whether it were a +profitable project. If it were, no man of wealth hesitated in investing +his money in its stock and in sharing its revenue. It could not be +expected that he would feel moral objections, even the most attenuated, +for the chances were that while he might not have been a party to the +corrupt obtaining of this or that particular franchise, yet he was +involved in the grants of other special endowments. Moreover, money +making was not built on morality; its whole foundation and impetus lay +in the extraction of profits. Society, it is true, professed to move on +lofty moral planes, but this was a colossal pretension and nothing less. + + +THE INVERTED NATURE OF SOCIETY. + +Society--and this is a truth which held equally strong of succeeding +decades--was incongruously inverted. In saying this, the fact should not +be ignored that the capitalist, as applied to the man who ran a factory +or other enterprise, was an indigenous factor in that period, even +although the money or inventions by which he was able to do this, were +often obtained by fraud. Every needed qualification must be made for the +time and the environment, and there should be neither haste in +indiscriminately condemning nor in judging by the standards or maturity +of later generations. + +Yet, viewing society as a whole and measuring the results by the +standards and ideas then prevailing, it was undoubtedly true that those +who did the world's real services were the lowly, despoiled and much +discriminated-against mass of mankind. Their very poverty was a crime, +for after they were plundered and expropriated, either by the ruling +classes of their own country or of the United States, the laws regarded +them as semi-criminals, or, at best, as excrescences to whom short +shrift was to be given. They made the clothes, the shoes, hats, shirts, +underwear, tools, and all the other necessities that mankind required; +they tilled the ground and produced its food. Curiously enough, those +who did these indispensable things were condemned by the encompassing +system to live in the poorest and meanest habitations and in the most +precarious uncertainty. When sick, disabled or superannuated they were +cast aside by the capitalist class as so much discarded material to eke +out a prolonged misery of existence, to be thrown in penal institutions +or to starve. Substantially everywhere in the United States, vagrancy +laws were in force which decreed that an able-bodied man out of work and +homeless must be adjudged a vagrant and imprisoned in the workhouse or +penetentiary. The very law-making institutions that gave to a privileged +few the right to expropriate the property of the many, drastically +plunged the many down still further after this process of spoliation, +like a man who is waylaid and robbed and then arrested and imprisoned +because he has been robbed. + +On the other hand, the class which had the money, no matter how that +money was gotten, irrespective of how much fraud or sacrifice of life +attended its amassing, stood out with a luminous distinctness. It +arrogated to itself all that was superior, and it exacted, and was +invested with, a lordly deference. It lived in the finest mansions and +laved in luxuries. Surrounded with an indescribably pretentious air of +importance, it radiated tone, command and prestige. + +But, such was the destructive, intestinal character of competitive +warfare, that even this class was continually in the throes of +convulsive struggles. Each had to fight, not merely to get the wealth of +others, but to keep what he already possessed. If he could but frustrate +the attempts of competitors to take what he had, he was fortunate. As he +preyed upon the laborer, so did the rest of his class seek to prey upon +him. If he were less able, less cunning, or more scrupulous than they, +his ruination was certain. It was a system in which all methods were +gauged not by the best but by the worst. Thus it was that many +capitalists, at heart good men, kindly disposed and innately opposed to +duplicity and fraud, were compelled to adopt the methods of their more +successful but thoroughly unprincipled competitors. And, indeed, +realizing the impregnating nature of example and environment, one cannot +but conclude that the tragedies of the capitalist class represented so +many victims of the competitive system, the same as those among the +wageworkers, although in a very different way. Yet in this bewildering +jumble of fortune-snatching, an extraordinary circumstance failed to +impress itself upon the class which took over to itself the claim to +superior intelligence and virtue. The workers, for the most part, +instinctively, morally and intellectually, knew that this system was +wrong, a horror and a nightmare. But even the capitalist victims of the +competitive struggle, which awarded supremacy to the knave and the +trickster, went to their doom praising it as the only civilized, +rational system and as unchangeable and even divinely ordained. + + +THE PREVAILING CORRUPTION. + +If corruption was flagrant in the early decades of the nineteenth +century, it was triply so in the middle decades. This was the period of +all periods when common councils all over the country were being bribed +to give franchises for various public utility systems, and legislatures +and Congress for charters, land, money, and laws for a great number of +railroad and other projects. The numerous specific instances cannot be +adverted to here; they will be described more appropriately in +subsequent parts of this work. For the present, let this general and +sweeping observation suffice. + +The important point which here obtrudes itself is that in every case, +without an exception, the wealth amassed by fraud was used in turn to +put through more frauds, and that the net accumulation of these +successive frauds is seen in the great private fortunes of to-day. We +have seen how the original Astor fortune was largely derived by the use +of both force and fraud among the Indians, and by the exercise of +cunning and corruption in the East. John Jacob Astor's immense wealth +descends mostly to William B. Astor. In turn, one of the third +generation, John Jacob Astor, Jr., representing his father, William B. +Astor, uses a portion of this wealth in becoming a large stockholder in +the New York Central Railroad, and in corrupting the New York +Legislature still further to give enormously valuable grants and special +laws with incalculably valuable exemptions to that railroad. John Jacob +Astor, Jr., never built a railroad in his life; he knew nothing about +railroads; but by virtue of the possession of large surplus wealth, +derived mainly from rents, he was enabled to buy enough of the stock to +make him rank as a large stockholder. And, then, he with the other +stockholders, bribed the Legislature for the passage of more laws which +enormously increased the value of their stock. + +It is altogether clear from the investigations and records of the time +that the New York Central Railroad was one of the most industrious +corrupters of legislatures in the country, although this is not saying +much in dealing with a period when every State Legislature, none +excepted, was making gifts of public property and of laws in return for +bribes, and when Congress, as was proved in official investigations, was +prodigal in doing likewise.[144] + +In the fourteen years up to 1867, the New York Central Railroad +had spent upward of a half million dollars in buying laws at Albany and +in "protecting its stockholders against injurious legislation." As one +of the largest stockholders in the road John Jacob Astor, Jr., certainly +must have been one of the masked parties to this continuous saturnalia +of corruption. But the corruption, bad as it was, that took place before +1867, was rather insignificant compared to the eruption in the years +1868 and 1869. And here is to be noted a significant episode which fully +reveals how the capitalist class is ever willing to turn over the +managing of its property to men of its own class who have proved +themselves masters of the art either of corrupting public bodies, or of +making that property yield still greater profits. + + +BRIBERY AND BUSINESS. + +In control of the New York and Harlem Railroad, Cornelius Vanderbilt had +showed what a remarkably successful magnate he was in deluging +legislatures and common councils with bribe money and in getting corrupt +gifts of franchises and laws worth many hundreds of millions of dollars. +For a while the New York Central fought him; it bribed where he bribed; +when he intimidated, it intimidated. But Vanderbilt was, by far, the +abler of the two contending forces. Finally the stockholders decided +that he was the man to run their system; and on Nov. 12, 1867, John +Jacob Astor, Jr., Edward Cunard, John Steward and others, representing +more than thirteen million dollars of stock, turned the New York Central +over to Vanderbilt's management on the ground, as their letter set +forth, that the change would result in larger dividends to the +stockholders and (this bit of cant was gratuitously thrown in) "greatly +promote the interests of the public." In closing, they wrote to +Vanderbilt of "your great and acknowledged abilities." No sooner had +Vanderbilt been put in control than these abilities were preëminently +displayed by such an amazing reign of corruption and exaction, that even +a public cynically habituated to bribery and arbitrary methods, was +profoundly stirred.[145] + +It was in these identical years that the Astors, the Goelets, the +Rhinelanders and many other landholders and merchants were getting more +water grants by collusion with the various corrupt city administrations. +On June 14, 1850, William B. Astor gets a grant of land under water for +the block between Twelfth and Thirteenth streets, on the Hudson River, +at the ridiculous price of $13 per running foot.[146] William E. Dodge +likewise gets a grant on the Hudson River. Public opinion severely +condemned this practical giving away of city property, and a special +committee of the Board of Councilmen was moved to report on May 15, +1854, that "the practice of selling city property, except where it is in +evidence that it cannot be put to public use, is an error in finance +that has prevailed too frequently; indeed the experience of about eleven +years has demonstrated that sales of property usually take place about +the time it is likely to be needed for public uses, or on the eve of a +rise in value. Every pier, bulkhead and slip should have continued to be +the property of the city...."[147] + + +WATER GRANTS FROM TWEED. + +But when the Tweed "ring" came into complete power, with its unbridled +policy of accommodating anyone who could pay bribes enough, the +landowners and merchants rushed to get water grants among other special +privileges. On Dec. 27, 1865, William C. Rhinelander was presented with +a grant of land under water from Ninety-first to Ninety-fourth street, +East River.[148] On March 21, 1867, Peter Goelet obtained from the +Sinking Fund Commissioners a grant of land under water on the East River +in front of land owned by him between Eighty-first street and +Eighty-second street. The price asked was the insignificant one of $75 a +running foot.[149] The officials who made this grant were the +Controller, Richard B. Connolly, and the Street Commissioner, George W. +McLean, both of whom were arch accomplices of William M. Tweed and were +deeply involved in the gigantic thefts of the Tweed ring. The same band +of officials gave to Mrs. Laura A. Delano, a daughter of William B. +Astor, a grant from Fifty-fifth to Fifty-seventh street, Hudson River, +at $200 per running foot, and on May 21, 1867, a grant to John Jacob +Astor, Jr., of lands under water between Forty-ninth and Fifty-first +streets, Hudson River, for the trivial sum of $75 per running foot. Many +other grants were given at the same time. The public, used as it was to +corrupt government, could not stomach this granting of valuable city +property for virtually nothing. The severe criticism which resulted +caused the city officials to bend before the storm, especially as they +did not care to imperil their other much greater thefts for the sake of +these minor ones. Many of the grants were never finally issued; and +after the Tweed "ring" was expelled from power, the Commissioners of the +Sinking Fund on Feb. 28, 1882, were compelled by public agitation to +rescind most of them.[150] The grant issued to Rhinelander in 1865, +however, was one of those which was never rescinded. + +During its control of the city administration from 1868 to 1871 alone, +the Tweed "ring" stole directly from the city and county of New York a +sum estimated from $45,000,000 to $200,000,000. Henry F. Taintor, the +auditor employed by Andrew H. Green to investigate Controller Connolly's +books, testified before the special Aldermanic Committee in 1877, that +he had estimated the frauds during those three and a half years at from +$45,000,000 to $50,000,000.[151] The committee, however, evidently +thought that the thefts amounted to $60,000,000; for it asked Tweed +during the investigation whether they did not approximate that sum, to +which question he gave no definite reply. But Mr. Taintor's estimate, as +he himself admitted, was far from complete even for the three and a half +years. Matthew J. O'Rourke, who was responsible for the disclosures, and +who made a remarkably careful study of the "ring's" operations, gave it +as his opinion that from 1869 to 1871 the "ring" stole about $75,000,000 +and that he thought the total stealings from about 1865 to 1871, +counting vast issues of fraudulent bonds, amounted to $200,000,000. + + +PROFITING FROM GIGANTIC THEFTS. + +Every intelligent person knew in 1871 that Tweed, Connolly and their +associates were colossal thieves. Yet in that year a committee of New +York's leading and richest citizens, composed of John Jacob Astor, Jr., +Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, E. D. Brown, George K. Sistare and +Edward Schell, were induced to make an examination of the controller's +books and hand in a most eulogistic report, commending Connolly for his +honesty and his faithfulness to duty. Why did they do this? Because +obviously they were in underhand alliance with those political bandits, +and received from them special privileges and exemptions amounting in +value to hundreds of millions of dollars. We have seen how Connolly made +gifts of the city's property to this class of leading citizens. +Moreover, a corrupt administration was precisely what the rich wanted, +for they could very conveniently make arrangements with it to evade +personal property taxation, have the assessments on their real estate +reduced to an inconsiderable sum, and secure public franchises and +rights of all kinds. + +There cannot be the slightest doubt that the rich, as a class, were +eager to have the Tweed régime continue. They might pose as fine +moralists and profess to instruct the poor in religion and politics, but +this attitude was a fraud; they deliberately instigated, supported, and +benefited by, all of the great strokes of thievery that Tweed and +Connolly put through. Thus to mention one of many instances, the +foremost financial and business men of the day were associated as +directors with Tweed in the Viaduct Railroad. This was a project to +build a railroad on or above the ground _on any New York City street_. +One provision of the bill granting this unprecedentedly comprehensive +franchise compelled the city to take $5,000,000 of stock; another +exempted the company property from taxes or assessments. Other +subsidiary bills allowed for the benefit of the railroad the widening +and grading of streets which meant a "job" costing from $50,000,000 to +$60,000,000.[152] This bill was passed by the Legislature and signed by +Tweed's puppet Governor Hoffman; and only the exposure of the Tweed +régime a few months later prevented the complete consummation of this +almost unparalleled steal. + +Considering the fact that the richest and most influential and +respectable men were direct allies of the Tweed clique, it was not +surprising that men such as John Jacob Astor, Jr., Moses Taylor, Edward +Schell and company were willing enough to sign a testimonial certifying +to Controller Connolly's honesty. The Tweed "ring" supposed that a +testimonial signed by these men would make a great impression upon the +public. Yet, stripping away the halo which society threw about them +simply because they had wealth, these rich citizens themselves were to +be placed in even a lower category than Tweed, on the principle that the +greater the pretension, the worst in its effect upon society is the +criminal act. The Astors cheated the city out of enormous sums in real +estate and personal property taxation; Moses Taylor likewise did so, as +was clearly brought out by a Senate Investigating Committee in 1890; +Roberts had been implicated in great swindles during the Civil War; and +as for Edward Schell, he, by collusion with corrupt officials, compelled +the city to pay exorbitant sums for real estate owned by him and which +the city needed for public purposes. And further it should be pointed +out that Tweed, Connolly and Sweeny were but vulgar political thieves +who retained only a small part of their thefts. Tweed died in prison +quite poor; even the very extensive area of real estate that he bought +with stolen money vanished, one part of it going in lieu of counsel fees +to one of his lawyers, Elihu Root, United States Secretary of State +under Roosevelt.[153] Connolly fled abroad with $6,000,000 of loot and +died there, while Sweeny settled with the city for an insignificant sum. +The men who really profited directly or indirectly by the gigantic +thefts of money and the franchise, tax-exemption, and other measures put +through the legislature or common council were men of wealth in the +background, who thereby immensely increased their riches and whose +descendants now possess towering fortunes and bear names of the highest +"respectability."[154] + +The original money of the landholders came from trade; and then by a +combination of cunning, bribery, and a moiety of what was considered +legitimate investment, they became the owners of immense tracts of the +most valuable city land. The rentals from these were so great that +continuously more and more surplus wealth was heaped up. This surplus +wealth, in slight part, went to bribe representative bodies for special +laws giving them a variety of exclusive property, and another part was +used in buying stock in various enterprises the history of which reeked +with corruption. + +From being mere landholders whose possessions were confined mainly to +city land, they became part owners of railroad, telegraph, express and +other lines reaching throughout the country. So did their holdings and +wealth-producing interests expand by a cumulative and ever-widening +process. The prisons were perennially filled with convicts, nearly all +of whom had committed some crime against property, and for so doing were +put in chains behind heavy bars, guarded by rifles and great stone +walls. But the men who robbed the community of its land and its +railroads (most of which latter were built with _public_ land and money) +and who defrauded it in a thousand ways, were, if not morally +exculpated, at least not molested, and were permitted to retain their +plunder, which, to them, was the all-important thing. This plunder, in +turn, became the basis for the foundation of an aristocracy which in +time built palaces, invented impressive pedigrees and crests and +coats-of-arms, intermarried with European titles, and either owned or +influenced newspapers and journals which taught the public how it should +think and how it should act. It is one thing to commit crimes against +property, and a vastly different thing to commit crimes _in behalf_ of +property. Such is the edict of a system inspired by the sway of +property. + + +RENTALS FROM DISEASE AND DEATH. + +But the sources of the large rentals that flowed into the exchequers of +the landlords--what were they? Where did these rents, the volume of +which was so great that the surplus part of them went into other forms +of investments, come from? Who paid them and how did the tenants of +these mammoth landlords live? + +A considerable portion came from business buildings and private +residences on much of the very land which New York City once owned and +which was corruptly squirmed out of municipal ownership. For the large +rentals which they were forced to pay, the business men recouped +themselves by marking up the prices of all necessities. Another, and a +very preponderate part, came from tenement houses. Many of these were +also built on land filched from the city. And such habitations! Never +before was anything seen like them. The reports of the Metropolitan +Board of Health for 1866, 1867 and succeeding years revealed the fact +that miles upon miles of city streets were covered with densely +populated tenements, where human beings were packed in vile rooms, many +of which were dark and unventilated and which were pestilential with +disease and overflowed with deaths. In its first report, following its +organization, the Metropolitan Board of Health pointed out: + + The first, and at all times the most prolific cause of disease, + was found to be the very insalubrious condition of most of the + tenement houses in the cities of New York and Brooklyn. These + houses are generally built without any reference to the health and + comfort of the occupants, but simply with a view to economy and + profit to the owner. They are almost invariably overcrowded, and + ill-ventilated to such a degree as to render the air within them + constantly impure and offensive. + +Here follows a mass of nauseating details which for the sake of not +overshocking the reader we shall omit. The report continued: + + The halls and stairways are usually filthy and dark, and the walls + and banisters foul and damp, while the floors were not + infrequently used ... [for purposes of nature] ... for lack of + other provisions. The dwelling rooms are usually very inadequate + in size for the accommodation of their occupants, and many of the + sleeping rooms are simply closets, without light or ventilation + save by means of a single door.... Such is the character of a vast + number of tenement houses, especially in the lower part of the + city and along the eastern and western border. Disease especially + in the form of fevers of a typhoid character are constantly + present in these dwellings and every now and then become an + epidemic.[155] + +"Some of the tenements," added the report, "are owned by persons of the +highest character, but they fail to appreciate the responsibility +resting on them." This sentence makes it clear that landlords could +own, and enormously profit from, pig-sty human habitations which killed +off a large number of the unfortunate tenants, and yet these landlords +could retain, in nowise diminished, the lustre of being men "of the +highest character." Fully one-third of the deaths in New York and +Brooklyn resulted from zymotic diseases contracted in these tenements, +yet not even a whisper was heard, not the remotest suggestion that the +men of wealth who thus deliberately profited from disease and death, +were criminally culpable, although faint and timorous opinions were +advanced that they might be morally responsible. + + +HUMANITY OF NO CONSEQUENCE. + +Human life was nothing; the supremacy of the property idea dominated all +thought and all laws, not because mankind was callous to suffering, +wretchedness and legalized murder, but because thought and law +represented what the propertied interests demanded. If the proletarian +white population had been legal slaves, as the negroes in the South had +been, much consideration would have been bestowed upon their gullets and +domiciles, for then they would have been property; and who ever knew the +owner of property to destroy the article which represented money? But +being "free" men and women and children, the proletarians were simply so +many bundles of flesh whose sickness and death meant pecuniary loss to +no property-holder. Therefore casualities to them were a matter of no +great concern to a society that was taught to venerate the sacredness of +property as embodied in brick and stone walls, clothes, machines, and +furniture, which same, if inert, had the all-important virile quality of +having a cash value, which the worker had not. + +But these landlords "of the highest character" not only owned, and +regularly collected rents from, tenement houses which filled the +cemeteries, but they also resorted to the profitable business of leasing +certain tenements to middlemen who guaranteed them by lease a definite +and never-failing annual rental. Once having done this, the landlords +did not care what the middlemen did--how much rent they exacted, or in +what condition they allowed the tenements. "The middlemen," further +reported the Metropolitan Board of Health, + + are frequently of the most heartless and unscrupulous character + and make large profits by sub-letting. They leave no space + unoccupied: they rent sheds, basements and even cellars to + families and lodgers; they divide rooms by partitions, and then + place a whole family in a single room, to be used for living, + cooking, and sleeping purposes. In the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, + Tenth, and Fourteenth Wards may be found large, old fashioned + dwellings originally constructed for one family, subdivided and + sublet to such an extent that even the former sub-cellars are + occupied by two or more families. There is a cellar population of + not less than 20,000 in New York City. + +Here, again, shines forth with blinding brightness that superior +morality of the propertied classes. There is no record of a single +landlord who refused to pocket the great gains from the ownership of +tenement houses. Great, in fact, excessive gains they were, for the +landowning class considered tenements "magnificent investments" (how +edifying a phrase!) and all except one held on to them. That one was +William Waldorf Astor of the present generation, who, we are told, "sold +a million dollars worth of unpromising tenement house property in +1890."[156] What fantasy of action was it that caused William Waldorf +Astor to so depart from the accepted formulas of his class as to give up +these "magnificent investments?" Was it an abhorrence of tenements, or +a growing fastidiousness as to the methods? It is to be observed that up +to that time he and his family had tenaciously kept the revenues from +their tenements; evidently then, the source of the money was not a +troubling factor. And in selling those tenements he must have known that +his profits on the transaction would be charged by the buyers against +the future tenants and that even more overcrowding would result. What, +then, was the reason? + +About the year 1887 there developed an agitation in New York City +against the horrible conditions in tenement houses, and laws were +popularly demanded which would put a stop to them, or at least bring +some mitigation. The whole landlord class virulently combated this +agitation and these proposed laws. What happened next? Significantly +enough a municipal committee was appointed by the mayor to make an +inquiry into tenement conditions; and this committee was composed of +property owners. William Waldorf Astor was a conspicuous member of the +committee. The mockery of a man whose family owned miles of tenements +being chosen for a committee, the province of which was to find ways of +improving tenement conditions, was not lost on the public, and shouts of +derision went up. The working population was skeptical, and with reason, +of the good faith of this committee. Every act, beginning with the mild +and ineffective one of 1867, designed to remedy the appalling conditions +in tenement houses, had been stubbornly opposed by the landlords; and +even after these puerile measures had finally been passed, the landlords +had resisted their enforcement. Whether it was because of the bitter +criticisms levelled at him, or because he saw that it would be a good +time to dispose of his tenements as a money-making matter before further +laws were passed, is not clearly known. At any rate William Waldorf +Astor sold large batches of tenements. + + +AN EXALTED CAPITALIST. + +To return, however, to William B. Astor. He was the owner, it was +reckoned in 1875, of more than seven hundred buildings and houses, not +to mention the many tracts of unimproved land that he held. His income +from these properties and from his many varied lines of investments was +stupendous. Every one knew that he, along with other landlords, derived +great revenues from indescribably malodorous tenements, unfit for human +habitation. Yet little can be discerned in the organs of public opinion, +or in the sermons or speeches of the day, which showed other than the +greatest deference for him and his kind. He was looked up to as a +foremost and highly exalted capitalist; no church disdained his +gifts;[157] far from it, these were eagerly solicited, and accepted +gratefully, and even with servility. None questioned the sources of his +wealth, certainly not one of those of his own class, all of whom more or +less used the same means and who extolled them as proper, both +traditionally and legally, and as in accordance with the "natural laws" +of society. No condemnation was visited on Astor or his fellow-landlords +for profiting from such ghastly harvests of disease and death. When +William B. Astor died in 1875, at the age of eighty-three, in his sombre +brownstone mansion at Thirty-fifth street and Fifth avenue, his funeral +was an event among the local aristocracy; the newspapers published the +most extravagant panegyrics and the estimated $100,000,000 which he left +was held up to all the country as an illuminating and imperishable +example of the fortune that thrift, enterprise, perseverance, and +ability would bring. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[143] Matthew Hale Smith in "Sunshine and Shadow in New York," 186-187. + +[144] See Part III of this work, "The Great Railroad Fortunes". + +[145] See Part III, Chapters iv, v, vi, etc. + +[146] Proceedings of the [New York City] Commissioners of the Sinking +Fund, 1844-1865:213. + +[147] Doc. No. 46, Documents of the [New York City] Board of Aldermen, +xxi, Part II. + +[148] Proceedings of the [New York City] Commissioners of the Sinking +Fund, 1844-1865:734. + +[149] Ibid:865. + +[150] Proceedings of the [New York City] Sinking Fund Commission, +1882:2020-2023. + +[151] Documents of the [New York City] Board of Aldermen, 1877, Part II. +No. 8. + +[152] New York Senate Journal, 1871:482-83. + +[153] See Exhibits Doc. No. 8, Documents of the [New York City] Board of +Aldermen, 1877. + +[154] For a full account of the operations of the Tweed régime see the +author's "History of Tammany Hall." + +[155] Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health for 1866, Appendix +A:38. + +[156] "America's Successful Men of Affairs":36. + +[157] "No church disdained his gifts." The morals and methods of the +church, as exemplified by Trinity Church, were, judged by standards, +much worse than those of Astor or of his fellow-landlords or +capitalists. These latter did not make a profession of hypocrisy, at any +rate. The condition of the tenements owned by Trinity Church was as +shocking as could be found anywhere in New York City. We subjoin the +testimony given by George C. Booth of the Society for the Improvement of +the Condition of the Poor before a Senate Investigating Committee in +1885: + + Senator Plunkett: Ask him if there is not a great deal of church + influence [in politics]. + + The Witness: Yes, sir, there is Trinity Church. + + Q.: Which is the good, and which is the bad? + + A.: I think Trinity is the bad. + + Q.: Do the Trinity people own a great deal of tenement property? + + A.: Yes, sir. + + Q.: Do they comply with the law as other people do? + + A.: No, sir; that is accounted for in one way--the property is + very old and rickety, and perhaps even rotten, so that some + allowance must be made on that account. + +(Investigation of the Departments of the City of New York, by Special +Committee of the [New York] Senate, 1885, 1:193-194.) + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CLIMAX OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +The impressive fortune that William B. Astor left was mainly bequeathed +in about equal parts to his sons John Jacob II. and William. These +scions, by inheritance from various family sources, intermarriage with +other rich families, or both, were already rich. Furthermore, having the +backing of their father's immense riches, they had enjoyed singularly +exceptional opportunities for amassing wealth on their own account. + +In 1853 William Astor had married one of the Schermerhorn family. The +Schermerhorns were powerful New York City landholders; and if not quite +on the same pinnacle in point of wealth as the Astors, were at any rate +very rich. The immensely valuable areas of land then held by the +Schermerhorns, and still in their possession, were largely obtained by +precisely the same means that the Astors, Goelets, Rhinelanders and +other conspicuous land families had used. + + +INTERRELATED WEALTH. + +The settled policy, from the start, of the rich men, and very greatly of +rich women, was to marry within their class. The result obviously was to +increase and centralize still greater wealth in the circumscribed +ownership of a few families. In estimating, therefore, the collective +wealth of the Astors, as in fact of nearly all of the great fortunes, +the measure should not be merely the possessions of one family, but +should embrace the combined wealth of interrelated rich families. + +The wedding of William Astor (as was that of his son John Jacob Astor +thirty-eight years later to a daughter of one of the richest landholding +families in Philadelphia) was an event of the day if one judges by the +commotion excited among what was represented as the superior class, and +the amount of attention given by the newspapers. In reality, viewing +them in their proper perspective, these marriages of the rich were +infinitesimal affairs, which would scarcely deserve a mention, were it +not for the effect that they had in centralizing wealth and for the +clear picture that they give of the ideas of the times. Posterity, which +is the true arbiter in distinguishing between the enduring and the +evanescent, the important and the trivial, rightly cares nothing for +essentially petty matters which once were held of the highest +importance. Edgar Allan Poe, wearing his life out in extreme poverty, +William Lloyd Garrison, thundering against chattel slavery from a Boston +garret, Robert Dale Owen spending his years in altruistic +endeavors--these men were contemporaries of the Astors of the second +generation. Yet a marriage among the very rich was invested by the +self-styled creators and dispensers of public opinion with far more +importance than the giving out of the world of the most splendid +products of genius or the enunciation of principles of the profoundest +significance to humanity. Yet why slur the practices of past generations +when we to-day are confronted by the same perversions? In the month of +February, 1908, for instance, several millions of men in the United +States were out of work; in destitution, because something or other +stood between them and their getting work; and consequently they and +their wives and children had to face starvation. This condition might +have been enough to shock even the most callous mind, certainly enough +to have impressed the community. But what happened? The superficial +historian of the future, who depends upon the newspapers and who gauges +his facts accordingly, will conclude that there was little or no misery +or abject want; that the people were interested in petty happenings of +no ultimate value whatsoever; that an Oriental dance and pantomime given +in New York by "society" women, led by Mrs. Waldorf Astor, where a rich +young woman reaped astonishment and admiration by coiling a live boa +constrictor around her neck, was one of the great events of the day, +because the newspapers devoted two columns to it, whereas scarcely any +mention was made of armies of men being out of work. + + +MONEY AND HUMANITY. + +As it was in 1908 so was it in the decades when the capitalists of one +kind or another were first piling up wealth; they were the weighty class +of the day; their slightest doings were chronicled, and their flimsiest +sayings were construed oracularly as those of public opinion. Numberless +people sickened and died in the industrial strife and in miserable +living quarters; ubiquitous capitalism was a battle-field strewn with +countless corpses; but none of the professed expositors of morality, +religion or politics gave heed to the wounded or the dead, or to the +conditions which produced these hideous and perpetual slaughters of men, +women and children. But to the victors, no matter what their methods +were, or how much desolation and death they left in their path, the +richest material rewards were awarded; wealth, luxury, station and +power; and the Law, the majestic, exalted Law, upheld these victors in +their possessions by force of courts, police, sheriffs, and by rifles +loaded with bullets if necessary. + +Thus, to recapitulate, the Astors debauched, swindled and murdered the +Indians; they defrauded the city of land and of taxes; they assisted in +corrupting legislatures; they profited from the ownership of blocks of +death-laden tenement houses; they certified to thieving administrations. +Once having wrested into their possession the results of all of these +and more fraudulent methods in the form of millions of dollars in +property, what was their strongest ally? The Law. Yes, the Law, +theoretically so impartial and so reverently indued with awe--and with +force. From fraud and force the Astor fortune came, and by force, in the +shape of law, it was fortified in their control. If a starving man had +gone into any one of the Astor houses and stolen even as much as a +silver spoon, the Law would have come to the rescue of outraged property +by sentencing him to prison. Or if, in case of a riot, the Astor +property was damaged, the Law also would have stepped in and compelled +the county to idemnify. This Law, this extraordinary code of print which +governs us, has been and is nothing more or less, it is evident, than so +many statutes to guarantee the retention of the proceeds of fraud and +theft, if the piracy were committed in a sufficiently large and +impressive way. The indisputable proof is that every single fortune +which has been obtained by fraud, is still privately held and is greater +than ever; the Law zealously and jealously guards it. So has the Law +practically worked; and if the thing is to be judged by its practical +results, then the Law has been an instigator of every form of crime, and +a bulwark of that which it instigated. Seeing that this is so, it is +not so hard to understand that puzzling problem of why so large a +portion of the community has resolved itself into a committee of the +whole, and while nominally and solemnly professing the accustomed and +expected respect for Law, deprecates it, as it is constituted, and often +makes no concealment of contempt. + + +LAW THE STRONGEST ASSET. + +In penetrating into the origin and growth of the great fortunes, this +vital fact is constantly forced upon the investigator: that Law has been +the most valuable asset possessed by the capitalist class. Without it, +this class would have been as helpless as a babe. What would the +medieval baron have been without armed force? But note how sinuously +conditions have changed. The capitalist class, far shrewder than the +feudalistic rulers, dispenses with personally equipped armed force. It +becomes superfluous. All that is necessary to do is to make the laws, +and so guide things that the officials who enforce the laws are +responsive to the interests of the propertied classes. Back of the laws +are police forces and sheriffs and militia all kept at the expense of +city, county and State--at public expense. Clearly, then, having control +of the laws and of the officials, the propertied classes have the full +benefit of armed forces the expense of which, however, they do not have +to defray. It has unfolded itself as a vast improvement over the crude +feudal system. + +In complete control of the laws, the great propertied classes have been +able either to profit by the enforcement, or by the violation, of them. +This is nowhere more strikingly shown than in the growth of the Astor +fortune, although all of the other great fortunes reveal the same, or +nearly identical, factors. With the millions made by a career of crime +the original Astors buy land; they get more land by fraud; the Law +throws its shield about the property so obtained. They cheat the city +out of enormous sums in taxation; the Law does not molest them. On the +contrary it allows them to build palaces and to keep on absorbing up +more forms of property. In 1875 William Astor builds a railroad in +Florida; and as a gift of appreciation, so it is told, the Florida +Legislature presents him with 80,000 acres of land. It is wholly +probable, if the underlying circumstances were known, that it would be +found that an influence more material than a simple burst of gratitude +prompted this gift. Where did the money come from with which this +railroad was built? And what was the source of other immense funds which +were invested in railroads, banks, industrial enterprises, in buying +more land and in mortgages--in many forms of ownership? + +The unsophisticated acceptor of current sophistries or the apologist +might reply that all this money came from legitimate business +transactions, the natural increase in the value of land, and thus on. +But waiving these superficial explanations and defenses, which really +mean nothing more than a forced justification, it is plain that the true +sources of these revenues were of a vastly different nature. The +millions in rents which flowed in to the Astor's treasury every year +came literally from the sweat, labor, misery and murder of a host of +men, women, and children who were never chronicled, and who went to +their death in eternal obscurity. + + +THE BASIS OF WEALTH'S STRUCTURE. + +It was they who finally had to bear the cost of exorbitant rents; it was +their work, the products which they created, which were the bases of +the whole structure. And in speaking of murder, it is not deliberate, +premeditated murder which is meant, in the sense covered by statute, but +that much more insidious kind ensuing from grinding exploitation; in +herding human beings into habitations unfit even for animals which need +air and sunshine, and then in stubbornly resisting any attempt to +improve living conditions in these houses. In this respect, it cannot be +too strongly pointed out, the Astors were in nowise different from the +general run of landlords. Is it not murder when, compelled by want, +people are forced to fester in squalid, germ-filled tenements, where the +sunlight never enters and where disease finds a prolific breeding-place? +Untold thousands went to their deaths in these unspeakable places. Yet, +so far as the Law was concerned, the rents collected by the Astors, as +well as by other landlords, were honestly made. The whole institution of +Law saw nothing out of the way in these conditions, and very +significantly so, because, to repeat over and over again, Law did not +represent the ethics or ideals of advanced humanity; it exactly +reflected, as a pool reflects the sky, the demands and self-interest of +the growing propertied classes. And if here and there a law was passed +(which did not often happen) contrary to the expressed opposition of +property, it was either so emasculated as to be harmless or it was not +enforced. + +The direct sacrifice of human life, however, was merely one substratum +of the Astor fortune. It is very likely, if the truth were fully known, +that the stupendous sums in total that the Astors cheated in taxation, +would have been more than enough to have constructed a whole group of +railroads, or to have bought up whole sections of the outlying parts of +the city, or to have built dozens of palaces. Incessantly they derived +immense rentals from their constantly expanding estate, and just as +persistently they perjured themselves, and defrauded the city, State and +Nation of taxes. It was not often that the facts were disclosed; +obviously the city or State officials, with whom the rich acted in +collusion, tried their best to conceal them. + + +GREAT THEFTS OF TAXES. + +Occasionally, however, some fragments of facts were brought out by a +legislative investigating committee. Thus, in 1890, a State Senate +Committee, in probing into the affairs of the tax department, touched +upon disclosures which dimly revealed the magnitude of these annual +thefts, but which in nowise astonished any well-informed person, because +every one knew that these frauds existed. Questioned closely by William +M. Ivins, counsel for the committee, Michael Coleman, president of the +Board of Assessments and Taxes, admitted that vast stretches of real +estate owned by the Astors were assessed at half or less than half of +their real value.[158] Then followed this exchange, in which the +particular "Mr. Astor" referred to was not made clear: + + Q.: You have just said that Mr. Astor never sold? + + A.: Once in a while he sells, yes. + + Q.: But the rule is that he does not sell? + + A.: Well, hardly ever; he has sold, of course. + + Q.: Isn't it almost a saying in this community that the Astors buy + and never sell? + + A.: They are not looked upon as people who dispose of real estate + after they once get possession of it. + + Q.: Have you the power to exact from them a statement of their + rent rolls? + + A.: No. + + Q.: Don't you think that ... if you are going to levy a tax + properly and fully ... you ought to be vested with that power to + learn what the returns and revenues of that property are? + + A.: No, sir; it's none of our business.[159] + +This fraudulent evasion of taxation was anything but confined to the +Astor family. It was practiced by the entire large propertied interests, +not only in swindling New York City of taxes on real estate, but also +those on personal property. Coleman admitted that while the total +valuation of the personal property of all the corporations in New York +was assessed at $1,650,000,000, they were allowed to swear it down to +$294,000,000. + +Here we see again at work that fertile agency which has assisted in +impoverishing the masses. Rentals are exacted from them, which represent +on the average the fourth part of their wages. These rentals are based +upon the full assessment of the houses that they live in. In turn, the +landlords defraud the city of one-half of this assessment. In order to +make up for this continuous deprivation of taxes, the city proceeds time +and time again to increase taxes and put out interest-bearing bond +issues. These increased taxes, as in the case of all other taxes, fall +upon the workers and the results are seen in constantly rising rents and +in higher prices for all necessities. + + +LICENSED PIRACY RAMPANT. + +Was any criminal action ever instituted against these rich defrauders? +None of which there is any record. + +Not a publicist, editor, preacher was there who did not know either +generally or specifically of these great frauds in taxation. Some of +them might protest in a half-hearted, insincere or meaningless way. But +the propertied classes did not mind wordy criticism so long as it was +not backed by political action. In other words, they could afford to +tolerate, even be amused by, gusty denunciation if neither the laws were +changed, nor the particular enforcement or non-enforcement which they +demanded. The essential thing with them was to continue conditions by +which they could keep on defrauding. + +Virtually all that was considered best in society--the men and women who +lived in the finest mansions, who patronized art and the opera, who set +themselves up as paramount in breeding, manners, taste and fashions--all +of these were either parties to this continuous process of fraud or +benefited by it. The same is true of this class to-day; for the frauds +in taxation are of greater magnitude than ever before. It was not +astonishing, therefore, when John Jacob Astor II died in 1890, and +William Astor in 1892, that enconiums should be lavished upon their +careers. In all the accounts that appeared of them, not a word was there +of the real facts; of the corrupt grasping of city land; of the +debauching of legislatures and the manipulation of railroads; of their +blocks of tenements in which disease and death had reaped so rich a +harvest, or of their gigantic frauds in cheating the city of taxes. Not +a word of all of these. + +Without an exception the various biographies were fulsomely laudatory. +This excessive praise might have defeated the purpose of the authors +were it not that it was the fashion of the times to depict and accept +the multimillionaires as marvels of ability, almost superhuman. This was +the stuff fed out to the people; it was not to be wondered at that a +period came when the popular mind reacted and sought the opposite +extreme in which it laved in the most violent denunciations of the very +men whom it had long been taught to revere. That period, too, passed to +be succeeded by another in which a more correct judgment will be formed +of the magnates, and in which they will appear not as exceptional +criminals, but as products of their times and environment, and in their +true relation to both of these factors. + +The fortune left by John Jacob Astor II in 1890 amounted to about +$150,000,000. The bulk of this descended to his son William Waldorf +Astor. The $75,000,000 fortune left by William Astor in 1892 was +bequeathed to his son John Jacob Astor. These cousins to-day hold the +greatest part of the collective Astor fortune. + +Having reached the present generation, we shall not attempt to enter +into a detailed narrative of their multifarious interests, embracing +land, railroads, industries, insurance and a vast variety of other forms +of wealth. The purpose of this work is to point out the circumstances +underlying the origin and growth of the great private fortunes; in the +case of the Astors this has been done sufficiently, perhaps overdone, +although many facts have been intentionally left out of these chapters +which might very properly have been included. But there are a few +remaining facts without which the story would not be complete, and +lacking which it might lose some significance. + + +THE ASTOR FORTUNE DOUBLES. + +[Illustration: WILLIAM WALDORF ASTOR. +Now a British Subject, Self-Expatriated. He Derives +an Enormous Income from His American Estate.] + +We have seen how at William B. Astor's death in 1876 the Astor fortune +amounted to at least $100,000,000, probably much more. Within sixteen +years, by 1892, it had more than doubled in the hands of his two sons. +How was it possible to have added the extraordinary sum of $125,000,000 +in less than a decade and a half? Individual ability did not +accomplish it; it is ludicrous to say that it could have done so. The +methods by which much of this increase was gathered in have already been +set forth. A large part came from the rise in the value of land, which +value arose not from the slightest act of the Astors, but from the +growth of the population and the labor of the whole body of workers. +This value was created by the producers, but far from owning or even +sharing in it, they were compelled to pay heavier and heavier tribute in +the form of rent for the very values which they had created. Had the +Astors or other landlords gone into a perpetual trance these values +would have been created just the same. Then, not content with +appropriating values which others created, the landlord class defrauded +the city of even the fractional part of these values, in the form of +taxation. + +Up to the present generation the Astors had never set themselves out as +"reformers" in politics. They had plundered right and left, but withal +had made no great pretenses. The fortune held by the Astors, so the +facts indubitably show, represents a succession of piracies and +exploitation. Very curious, therefore, it is to note that the Astors of +the present generation have avowed themselves most solicitous reformers +and have been members of pretentious, self-constituted committees +composed of the "best citizens," the object of which has been to purge +New York City of Tammany corruption. Leaving aside the Astors, and +considering the attitude of the propertied class as a whole, this posing +of the so-called better element as reformers has been, and is, one of +the most singular characteristics of American politics, and its most +colossal sham. Although continuously, with rare intermissions, the +landholders and the railroad and industrial magnates have been either +corrupting public officials or availing themselves of the benefits of +corrupt politics, many of them, not in New York alone, but in every +American city, have been, at the same time, metamorphosing themselves +into reformers. Not reformers, of course, in the true, high sense of the +word, but as ingenious counterfeits. With the most ardent professions of +civic purity and of horror at the prevailing corruption they have come +forward on occasions, clothed in a fine and pompous garb of +righteousness. + + +THE QUALITY OF "REFORMERS." + +The very men who cheated cities, states and nation out of enormous sums +in taxation; who bribed, through their retainers, legislatures, common +councils and executive and administrative officials; who corruptly put +judges on the bench; who made Government simply an auxiliary to their +designs; who exacted heavy tribute from the people in a thousand ways; +who forced their employees to work for precarious wages and who bitterly +fought every movement for the betterment of the working classes--these +were the men who have made up these so-called "reform" committees, +precisely as to-day they constitute them.[160] + +If there had been the slightest serious attempt to interfere with their +vested privileges, corruptly obtained and corruptly enhanced, and with +the vast amount of increment and graft that these privileges bought +them, they would have instantly raised the cry of revolutionary +confiscation. But they were very willing to put an end to the petty +graft which the politicians collected from saloons, brothels, peddlers, +and the small merchants, and thereby present themselves as respectable +and public-spirited citizens, appalled at the existing corruption. The +newspapers supported them in this attitude, and occasionally a +sufficient number of the voters would sustain their appeals and elect +candidates that they presented. The only real difference was that under +an openly corrupt machine they had to pay in bribes for franchises, laws +and immunity from laws, while under the "reform" administrations, which +represented, and toadied to, them, they often obtained all these and +more without the expenditure of a cent. It has often been much more +economical for them to have "reform" in power; and it is a well known +truism that the business-class reform administrations which are +popularly assumed to be honest, will go to greater lengths in selling +out the rights of the people than the most corrupt political machine, +for the reason that their administrations are not generally suspected of +corruption and therefore are not closely watched. Moreover, corruption +by bribes is not always the most effective kind. There is a much more +sinister form. It is that which flows from conscious class use of a +responsive government for insidious ends. Practically all of the +American "reform" movements have come within this scope. + +This is no place for a dissertation on these pseudo reform movements; it +is a subject deserving a special treatment by itself. But it is well to +advert to them briefly here since it is necessary to give constant +insights into the methods of the propertied class. Whether corruption or +"reform" administrations were in power the cheating of municipality and +State in taxation has gone on with equal vigor.[161] + + +A VAST ANNUAL INCOME. + +The collective Astor fortune, as we have said, amounts to $450,000,000. +This, however, is merely an estimate based largely upon their real +estate possessions. No one but the Astors themselves know what are their +holdings in bonds and stocks of every description. It is safe to venture +the opinion that their fortune far exceeds $450,000,000. Their surplus +wealth piles up so fast that a large part of it is incessantly being +invested in buying more land. Originally owning land in the lower part +of Manhattan, they then bought land in Yorkville, then added to their +possessions in Harlem, and later in the Bronx, in which part of New York +City they now own immense areas. Their estate is growing larger and +larger all the time. + +In rents in New York City alone it is computed that the Astors collect +twenty-five or thirty million dollars a year. The "Astor Estates" are +managed by a central office, the agent in charge of which is said to get +a salary of $50,000 a year. All the business details are attended to +entirely by this agent and his force of subordinates. Of these annual +rents a part is distributed among the various members of the Astor +family according to the degree of their interest; the remainder is used +to buy more land. + +The Astor mansions rank among the most pretentious in the United States +and in Europe. The New York City residence long occupied by Mrs. William +Astor at Fifth avenue and Sixty-fifth street is one of extraordinary +luxury and grandeur. Adjoining and connected with it is the equally +sumptuous mansion of John Jacob Astor. In these residences, or rather +palaces, splendor is piled upon splendor. In Mrs. William Astor's +spacious ball-room and picture gallery, balls have been given, each +costing, it is said, $100,000. In cream and gold the picture gallery +spreads; the walls are profuse with costly paintings, and at one end is +a gallery in wrought iron where musicians give out melody on festive +occasions. The dining rooms of these houses are of an immensity. +Embellished in old oak incrusted with gold, their walls are covered with +antique tapestries set in huge oak framework with margins thick with +gold. Upon the diners a luxurious ceiling looks down, a blaze of color +upon black oak set off by masses of gold borders. Directly above the +center of the table are painted garlands of flowers and clusters of +fruit. In the hub of this representation is Mrs. Astor's monogram in +letters of gold. From the massive hall, with its reproductions of +paintings of Marie Antoinette and other old French court characters, its +statuary, costly vases and draperies, a wide marble stairway curves +gracefully upstairs. To dwell upon all of the luxurious aspects of these +residences would compel an extended series of details. In both of the +residences every room is a thing of magnificence. + + +PROXIMITY OF PALACES AND POVERTY. + +From these palaces it is but a step, as it were, to gaunt neighborhoods +where great parts of the population are crowded in the most inhuman way +into wretched tenement houses. It is an undeniable fact that more than +fifty blocks on Manhattan Island--each of which blocks is not much +larger than the space covered by the Astor mansions--have each a teeming +population of from 3,000 to 4,000 persons. In each of several blocks +6,000 persons are congested. In 1855, when conditions were thought bad +enough, 417,476 inhabitants were crowded into the section south of +Fourteenth street; but in 1907 this district contained fully 750,000 +population. Forty years ago the lower sections only of Manhattan were +overcrowded, but now the density of congestion has spread to all parts +of Manhattan, and to parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn. On an area of two +hundred acres in certain parts of New York City not less than 200,000 +people exist. It is not uncommon to find eighteen men, women, and +children, driven to it by necessity, sleeping in three small, +suffocating rooms. + +[Illustration: THE ASTOR MANSIONS IN NEW YORK CITY. +Occupied by the Late Mrs. William Astor and by John Jacob Astor.] + +But the New York City residences of the Astors are only a mere portion +of their many palaces. They have impressive mansions, costing great +sums, at Newport. At Ferncliffe-on-the-Hudson John Jacob Astor has an +estate of two thousand acres. This country palace, built in chaste +Italian architecture, is fitted with every convenience and luxury. John +Jacob Astor's cousin, William Waldorf, some years since expatriated +himself from his native country and became a British subject. He bought +the Cliveden estate at Taplow, Bucks, England, the old seat of the Duke +of Westminster, the richest landlord in England. Thenceforth William +Waldorf scorned his native land, and has never even taken the trouble +to look at the property in New York which yields him so vast a revenue. +This absentee landlord, for whom it is estimated not less than 100,000 +men, women and children directly toil, in the form of paying him rent, +has surrounded himself in England with a lofty feudal exclusiveness. +Sweeping aside the privilege that the general public had long enjoyed of +access to the Cliveden grounds, he issued strict orders forbidding +trespassing, and along the roads he built high walls surmounted with +broken glass. His son and heir, Waldorf Astor, has avowed that he also +will remain a British subject. William Waldorf Astor, it should be said, +is somewhat of a creator of public opinion; he owns a newspaper and a +magazine in London. + + * * * * * + +The origin and successive development of the Astor fortune have been +laid bare in these chapters; not wholly so, by any means, for a mass of +additional facts have been left out. Where certain fundamental facts are +sufficient to give a clear idea of a presentation, it is not necessary +to pile on too much of an accumulation. And yet, such has been the +continued emphasis of property-smitten writers upon the thrift, honesty, +ability and sagacity of the men who built up the great fortunes, that +the impression generally prevails that the Astor fortune is preëminently +one of those amassed by legitimate means. These chapters should dispel +this illusion. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[158] See Testimony taken before the [New York] Senate Committee on +Cities, 1890, iii:2312, etc. + +[159] Testimony taken before the [New York] Senate Committee on Cities, +1890, iii: 2314-2315. + +[160] As one of many illustrations of the ethics of the propertied +class, the appended newspaper dispatch from Newport, R. I., on Jan. 2, +1903, brings out some significant facts: + +"William C. Schermerhorn, whose death is announced in New York, and who +was a cousin of Mrs. William Astor, was one of Newport's pioneer summer +residents. He was one of New York's millionaires, and his Newport villa +is situated on Narragansett avenue near Cliffside, opposite the Pinard +cottages. + +"Mr. Schermerhorn, with Mrs. Astor and ex-Commodore Gerry, of the New +York Yacht Club, in order to avoid the inheritance tax of New York, and +to take advantage of Newport's low tax-rate, obtained in January last +through their counsel, Colonel Samuel R. Honey, a decree declaring their +citizenship in Rhode Island. Since that time Mr. Schermerhorn's +residence has been in this state. In last year's tax-list he was +assessed for $150,000. + +"Mr. Schermerhorn was a member of both the fashionable clubs on Bellevue +avenue, the Newport Casino and the Newport Reading-Room." + +[161] For further details on this point see Chapter ix, Part II. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OTHER LAND FORTUNES CONSIDERED + + +The founding and aggrandizement of other great private fortunes from +land were accompanied by methods closely resembling, or identical with, +those that the Astors employed. + +Next to the Astors' estate the Goelet landed possessions are perhaps the +largest urban estates in the United States in value. The landed property +of the Goelet family on Manhattan Island alone is estimated at fully +$200,000,000. + + +THE GOELET FORTUNE. + +The founder of the Goelet fortune was Peter Goelet, an ironmonger during +and succeeding the Revolution. His grandfather, Jacobus Goelet, was, as +a boy and young man, brought up by Frederick Phillips, with whose career +as a promoter and backer of pirates and piracies, and as a briber of +royal officials under British rule, we have dealt in previous chapters. +Of Peter Goelet's business methods and personality no account is extant. +But as to his methods in obtaining land, there exists little obscurity. +In the course of this work it has already been shown in specific detail +how Peter Goelet in conjunction with John Jacob Astor, the Rhinelander +brothers, the Schermerhorns, the Lorillards and other founders of +multimillionaire dynasties, fraudulently secured great tracts of land, +during the early and middle parts of the last century, in either what +was then, or what is now, in the heart of New York City. It is entirely +needless to iterate the narrative of how the city officials corruptly +gave over to these men land and water grants before that time +municipally owned--grants now having a present incalculable value.[162] + +As was the case with John Jacob Astor, the fortune of the Goelets was +derived from a mixture of commerce, banking and ownership of land. +Profits from trade went toward buying more land, and in providing part +of corrupt funds with which the Legislature of New York was bribed into +granting banking charters, exemptions and other special laws. These +various factors were intertwined; the profits from one line of property +were used in buying up other forms and thus on, reversely and +comminglingly. Peter had two sons; Peter P., and Robert R. Goelet. These +two sons, with an eye for the advantageous, married daughters of Thomas +Buchanan, a rich Scotch merchant of New York City, and for a time a +director of the United States Bank. The result was that when their +father died, they not only inherited a large business and a very +considerable stretch of real estate, but, by means of their money and +marriage, were powerful dignitaries in the directing of some of the +richest and most despotic banks. Peter P. Goelet was for several years +one of the directors of the Bank of New York, and both brothers +benefited by the corrupt control of the United States Bank, and were +principals among the founders of the Chemical Bank. + +These brothers had set out with an iron determination to build up the +largest fortune they could, and they allowed no obstacles to hinder +them. When fraud was necessary they, like the bulk of their class, +unhesitatingly used it. In getting their charter for the notorious +Chemical Bank, they bribed members of the Legislature with the same +phlegmatic serenity that they would put through an ordinary business +transaction. This bank, as we have brought out previously, was chartered +after a sufficient number of members of the Legislature had been bribed +with $50,000 in stock and a large sum of money. Yet now that this bank +is one of the richest and most powerful institutions in the United +States, and especially as the criminal nature of its origin is unknown +except to the historic delver, the Goelets mention the connection of +their ancestors with it as a matter of great and just pride. In a +voluminous biography giving the genealogies of the rich families of New +York--material which was supplied and perhaps written by the families +themselves--this boast occurs in the chapter devoted to the Goelets: +"They were also numbered among the founders of that famous New York +financial institution, the Chemical Bank."[163] Thus do the crimes of +one generation become transformed into the glories of another! The stock +of the Chemical Bank, quoted at a fabulous sum, so to speak, is still +held by a small, compact group in which the Goelets are conspicuous. + +From the frauds of this bank the Goelets reaped large profits which +systematically were invested in New York City real estate. And +progressively their rentals from this land increased. Their policy was +much the same as that of the Astors--constantly increasing their land +possessions. This they could easily do for two reasons. One was that +almost consecutively they, along with other landholders, corrupted city +governments to give them successive grants, and the other was their +enormous surplus revenue which kept piling up. + + +ONCE A FARM; NOW OF VAST VALUE. + +When William B. Astor inherited in 1846 the greater part of his father's +fortune, the Goelet brothers had attained what was then the exalted rank +of being millionaires, although their fortune was only a fraction of +that of Astor. The great impetus to the sudden increase of their fortune +came in the period 1850-1870, through a tract of land which they owned +in what had formerly been the outskirts of the city. This land was once +a farm and extended from about what is now Union Square to Forty-seventh +street and Fifth avenue. It embraced a long section of Broadway--a +section now covered with huge hotels, business buildings, stores and +theaters. It also includes blocks upon blocks filled with residences and +aristocratic mansions. At first the fringe of New York City, then part +of its suburbs, this tract lay in a region which from 1850 on began to +take on great values, and which was in great demand for the homes of the +rich. By 1879 it was a central part of the city and brought high +rentals. The same combination of economic influences and pressure which +so vastly increased the value of the Astors' land, operated to turn this +quondam farm into city lots worth enormous sums. As population increased +and the downtown sections were converted into business sections, the +fashionables shifted their quarters from time to time, always pushing +uptown, until the Goelet lands became a long sweep of ostentatious +mansions. + +In imitation of the Astors the Goelets steadily adhered, as they have +since, to the policy of seldom or never selling any of their land. On +the other hand, they bought constantly. On one occasion they bought +eighty lots in the block from Fifth to Sixth avenues, Forty-second to +Forty-third streets. The price they paid was $600 a lot. These lots have +a present aggregate value of perhaps $15,000,000 or more, although they +are assessed at much less. + + +MISERS WITH MILLIONS. + +The second generation of the Goelets--counting from the founder of the +fortune--were incorrigibly parsimonious. They reduced miserliness to a +supreme art. Likewise the third generation. Of Peter Goelet, a grandson +of the original Peter, many stories were current illustrating his +close-fistedness. His passion for economy was carried to such an +abnormal stage that he refused even to engage a tailor to mend his +garments.[164] He was unmarried, and generally attended to his own +wants. On several occasions he was found in his office at the Chemical +Bank industriously absorbed in sewing his coat. For stationery he used +blank backs of letters and envelopes which he carefully and +systematically saved and put away. His house at Nineteenth street, +corner of Broadway, was a curiosity shop. In the basement he had a +forge, and there were tools of all kinds over which he labored, while +upstairs he had a law library of 10,000 volumes, for it was a fixed, +cynical determination of his never to pay a lawyer for advice that he +could himself get for the reading. + +Yet this miser, who denied himself many of the ordinary comforts and +conveniences of life, and who would argue and haggle for hours over a +trivial sum, allowed himself one expensive indulgence--expensive for +him, at least. He was a lover of fancy fowls and of animals. Storks, +pheasants and peacocks could be seen in the grounds about his house, and +also numbers of guinea pigs. In his stable he kept a cow to supply him +with fresh milk; he often milked it himself. + +This eccentric was very melancholy and, apart from his queer collection +of pets, cared for nothing except land and houses. Chancing in upon him +one could see him intently pouring over a list of his properties. He +never tired of doing this, and was petulantly impatient when houses +enough were not added to his inventory. + +He died in 1879 aged seventy-nine years; and within a few months, his +brother Robert, who was as much of an eccentric and miser in his way, +passed away in his seventieth year. + + +THE THIRD GENERATION. + +The fortunes of the brothers descended to Robert's two sons, Robert, +born in 1841, and Ogden, born in 1846. These wielders of a fortune so +great that they could not keep track of it, so fast did it grow, +abandoned somewhat the rigid parsimony of the previous generations. They +allowed themselves a glittering effusion of luxuries which were +popularly considered extravagances but which were in nowise so, inasmuch +as the cost of them did not represent a tithe of merely the interest on +the principal. In that day, although but thirty years since, when none +but the dazzlingly rich could afford to keep a sumptuous steam yacht in +commission the year round, Robert Goelet had a costly yacht, 300 feet +long, equipped with all the splendors and comforts which up to that time +had been devised for ocean craft. Between them, he and his brother Ogden +possessed a fortune of at least $150,000,000. The basic structure of +this was New York City land, but a considerable part was in railroad +stocks and bonds, and miscellaneous aggregations of other securities to +the purchase of which the surplus revenue had gone. Thus, like the +Astors and other rich landholders, partly by investments made in trade, +and largely by fraud, the Goelets finally became not only great +landlords but sharers in the centralized ownership of the country's +transportation systems and industries. + +When Ogden Goelet died he left a fortune of at least $80,000,000, +reckoning all of the complex forms of his property, and his brother, +Robert, dying in 1899, left a fortune of about the same amount. Two +children survived each of the brothers. Then was witnessed that +characteristic so symptomatic of the American money aristocracy. A +surfeit of money brings power, but it does not carry with it a +recognized position among a titled aristocracy. The next step is +marriage with title. The titled descendants of the predatory barons of +the feudal ages having, generation after generation, squandered and +mortgaged the estates gotten centuries ago by force and robbery, stand +in need of funds. On the other hand, the feminine possessors of American +millions, aided and abetted doubtless by the men of the family, who +generally crave a "blooded" connection, lust for the superior social +status insured by a title. The arrangement becomes easy. In marrying the +Duke of Roxburghe in 1903, May Goelet, the daughter of Ogden, was but +following the example set by a large number of other American women of +multimillionaire families. It is an indulgence which, however great the +superficial consequential money cost may be, is, in reality, +inexpensive. As fast as millions are dissipated they are far more than +replaced in these private coffers by the collective labor of the +American people through the tributary media of rent, interest and +profit. In the last ten years the value of the Goelet land holdings has +enormously increased, until now it is almost too conservative an +estimate to place the collective fortune at $200,000,000. + +This large fortune, as is that of the Astors and of other extensive +landlords, is not, as has been pointed out, purely one of land +possessions. Far from it. The invariable rule, it might be said, has +been to utilize the surplus revenues in the form of rents, in buying up +controlling power in a great number and variety of corporations. The +Astors are directors in a large array of corporations, and likewise +virtually all of the other big landlords. The rent-racked people of the +City of New York, where rents are higher proportionately than in any +other city, have sweated and labored and fiercely struggled, as have the +people of other cities, only to deliver up a great share of their +earnings to the lords of the soil, merely for a foothold. In turn these +rents have incessantly gone toward buying up railroads, factories, +utility plants and always more and more land. + + +WHERE SURPLUS REVENUE HAS GONE. + +But the singular continuity does not end here. Land acquired by +political or commercial fraud has been made the lever for the commission +of other frauds. The railroads now controlled by a few men, among whom +the large landowners are conspicuous, were surveyed and built to a +great extent by public funds, not private money. As time passes a +gradual transformation takes place. Little by little, scarcely known to +the people, laws are altered; the States and the Government, +representing the interests of the vested class, surrender the people's +rights, often even the empty forms of those rights, and great railroad +systems pass into the hands of a small cabal of multimillionaires. + +To give one of many instances: The Illinois Central Railroad, passing +through an industrial and rich farming country, is one of the most +profitable railroads in the United States. This railroad was built in +the proportion of twelve parts to one by public funds, raised by +taxation of the people of that State, and by prodigal gifts of public +land grants. The balance represents the investments of private +individuals. The cost of the road as reported by the company in 1873 was +$48,331 a mile. Of this amount all that private individuals contributed +was $4,930 a mile above their receipts; these latter were sums which the +private owners gathered in from selling the land given to them by the +State, amounting to $35,211 per mile, and the sums that they pocketed +from stock waterings amounting to $8,189 a mile. "The unsold land +grant," says Professor Frank Parsons, "amounted to 344,368 acres, worth +probably over $5,000,000, so that those to whom the securities of the +company were issued, had obtained the road at a bonus of nearly +$2,000,000 above all they paid in."[165] + +By this manipulation, private individuals not only got this immensely +valuable railroad for practically nothing, but they received, or rather +the laws (which they caused to be made) awarded them, a present of +nearly four millions for their dexterity in plundering the railroad +from the people. What set of men do we find now in control of this +railroad, doing with it as they please? Although the State of Illinois +formally retains a nominal say in its management, yet it is really owned +and ruled by eight men, among whom are John Jacob Astor, and Robert +Walton Goelet, associated with E. H. Harriman, Cornelius Vanderbilt and +four others. John Jacob Astor is one of the directors of the Western +Union Telegraph monopoly, with its annual receipts of $29,000,000 and +its net profits of $8,000,000 yearly; and as for the many other +corporations in which he and his family, the Goelets and the other +commanding landlords hold stock, they would, if enumerated, make a +formidable list. + +And while on this phase, we should not overlook another salient fact +which thrusts itself out for notice. We have seen how John Jacob Astor +of the third generation very eagerly in 1867 invited Cornelius +Vanderbilt to take over the management of the New York Central Railroad, +after Vanderbilt had proved himself not less an able executive than an +indefatigable and effective briber and corrupter. So long as Vanderbilt +produced the profits, Astor and his fellow-directors did not care what +means he used, however criminal in law and whatever their turpitude in +morals. John Jacob Astor of the fourth generation repeats this +performance in aligning himself, as does Goelet, with that master-hand +Harriman, against whom the most specific charges of colossal looting +have been brought.[166] But it would be both idle and prejudicial in the +highest degree to single out for condemnation a brace of capitalists for +following out a line of action so strikingly characteristic of the +entire capitalist class--a class which, in the pursuit of profits, +dismisses nicety of ethics and morals, and which ordains its own laws. + + +THE RHINELANDERS. + +The wealth of the Rhinelander family is commonly placed at about +$100,000,000. But this, there is excellent reason to believe, is an +absurdly low approximation. Nearly a century and a half ago William and +Frederick Rhinelander kept a bakeshop on William street, New York City, +and during the Revolution operated a sugar factory. They also built +ships and did a large commission business. It is usually set forth, in +the plenitude of eulogistic biographies, that their thrift and ability +were the foundation of the family's immense fortune. Little research is +necessary to shatter this error. That they conducted their business in +the accepted methods of the day and exercised great astuteness and +frugality, is true enough, but so did a host of other merchants whose +descendants are even now living in poverty. Some other explanation must +be found to account for the phenomenal increase of the original small +fortune and its unshaken retention. + +This explanation is found partly in the fraudulent means by which, +decade after decade, they secured land and water grants from venal city +administrations, and in the singularly dubious arrangement by which they +obtained an extremely large landed property, now having a value of tens +upon tens of millions, from Trinity Church. Since the full and itemized +details of these transactions have been elaborated upon in previous +chapters, it is hardly necessary to repeat them. It will be recalled +that, as important personages in Tammany Hall, the dominant political +party in New York City, the Rhinelanders used the powers of city +government to get grant after grant for virtually nothing. From Trinity +Church they got a ninety-nine year lease of a large tract in what is now +the very hub of the business section of New York City--which tract they +subsequently bought in fee simple. Another large tract of New York City +real estate came into their possession through the marriage of William +C. Rhinelander, of the third generation, to a daughter of John Rutgers. +This Rutgers was a lineal descendant of Anthony Rutgers, who, in 1731, +obtained from the royal Governor Cosby the gift of what was then called +the "Fresh Water Pond and Swamp"--a stretch of seventy acres of little +value at the time, but which is now covered with busy streets and large +commercial and office buildings. What the circumstances were that +attended this grant are not now known. The grant consisted of what are +now many blocks along Broadway north of Lispenard street. It is not +merely business sections which the Rhinelander family owns, however; +they derive stupendous rentals from a vast number of tenement houses. + +The Rhinelanders, also, employ their great surplus revenues in +constantly buying more land. With true aristocratic aspirations, they +have not been satisfied with mere plebeian American mansions, gorgeous +palaces though they be; they set out to find a European palace with +warranted royal associations, and found one in the famous castle of +Schonberg, on the Rhine, near Oberwesel, which they bought and where +they have ensconced themselves. How great the wealth of this family is +may be judged from the fact that one of the Rhinelanders--William--left +an estate valued at $50,000,000 at his death in December, 1907. + + +THE SCHERMERHORNS. + +The factors entering into the building up of the Schermerhorn fortune +were almost identical with those of the Astor, the Goelet and the +Rhinelander fortunes. The founder, Peter Schermerhorn, was a ship +chandler during the Revolution. Parts of his land and other possessions +he bought with the profits from his business; other portions, as has +been brought out, he obtained from corrupt city administrations. His two +sons continued the business of ship chandlers; one of them--"Peter the +Younger"--was especially active in extending his real estate +possessions, both by corrupt favors of the city officials and by +purchase. One tract of land, extending from Third avenue to the East +River and from Sixty-fourth to Seventy-fifth street, which he secured in +the early part of the nineteenth century, became worth a colossal +fortune in itself. It is now covered with stores, buildings and densely +populated tenement houses. "Peter the Younger" quickly gravitated into +the profitable and fashionable business of the day--the banking +business, with its succession of frauds, many of which have been +described in the preceding chapters. He was a director of the Bank of +New York from 1814 until his death in 1852. + +It seems quite superfluous to enlarge further upon the origin of the +great landed fortunes of New York City; the typical examples given +doubtless serve as expositions of how, in various and similar ways, +others were acquired. We shall advert to some of the great fortunes in +the West based wholly or largely upon city real estate. + +While the Astors, the Goelets, the Rhinelanders and others, or rather +the entire number of inhabitants, were transmuting their land into vast +and increasing wealth expressed in terms of hundreds of millions in +money, Nicholas Longworth was aggrandizing himself likewise in +Cincinnati. + + +HOW LONGWORTH BEGAN. + +Longworth had been born in Newark, N. J., in 1782, and at the age of +twenty-one had migrated to Cincinnati, then a mere outpost, with a +population of eight hundred sundry adventurers. There he studied law and +was admitted to practice. The story of how Longworth became a landowner +is given by Houghton as follows: His first client was a man accused of +horse stealing. In those frontier days, a horse represented one of the +most valuable forms of property; and, as under a system wherein human +life was inconsequential compared to the preservation of property, the +penalty for stealing a horse was usually death. No term of reproach was +more invested with cutting contempt and cruel hatred than that of a +horse thief. The case looked black. But Longworth somehow contrived to +get the accused off with acquittal. The man--so the story further +runs--had no money to pay Longworth's fee and no property except two +second-hand copper stills. These also were high in the appraisement of +property values, for they could be used to make whisky, and whisky could +be in turn used to debauch the Indian tribes and swindle them of furs +and land. These stills Longworth took and traded them off to Joel +Williams, a tavern-keeper who was setting up a distillery. In exchange, +Longworth received thirty-three acres of what was then considered +unpromising land in the town.[167] From time to time he bought more land +with the money made in law; this land lay on what were then the +outskirts of the place. Some of the lots cost him but ten dollars each. + +As immigration swarmed West and Cincinnati grew, his land consequently +took on enhanced value. By 1830 the population was 24,831; twenty years +later it had reached 118,761, and in 1860, 171,293 inhabitants. For a +Western city this was a very considerable population for the period. The +growth of the city kept on increasingly. His land lay in the very center +of the expanding city, in the busiest part of the business section and +in the best portion of the residential districts. Indeed, so rapidly did +its value grow soon after he got it, that it was no longer necessary for +him to practice law or in any wise crook to others. In 1819 he gave up +law, and thenceforth gave his entire attention to managing his property. +An extensive vineyard, which he laid out in Ohio, added to his wealth. +Here he cultivated the Catawba grape and produced about 150,000 bottles +a year. + +All available accounts agree in describing him as merciless. He +foreclosed mortgages with pitiless promptitude, and his adroit knowledge +of the law, approaching if not reaching, that of an unscrupulous +pettifogger, enabled him to get the upper hand in every transaction. His +personal habits were considered repulsive by the conventional and +fastidious. "He was dry and caustic in his remarks," says Houghton, "and +very rarely spared the object of his satire. He was plain and careless +in his dress, looking more a beggar than a millionaire." + + +HIS VAGARIES--SO CALLED. + +There were certain other conventional respects in which he was woefully +deficient, and he had certain singularities which severely taxed the +comprehension of routine minds. None who had the appearance of +respectable charity seekers could get anything else from him than +contemptuous rebuffs. For respectability in any form he had no use; he +scouted and scoffed at it and pulverized it with biting and grinding +sarcasm. But once any man or woman passed over the line of +respectability into the besmeared realm of sheer disrepute, and that +person would find Longworth not only accessible but genuinely +sympathetic. The drunkard, the thief, the prostitute, the veriest wrecks +of humanity could always tell their stories to him and get relief. This +was his grim way of striking back at a commercial society whose lies and +shams and hypocrisies he hated; he knew them all; he had practiced them +himself. There is good reason to believe that alongside of his one +personality, that of a rapacious miser, there lived another personality, +that of a philosopher. + +Certainly he was a very unique type of millionaire, much akin to Stephen +Girard. He had a clear notion (for he was endowed with a highly +analytical and penetrating mind) that in giving a few coins to the +abased and the wretched he was merely returning in infinitesimal +proportion what the prevailing system, of which he was so conspicuous an +exemplar, took from the whole people for the benefit of a few; and that +this system was unceasingly turning out more and more wretches. + +Long after Longworth had become a multimillionaire he took a savage, +perhaps a malicious, delight in doing things which shocked all current +conceptions of how a millionaire should act. To understand the intense +scandal caused by what were considered his vagaries, it is only +necessary to bear in mind the ultra-lofty position of a multimillionaire +at a period when a man worth $250,000 was thought very rich. There were +only a few millionaires in the United States, and still fewer +multimillionaires. Longworth ranked next to John Jacob Astor. On one +occasion a beggar called at Longworth's office and pointed eloquently at +his gaping shoes. Longworth kicked off one of his own untied shoes and +told the beggar to try it on. It fitted. Its mate followed. Then after +the beggar left, Longworth sent a boy to the nearest shoe store, with +instructions to get a pair of shoes, but in no circumstances to pay more +than a dollar and a half. + +This remarkable man lived to the age of eighty-one; when he died in 1863 +in a splendid mansion which he had built in the heart of his vineyard, +his estate was valued at $15,000,000. He was the largest landowner in +Cincinnati, and one of the largest in the cities of the United States. +The value of the land that he bequeathed has increased continuously; in +the hands of his various descendants to-day it is many times more +valuable than the huge fortune which he left. Cincinnati, with its +population of 325,902,[168] pays incessant tribute in the form of a vast +rent roll to the scions of the man whose main occupation was to hold on +to the land he had got for almost nothing. Unlike the founder of the +fortune the present Longworth generation never strays from the set +formulas of respectability; it has intermarried with other rich +families: and Nicholas, a namesake and grandson of the original, and a +representative in Congress, married in circumstances of great and lavish +pomp a daughter of President Roosevelt, thus linking a large fortune, +based upon vested interests, with the ruling executive of the day and +strategically combining wealth with direct political power. + +The same process of reaping gigantic fortunes from land went on in +every large city. In Chicago, with its phenomenally speedy growth of +population and its vast array of workers, immense fortunes were amassed +within an astonishingly short period. Here the growth of large private +fortunes was marked by much greater celerity than in the East, although +these fortunes are not as large as those based upon land in the Eastern +cities. + + +MARSHALL FIELD AND LEITER. + +The largest landowners that developed in Chicago were Marshall Field and +Levi Z. Leiter. In 1895 the Illinois Labor Bureau, in that year +happening to be under the direction of able and conscientious officials, +made a painstaking investigation of land values in Chicago. It was +estimated that the 266 acres of land, constituting what was owned by +individuals and private corporations in one section alone--the South +Side,--were worth $319,000,000. This estimate was made at a time when +the country was slowly recovering, as the set phrase goes, from the +panic of 1892-94, and when land values were not in a state of inflation +or rise. The amount of $319,000,000 was calculated as being solely the +value of the land, not counting improvements, which were valued at as +much more. The principal landowner in this one section, not to mention +other sections of that immense city, was Marshall Field, with +$11,000,000 worth of land; the next was Leiter, who owned in that +section land valued at $10,500,000.[169] It appeared from this report +that eighteen persons owned $65,000,000 of this $319,000,000 worth of +land, and that eighty-eight persons owned $136,000,000 worth--or +one-half of the entire business center of Chicago. Doubling the sums +credited to Field and Leiter (that is to say, adding the value of the +improvements to the value of the land), this brought Field's real estate +in that one section to a value of $22,000,000, and Leiter's to nearly +the same. This estimate was confirmed to a surprising degree by the +inventory of Field's executors reported to the court early in 1907. The +executors of Field's will placed the value of his real estate in Chicago +at $30,000,000. This estimate did not include $8,000,000 worth of land +which the executors reported that he owned in New York City, nor the +millions of dollars of his land possessions elsewhere. + + +FIELD'S MANY POSSESSIONS. + +Field left a fortune of about $100,000,000 (as estimated by the +executors) which he bequeathed principally to two grandsons, both of +which heirs were in boyhood. The factors constituting this fortune are +various. At least $55,000,000 of it was represented at the time that the +executors made their inventory, by a multitude of bonds and stocks in a +wide range of diverse industrial, transportation, utility and mining +corporations. The variety of Field's possessions and his numerous forms +of ownership were such that we shall have pertinent occasion to deal +more relevantly with his career in subsequent parts of this work. + +[Illustration: MARSHALL FIELD.] + +The careers of Field, Leiter and several other Chicago multimillionaires +ran in somewhat parallel grooves. Field was the son of a farmer. He was +born in Conway, Mass., in 1835. When twenty-one he went to Chicago and +worked in a wholesale dry goods house. In 1860 he was made a partner. +During the Civil War this firm, as did the entire commercial world, +proceeded to hold up the nation for exorbitant prices in its contracts +at a time of distress. The Government and the public were forced to pay +the highest sums for the poorest material. It was established that +Government officials were in collusion with the contractors. This +extortion formed one of the saddest and most sordid chapters of the +Civil War (as it does of all wars,) but conventional history is silent +on the subject, and one is compelled to look elsewhere for the facts of +how the commercial houses imposed at high prices shoddy material and +semi-putrid food upon the very army and navy that fought for their +interests.[170] In the words of one of Field's laudatory biographers, +"the firm coined money"--a phrase which for the volumes of significant +meaning embodied in it, is an epitome of the whole profit system. + +Some of the personnel of the firm changed several times: in 1865 Field, +Leiter and Potter Palmer (who had also become a multimillionaire) +associated under the firm name of Field, Leiter & Palmer. The great fire +of 1871 destroyed the firm's buildings, but they were replaced. +Subsequently the firm became Field, Leiter & Co., and, finally in 1887, +Marshall Field & Co.[171] The firm conducted both a wholesale and retail +business on what is called in commercial slang "a cash basis:" that is, +it sold goods on immediate payment and not on credit. The volume of its +business rose to enormous proportions. In 1884 it reached an aggregate +of $30,000,000 a year; in 1901 it was estimated at fully $50,000,000 a +year. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[162] Some of this land and these water grants and piers were obtained +by Peter Goelet during the corrupt administration of City Controller +Romaine. Goelet, it seems, was allowed to pay in installments. Thus, an +entry, on January 26, 1807, in the municipal records, reads: "On +receiving the report of the Street Commissioner, Ordered that warrants +issue to Messrs. Anderson and Allen for the three installments due to +them from Mr. Goelet for the Whitehall and Exchange Piers."--MSS. +Minutes of the [New York City] Common Council, 1807, xvi:286. + +[163] "Prominent Families of New York":231. Another notable example of +this glorifying was Nicholas Biddle, long president of the United States +Bank. Yet the court records show that, after a career of bribery, he +stole $400,000 of that bank's funds. + +[164] At this very time his wealth, judged by the standard of the times, +was prodigious. "His wealth is vast--not less than five or six +millions," wrote Barrett in 1862--"The Old Merchants of New York City," +1:349. + +[165] "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":104. + +[166] See Part III, "Great Fortunes From Railroads." + +[167] "Kings of Fortune":172. + +[168] Census of 1900. + +[169] Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:104-253. + +[170] In those parts of this work relating to great fortunes from +railroads and from industries, this phase of commercial life is +specifically dealt with. The enormities brazenly committed during the +Spanish-American War of 1898 are sufficiently remembered. Napoleon had +the same experience with French contractors, and the testimony of all +wars is to the same effect. + +[171] So valuable was a partnership in this firm that a writer says that +Field paid Leiter "an unknown number of millions" when he bought out +Leiter's interest. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE FIELD FORTUNE IN EXTENSO + + +In close similarity to the start of the Astors and many other founders +of great land fortunes, commerce was the original means by which +Marshall Field obtained the money which he invested in land. +Consecutively came a ramification of other revenue-producing properties. +Once in motion, the process worked in the same admixed, interconnected +way as it did in the amassing of contemporary large fortunes. It may be +literally compared to hundreds of golden streams flowing from as many +sources to one central point. From land, business, railroads, street +railways, public utility and industrial corporations--from these and +many other channels, prodigious profits kept, and still keep, pouring in +ceaselessly. In turn, these formed ever newer and widening distributing +radii of investments. The process, by its own resistless volition, +became one of continuous compound progression. + + +LAND FOR ALMOST NOTHING. + +Long before the business of the firm of Marshall Field & Co. had +reached the annual total of $50,000,000, Field, Leiter and their +associates had begun buying land in Chicago. Little capital was +needed for the purpose: The material growth of Chicago explains +sufficiently how a few dollars put in land fifty or sixty years ago +became in time an automatically-increasing fund of millions. A century +or so ago the log cabin of John Kinzie was the only habitation on a +site now occupied by a swarming, conglomerate, rushing population of +1,700,000.[172] Where the prairie land once stretched in solitude, a +huge, roaring, choking city now stands, black with factories, the +habitat of nearly two millions of human beings, living in a whirlpool of +excitement and tumult, presenting extremes of wealth and poverty, the +many existing in dire straits, the few rolling in sovereign luxury. A +saying prevails in Chicago that the city now holds more millionaires +than it did voters in 1840. + +Land, in the infancy of the city, was cheap; few settlers there were, +and the future could not be foreseen. In 1830 one-quarter of an acre +could be bought for $20; a few bits of silver, or any currency +whatsoever, would secure to the buyer a deed carrying with it a title +forever, with a perpetual right of exclusive ownership and a perpetual +hold upon all succeeding generations. The more population grew, the +greater the value their labor gave the land; and the keener their need, +the more difficult it became for them to get land. + +Within ten years--by about the beginning of the year 1840--the price of +a quarter of an acre in the center of the city had risen to $1,500. A +decade later the established value was $17,500, and in 1860, $28,000. +Chicago was growing with great rapidity; a network of railroads +converged there; mammoth factories, mills, grain elevators, packing +houses:--a vast variety of manufacturing and mercantile concerns set up +in business, and brought thither swarms of workingmen and their +families, led on by the need of food and the prospects of work. The +greater the influx of workers, the more augmented became the value of +land. Inevitably the greatest congestion of living resulted. + +By 1870 the price of a quarter of an acre in the heart of the city +bounded to $120,000, and by 1880, to $130,000. + + +IT BECOMES WORTH MILLIONS. + +During the next decade--a decade full of bitter distress to the working +population of the United States, and marked by widespread suffering--the +price shot up to $900,000. By 1894--a panic year, in which millions of +men were out of work and in a state of appalling destitution--a quarter +of an acre reached the gigantic value of $1,250,000.[173] At this +identical time large numbers of the working class, which had so largely +created this value, were begging vainly for work, and were being evicted +by the tens of thousands in Chicago because they could not pay rent for +their miserable, cramped habitations. + +By exchanging a few hundred, or a few thousand dollars, in Chicago's +extreme youth, for a scrap of paper called a deed, the buyer of this +land found himself after the lapse of years, a millionaire. It did not +matter where or how he obtained the purchase money: whether he swindled, +or stole, or inherited it, or made it honestly;--so long as it was not +counterfeit, the law was observed. After he got the land he was under no +necessity of doing anything more than hold on to it, which same he could +do equally well, whether in Chicago or buried in the depths of +Kamschatka. If he chose, he could get chronically drunk; he could +gamble, or drone in laziness; he could do anything but work. +Nevertheless, the land and all its values which others created, were his +forever, to enjoy and dispose of as suited his individual pleasure. + +This was, and is still, the system. Thoroughly riveted in law, it was +regarded as a rational, beneficent and everlasting fixture of civilized +life--by the beneficiaries. And as these latter happened to be, by +virtue of their possessions, among the real rulers of government, their +conceptions and interests were embodied in law, thought and custom as +the edict of civilization. The whole concurrent institutions of society, +which were but the echo of property interests, pronounced the system +wise and just, and, as a reigning force, do still so proclaim it. In +such a state there was nothing abnormal in any man monopolizing land and +exclusively appropriating its revenues. On the contrary, it was +considered a superior stroke of business, a splendid example of +astuteness. Marshall Field was looked upon as a very sagacious business +man. + + +FIELD'S REAL ESTATE TRACTS. + +Field bought much land when it was of comparatively inconsequential +value, and held on to it with a tenacious grip. In the last years of his +life, his revenues from his real estate were uninterruptedly enormous. + +"Downtown real estate in Chicago," wrote "a popular writer" in a +typically effusive biographical account of Field, published in 1901, "is +about as valuable, foot for foot, as that in the best locations in New +York City. From $8,000 to $15,000 a front foot are not uncommon figures +for property north of Congress street, in the Chicago business district. +Marshall Field owns not less than twenty choice sites and buildings in +this section; not including those used for his drygoods business. In the +vicinity of the Chicago University buildings he owns square block after +block of valuable land. Yet farther south he owns hundreds of acres of +land in the Calumet region--land invaluable for manufacturing +purposes." + +This extension and centralization of land ownership were accompanied by +precisely the same results as were witnessed in other cities, although +these results were the sequence of the whole social and industrial +system, and not solely of any one phase. Poverty grew in exact +proportion to the growth of large fortunes; the one presupposed, and was +built upon, the existence of the other. Chicago became full of slums and +fetid, overcrowded districts; and if the density and congestion of +population are not as great as in New York, Boston and Cincinnati, it is +only because of more favorable geographical conditions. + +Field's fortune was heaped up in about the last twenty years of his +life. The celerity of its progress arose from the prolific variety and +nature of his possessions. To form even an approximate idea of how fast +wealth came in to him, it is necessary to picture millions of men, women +and children toiling day after day, year in and year out, getting a +little less than two parts of the value of what they produced, while +almost nine portions either went to him entirely or in part. But this +was not all. Add to these millions of workers the rest of the population +of the United States who had to buy from, or in some other way pay +tribute to, the many corporations in which Field held stock, and you get +some adequate conception of the innumerable influxions of gold which +poured into Field's coffers every minute, every second of the day, +whether he were awake or asleep; whether sick or well, whether traveling +or sitting stock still. + + +HIS INCOME: $500 TO $700 AN HOUR. + +This one man had the legal power of taking over to himself, as his +inalienable property, his to enjoy, hoard, squander, bury, or throw in +the ocean, if his fancy so dictated, the revenue produced by the labor +of millions of beings as human as he, with the same born capacity for +eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping and dying. Many of his workers had +a better digestive apparatus which had to put up with inferior food, +and, at times, no food at all. He could eat no more than three meals a +day, but his daily income was enough to have afforded him ten thousand +sumptuous daily meals, with exquisite "trimmings," while periods came +when those who drudged for him were fortunate to have any meals at all. +Few of his workers received as much as $2 a day; Field's income was +estimated to be at the rate of about $500 to $700 an hour. + +First--and of prime importance--was his wholesale and retail drygoods +business. This was, and is, a line of business in which frantic +competition survived long after the manufacturing field had passed over +into concentrated trust control. To keep apace with competitors and make +high profits, it was imperative not only to resort to shifts, expedients +and policies followed by competitors, but to improve upon, and surpass, +those methods if possible. Field at all times proved that it was +possible. No competing firm would pay a certain rate of wages but what +Field instantly outgeneraled it by cutting his workers' wages to a point +enabling him to make his goods as cheap or cheaper. + + +HIS EMPLOYEES' WRETCHED WAGES. + +In his wholesale and retail stores he employed not less than ten +thousand men, women and children. He compelled them to work for wages +which, in a large number of cases, were inadequate even for a bare +subsistence. Ninety-five per cent. received $12 a week or less. The +female sewing-machine operators who bent over their tasks the long day, +making the clothes sold in the Field stores, were paid the miserable +wages of $6.75 a week. Makers of socks and stockings were paid from +$4.57 to $4.75 a week. The working hours consisted variously of from +fifty-nine to fifty-nine and a half a week. Field also manufactured his +own furniture as well as many other articles. Furniture workers were +paid: Machine workers, $11.02, and upholsterers $12.47 a week. All of +Field's wage workers were paid by the hour; should they fall sick, or +work become slack, their pay was proportionately reduced. + +The wretchedness in which many of these workers lived, and in which they +still live (for the same conditions obtain), was pitiful in the extreme. +Even in a small town where rent is not so high, these paltry wages would +have been insufficient for an existence of partial decency. But in +Chicago, with its forbidding rents, the increasing cost of all +necessaries, and all of the other expenses incident to life in a large +city, their wages were notoriously scanty. + +Large numbers of them were driven to herding in foul tenements or evil +dwellings, the inducements of which was the rent, a little lighter than +could be had elsewhere. Every cent economized meant much. If an +investigator (as often happened) had observed them, and had followed +them to their wretched homes after their day's work, he would have +noted, or learned of, these conditions: Their food was circumscribed and +coarse--the very cheapest forms of meat, and usually stale bread. Butter +was a superfluous luxury. The morning meal was made up of a chunk of +bread washed down with "coffee"--adulterated stuff with just a faint +odor of real coffee. At noon, bread and an onion, or a bit of herring, +or a slice of cheap cheese composed their dinner, with perhaps a dash of +dessert in the shape of sweetened substance, artificially colored, sold +as "cake." For supper, cheap pork, or a soup bone, garnished +occasionally in the season by stale vegetables, and accompanied by a +concoction resembling tea. Few of these workers ever had more than one +suit of clothes, or more than one dress. They could not afford +amusements, and were too fatigued to read or converse. At night bunches +of them bunked together--sometimes eight or ten in a single room; by +this arrangement the rent of each was proportionately reduced. + +It is now we come to a sinister result of these methods of exploiting +the wage-working girls and women. The subject is one that cannot be +approached with other than considerable hesitancy, not because the facts +are untrue, but because its statistical nature has not been officially +investigated. Nevertheless, the facts are known; stern, inflexible +facts. For true historical accuracy, as well as for purposes of +humanity, they must be given; that delicacy would be false, misleading +and palliative which would refrain from tearing away the veil and from +exposing the putridity beneath. + +Field was repeatedly charged with employing his workers at such +desperately low wages as to drive large numbers of girls and women, by +the terrifying force of poverty, into the alternative of prostitution. +How large the number has been, or precisely what the economic or +psychologic factors have been, we have no means of knowing. It is worth +noting that many official investigations, futile though their results, +have probed into many other phases of capitalist fraud. But the +department stores over the country have been a singular exception. + +Why this partiality? Because the public is never allowed to get +agitated over the methods and practices of the department stores. Hence +the politicians are neither forced, for the sake of appearance, to +investigate, nor can they make political capital from a thing over which +the people are not aroused. Not a line of the horrors taking place in +the large department stores is ever reported in the newspapers, not a +mention of the treatment of girls and women, not a word of the +injunctions frequently obtained restraining these stores from continuing +to sell this or that brand of spurious goods in imitation of those of +some complaining capitalist, or of the seizures by Health Boards of +adulterated drugs or foods. + +Wherefore this silence? Because, unsophisticated reader, these same +department stores are the largest and steadiest advertisers. The +newspapers, which solemnly set themselves up as moral, ethical, and +political instructors to the public, sell all the space desired to +advertise goods many of which are fraudulent in nature or weight. Not a +line objectionable to these department stores ever gets into newspaper +print; on the contrary, the owners of these stores, by the bludgeon of +their immense advertising, have the power, within certain limitations, +of virtually acting as censors. The newspapers, whatever their +pretensions, make no attempt to antagonize the powers from whom so large +a portion of their revenue comes. It is a standing rule in newspaper +offices in the cities, that not a specific mention of any unfavorable or +discreditable matter occurring in department stores, or affecting the +interests of the proprietors of those stores, is allowed to get into +print. Thus it is that the general public are studiously kept in +ignorance of the abominations incessantly going on in the large +department stores. + + +OUTCASTS RATHER THAN SLAVES. + +Notwithstanding this community of silence, in some respects akin to a +huge compounded system of blackmail, it is generally known that +department stores are often breeding stations of prostitution by reason +of two factors--extremely low wages and environment. There can be no +disputing the fact that these two working together, and perhaps +superinduced by other compelling influences, do bring about a condition +the upshot of which is prostitution. Such supine reports as those of the +Consumers' League, an organization of well-disposed dilletantes, and of +superficial purposes, give no insight into the real estate of affairs. +In his rather sensational and vitriolic raking of Chicago, W. T. Stead +strongly deals with the effects of department store conditions in +filling the ranks of prostitutes. He quotes Dora Claflin, the +proprietress of a brothel, as saying that such houses as hers obtained +their inmates from the stores, those in particular where hours were long +and the pay small.[174] + +Mockery of mockeries that in this era of civilization, so-called, a +system should prevail that yields far greater returns from selling the +body than from honest industry! + +It has been estimated that the number of young women who receive $2,500 +in one year by the sale of their persons is larger than the number of +women of all ages, in all businesses and professions, who make a +similar sum by work of mind or hand.[175] But one of the most +significant recognitions of the responsibility of department stores for +the prevalence of prostitution, was the act of a member of the Illinois +legislature, a few years ago, in introducing a resolution (which failed +to pass) to investigate the department stores of Chicago on the ground +that conditions in them led to a shocking state of immorality. The +statement has been repeatedly made that nearly one-half of the outcast +girls and women of Chicago have come from the department stores.[176] + +It was not only by these methods that the firm of Marshall Field & Co. +was so phenomenally successful in making money. In the background were +other methods which belong to a different category. Whatever Field's +practices--and they were venal and unscrupulous to a great degree, as +will be shown--he was an astute organizer. He understood how to +manipulate and use other men, and how to centralize business, and cut +out the waste and junket of mercantile operations. In the evolutionary +scheme of business he played his important part and a very necessary +part it was, for which he must be given full credit. His methods, base +as they were, were in no respect different from those of the rest of the +commercial world, as a whole. The only difference was that he was more +conspicuous and more successful. + + +CENTERING ALL PROFITS IN HIMSELF. + +At a time when all business was run on the chaotic and desultory lines +characteristic of the purely competitive age, he had the foresight and +shrewdness to perceive that the storekeeper who depended upon the jobber +and the manufacturer for his goods was largely at the mercy of those +elements. Even if he were not, there were two sets of profits between +him and the making of the goods--the jobber's profits and the +manufacturer's. + +Years before this vital fact was impressed upon the minds of the +floundering retailers, Field understood, and acted upon, it. He became +his own manufacturer and jobber. Thus he was complacently able to supply +his department store with many goods at cost, and pocket the profits +that otherwise would have gone to jobber and manufacturer. In, however, +the very act of making three sets of profits, while many other stores +made only one set, Field paid his employees at the retail store rate; +that is to say, he paid no more in wages than the store which had to buy +often from the jobber, who in turn, purchased from the manufacturer. +With this salient fact in mind, one begins to get a clear insight into +some of the reasons why Field made such enormous profits, and an +understanding of the consequent contrast of his firm doing a business of +$50,000,000 a year while thousands of his employees had to work for a +wretched pittance. He could have afforded to have paid them many times +more than they were getting and still would have made large profits. But +this would have been an imbecilic violation of that established canon of +business: Pay your employees as little as you can, and sell your goods +for the highest price you can get. + +Field was one of the biggest dry goods manufacturers in the world. He +owned, says a writer, scores of enormous factories in England, Ireland +and Scotland. "The provinces of France," this eulogist goes on, "are +dotted with his mills. The clatter of the Marshall Field looms is heard +in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and Russia. Nor is the Orient +neglected by this master of fabrics. Plodding Chinese and the skilled +Japs are numbered by the thousands on the payroll of the Chicago +merchant and manufacturer. On the other side of the equator are vast +woolen mills in Australia, and the chain extends to South America, with +factories in Brazil and in other of our neighboring republics." + +In all of these factories the labor of men, women and children was +harshly exploited; in nearly all of them the workers were in an +unorganized state, and therefore deprived of every vestige of +self-protection. Boys and girls of tenderest age were mercilessly ground +into dollars; their young life's blood dyed deep the fabrics which +brought Field riches. In this dehumanizing business Field was only doing +what the entire commercial aristocracy the world over was doing. + +How extraordinarily profitable the business of Marshall Field & Co. was +(and is), may be seen in the fact that its shares (it became an +incorporated stock company) were worth $1,000 each. At his death +Marshall Field owned 3,400 of these shares, which the executors of his +estate valued at $3,400,000. That the exploitation of labor, the sale of +sweatshop and adulterated goods, and many other forms of oppression or +fraud were a consecutive and integral part of his business methods is +undeniable. But other factors, distinctly under the ban of the law, +afford an additional explanation of how he was able to undersell petty +competitors, situated even at a distance. What all of these factors were +is not a matter of public knowledge. At least one of them came to light +when, on December 4, 1907, D. R. Anthony, a representative in Congress +from Kansas, supplied evidence to Postmaster-General Meyer that the +house of Marshall Field & Co. had enjoyed, and still had, the privilege +of secret discriminatory express rates in the shipment of goods. This +charge, if sustained, was a clear violation of the law; but these +violations by the great propertied interests were common, and entailed, +at the worst, no other penalty than a nominal fine. + +From such sources came the money with which he became a large +landowner. Also, from the sources enumerated, came the money with +which he and his associates debauched politics, and bribed common +councils and legislatures to present them with public franchises +for street and elevated railways, gas, telephone and electric light +projects--franchises intrinsically worth incalculable sums.[177] With +the money squeezed out of his legions of poverty-stricken employees and +out of his rent-racked tenants he became an industrial monarch. The +inventory of his estates filed in court by his executors revealed that +he owned stocks and bonds in about one hundred and fifty corporations. +This itemized list showed that he owned many millions of bonds and +stocks in railroads with the construction and operation of which he had +nothing to do. The history of practically all of them reeks with thefts +of public and private money; corruption of common councils, of +legislatures, Congress and of administrative officials; land grabbing, +fraud, illegal transactions, violence, and oppression not only of their +immediate workers, but of the entire population.[178] He owned--to give +a few instances--$1,500,000 of Baltimore and Ohio stock; $600,000 of +Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe; $1,860,000 of Chicago and Northwestern, +and tens of millions more of the stock or bonds of about fifteen other +railroads. + +He also owned an immense assortment of the stocks of a large number of +trusts. The affairs of these trusts have been shown in court, at some +time or other, as overflowing with fraud, the most glaring oppressions, +and violations of law. He had $450,000 in stock of the Corn Products +Company (the Glucose Trust); $370,000 of the stock of the notorious +Harvester Trust, which charges the farmer $75 for a machine that perhaps +costs $16 in all to make and market, and which holds a great part of the +farming population bound hand and foot; $350,000 of Biscuit Trust stock; +$200,000 of American Tin Can Company (Tin Can Trust) stock; and large +amounts of stock in other trusts. All of these stocks and bonds Field +owned outright; he made it a rule never to buy a share of stock on +margin or for speculative purposes. All told, he owned more than +$55,000,000 in stocks and bonds. + +A very considerable part of these were securities of Chicago surface and +elevated railway, gas, electric light and telephone companies. In the +corruption attending the securing of the franchises of these +corporations he was a direct principal. The narrative of this part of +his fortune, however, more pertinently belongs to subsequent chapters of +this work. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[172] Census of 1900. + +[173] Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:370. + +[174] See his work, "If Christ Came to Chicago." Much more specific and +reliable is the report of the U. S. Industrial Commission. After giving +the low wages paid to women in the different cities, it says: "It is +manifest from the figures given that the amount of earnings in many +cases is less than the actual cost of the necessities of life. The +existence of such a state of affairs must inevitably lead in many cases +to the adoption of a life of immorality and, in fact, there is no doubt +that the low rate of wages paid to women is one of the most frequent +causes of prostitution. The fact that the great mass of working women +maintain their virtue in spite of low wages and dangerous environment is +highly creditable to them."--Final Report of the Industrial Commission, +1902, xix:927. + +[175] See an article on this point by the Rev. F. M. Goodchild in the +"Arena" Magazine for March, 1896. + +[176] In the course of inquiries among the Chicago religious missions in +1909, the author was everywhere informed that the great majority of +native prostitutes were products of the department stores. Some of the +conditions in these department stores, and how their owners have fought +every effort to better these conditions, have been revealed in many +official reports. The appended description is from the Annual Report of +the Factory Inspectors of Illinois, 1903-04, pp. ix and x: + +"In this regard, and worthy of mention, reference might be made to the +large dry goods houses and department stores located in Chicago and +other cities, in which places it has been customary to employ a great +number of children under the age of sixteen as messenger boys, bundle +wrappers, or as cash boys or cash girls, wagon boys, etc. In previous +years these children were required to come to work early in the morning +and remain until late at night, or as long as the establishment was open +for business, which frequently required the youngsters to remain +anywhere from 8:00 to 9:00 o'clock in the morning until 10:00 and 11:00 +p.m., their weak and immature bodies tired and worn out under the strain +of the customary holiday rush. In the putting a stop to this practice of +employing small children ten and thirteen hours per day, the department +found it necessary to institute frequent prosecutions. While our efforts +were successful, we met with serious opposition, and in some cases +almost continuous litigation, some 300 arrests being necessary to bring +about the desired results, which finally secured the eight hour day and +a good night's rest for the small army of toilers engaged in the candy +and paper box manufacturing establishments and department stores. + +"In conducting these investigations and crusades the inspectors met with +some surprises in the way of unique excuses. In Chicago a manager of a +very representative first class department store, one of the largest of +its kind, gave as his reason for not obeying the law, that they had +never been interfered with before. Another, that the children preferred +to be in the store rather than at home. The unnaturalness of this latter +excuse can be readily realized by anyone who has stepped into a large +department store during the holiday season, when the clerks are tired +and cross and little consideration is shown to the cash boy or cash girl +who, because he or she may be tired or physically frail, might be a +little tardy in running an errand or wrapping a bundle. This character +of work for long hours is deleterious to a child, as are the employments +in many branches of the garment trade or other industries, which labor +is so openly condemned by those who have been interested in anti-child +labor movements." + +[177] For detailed particulars see that part of this work comprising +"Great Fortunes from Public Franchises." + +[178] The acts here summarized are narrated specifically in Part III, +"Great Fortunes from Railroads." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +FURTHER VISTAS OF THE FIELD FORTUNE + + +But if only to give at the outset a translucent example of Field's +method's in the management of industrial corporations, it is well to +advert here to the operations of one of his many properties--the Pullman +Company, otherwise called the "Palace Car Trust." This is a necessary +part of the exposition in order to bring out more of the methods by +which Field was enabled to fling together his vast fortune. + +The artificial creation of the law called the corporation was so devised +that it was comparatively easy for the men who controlled it to evade +personal, moral, and often legal, responsibility for their acts. +Governed as the corporation was by a body of directors, those acts +became collective and not individual; if one of the directors were +assailed he could plausibly take refuge in the claim that he was merely +one of a number of controllers; that he could not be held specifically +responsible. Thus the culpability was shifted, until it rested on the +corporation, which was a bloodless thing, not a person. + + +FIELD'S PULLMAN WORKS. + +In the case of the Pullman Co., however, much of the moral +responsibility could be directly placed upon Field, inasmuch as he, +although under cover, was virtually the dictator of that corporation. +According to the inventory of the executors of his will, he owned 8,000 +shares of Pullman stock, valued at $800,000. It was asserted (in 1901) +that Field was the largest owner of Pullman stock. "In the popular +mind," wrote a puffer, probably inspired by Field himself, "George M. +Pullman has ever been deemed the dominant factor in that vast and +profitable enterprise." This belief was declared an error, and the +writer went on: "Field is, and for years has been, in almost absolute +control. Pullman was little more than a figurehead. Such men as Robert +T. Lincoln, the president of the company, and Norman B. Ream are but +representatives of Marshall Field, whose name has never been identified +with the property he so largely owns and controls." That fulsome writer, +with the usual inaccuracies and turgid exaggerations of "popular +writers," omitted to say that although Field was long the controlling +figure in the management of the Pullman works, yet other powerful +American multimillionaires, such as the Vanderbilts, had also become +large stockholders. + +The Pullman Company, Moody states, employed in 1904, in all departments +of its various factories at different places, nearly 20,000 employees, +and controlled 85 per cent of the entire industry.[179] As at least a +part of the methods of the company have been the subject of official +investigation, certain facts are available. + +To give a brief survey, the Pullman Company was organized in 1867 to +build sleeping cars of a feasible type officially patented by Pullman. +In 1880 it bought five hundred acres of land near Chicago. Upon three +hundred of these it built its plant, and proceeded, with much show and +advertisement of benevolence, to build what is called a model town for +the benefit of its workers. Brick tenements, churches, a library, and +athletic grounds were the main features, with sundry miscellaneous +accessories. This project was heralded far and wide as a notable +achievement, a conspicuous example of the growing altruism of business. + + +THE NATURE OF A MODEL TOWN. + +Time soon revealed the inner nature of the enterprise. The "model town," +as was the case with imitative towns, proved to be a cunning device with +two barbs. It militated to hold the workers to their jobs in a state of +quasi serfdom, and it gave the company additional avenues of exploiting +its workers beyond the ordinary and usual limits of wages and profits. +In reality, it was one of the forerunners of an incoming feudalistic +sway, without the advantages to the wage worker that the lowly possessed +under medieval feudalism. It was also an apparent polished improvement, +but nothing more, over the processes at the coal mines in Pennsylvania, +Illinois and other States where the miners were paid the most meager +wages, and were compelled to return those wages to the coal companies +and bear an incubus of debt besides, by being forced to buy all of their +goods and merchandise at company stores at extortionate rates. But where +the coal companies did the thing boldly and crudely, the Pullman Company +surrounded the exploitation with deceptive embellishments. + +The mechanism, although indirect, was simple. While, for instance, the +cost of gas to the Pullman Company was only thirty-three cents a +thousand feet, every worker living in the town of Pullman had to pay at +the rate of $2.25 a thousand feet. If he desired to retain his job he +could not avoid payment; the company owned the exclusive supply of gas +and was the exclusive landlord. The company had him in a clamp from +which he could not well escape. The workers were housed in ugly little +pens, called cottages, built in tight rows, each having five rooms and +"conveniences." For each of these cottages $18 rent a month was charged. +The city of Chicago, the officials of which were but the mannikins or +hirelings of the industrial magnates, generously supplied the Pullman +Company with water at four cents a thousand gallons. For this same water +the company charged its employees ten cents a thousand gallons, or about +seventy-one cents a month. By this plan the company, in addition, +obtained its water supply for practically nothing. Even for having +shutters on the houses the workers were taxed fifty cents a month. These +are some specimens of the company's many devious instrumentalities for +enchaining and plundering its thousands of workers. + +In the panic year of 1893 the Pullman Company reduced wages one-fourth, +yet the cost of rent, water, gas--of nearly all other fundamental +necessities--remained the same. As the average yearly pay of at least +4,497 of the company's wage workers was little more than $600--or, to be +exact, $613.86--this reduction, in a large number of cases, was +equivalent to forcing these workers to yield up their labors for +substantially nothing. Numerous witnesses testified before the special +commission appointed later by President Cleveland, that at times their +bi-weekly checks ran variously from four cents to one dollar. The +company could not produce evidence to disprove this. These sums +represented the company's indebtedness to them for their labor, after +the company had deducted rent and other charges. Such manifold robberies +aroused the bitterest resentment among the company's employees, since +especially it was a matter of authentic knowledge, disclosed by the +company's own reports, that the Pullman factories were making enormous +profits. At this time, the Pullman workers were $70,000 in arrears to +the company for rent alone. + + +THE PULLMAN EMPLOYEES STRIKE. + +Finally plucking up courage--for it required a high degree of moral +bravery to subject themselves and their families to the further want +inevitably ensuing from a strike--the workers of the Pullman Company +demanded a restoration of the old scale of wages. An arrogant refusal +led to the declaration of a strike on May 11, 1894. This strike, and the +greater strike following, were termed by Carroll D. Wright, for a time +United States Commissioner of Labor, as "probably the most expensive and +far-reaching labor controversy which can properly be classed among the +historic controversies of this generation."[180] The American Railway +Union, composed of the various grades of workers on a large number of +railroads, declared a general sympathetic strike under the delegated +leadership of Eugene V. Debs. + +The strike would perhaps have been successful had it not been that the +entire powers of the National Government, and those of most of the +States affected, were used roughshod to crush this mighty labor +uprising. The whole newspaper press, with rare exceptions, spread the +most glaring falsehoods about the strike and its management. Debs was +personally and venomously assailed in vituperation that has had little +equal. To put the strikers in the attitude of sowing violence, the +railroad corporations deliberately instigated the burning or +destruction of their own cars (they were cheap, worn-out freight cars), +and everywhere had thugs and roughs as its emissaries to preach, and +provoke, violence.[181] The object was threefold: to throw the onus upon +the strikers of being a lawless body; to give the newspapers an +opportunity of inveighing with terrific effect against the strikers, and +to call upon the Government for armed troops to shoot down, overawe, or +in other ways thwart, the strikers. + +Government was, in reality, directed by the railroad and other +corporations. United States judges, at the behest of the railroad +companies (which had caused them to be appointed to the Bench), issued +extraordinary, unprecedented injunctions against the strikers. These +injunctions even prevented the strikers from persuading fellow employees +to quit work. So utterly lacking any basis in law had these injunctions +that the Federal Commission reported: "It is seriously questioned, and +with much force, whether the courts have jurisdiction to enjoin citizens +from 'persuading' each other in industrial matters of common interest." +But the injunctions were enforced. Debs and his comrades were convicted +of contempt of court and, without jury trial, imprisoned at a critical +juncture of the strike. And what was their offense? Nothing more than +seeking to induce other workers to take up the cause of their striking +fellow-workers. The judges constituted themselves as prosecuting +attorney, judge and jury. Never had such high-handed judicial usurpation +been witnessed. As a concluding stroke, President Cleveland ordered a +detachment of the United States army to Chicago. The pretexts were that +the strikers were interfering with interstate commerce and with the +carrying of mails. + + +VAST PROFITS AND LOW WAGES. + +That the company's profits were great at the identical time the workers +were curtailed to a starvation basis, there can be no doubt. The general +indignation and agitation caused by the summary proceedings during the +strike, compelled President Cleveland to appoint a commission to +investigate. Cleveland was a mediocre politician who, by a series of +fortuitous circumstances, had risen from ward politics to the +Presidency. After using the concentrated power of the Federal Government +to break the strike, he then decided to "investigate" its merits. It was +the shift and ruse of a typical politician. + +The Special Commission, while not selected of men who could in the +remotest degree be accused of partiality toward the workers, brought out +a volume of significant facts, and handed in a report marked by +considerable and unexpected fairness. The report showed that the Pullman +Company's capital had been increased from $1,000,000 in 1867 to +$36,000,000 in 1894. "Its prosperity," the Commission reported, "has +enabled the company for over twenty years to pay two per cent. quarterly +dividends." But this eight per cent. annual dividend was not all. In +certain years the dividends had ranged from nine and one half, to +twelve, per cent. In addition, the Commission further reported, the +company had laid by a reserve fund in the form of a surplus of +$25,000,000 of profits which had not been divided. For the year ending +July 31, 1893, the declared dividends were $2,520,000; the wages +$7,223,719.51. During the next year, when wages were cut one-fourth, the +stockholders divided an even greater amount in profits: $2,880,000. +Wages went to 4,471,701.39.[182] + +If Field's revenue was so proportionately large from this one +property--the Pullman works--it is evident that his total revenue from +the large array of properties which he owned, or in which he held bonds +or stock, was very great. + +It is probable that in the latter years of his life his annual net +income was, at the very least, $5,000,000. This is an extremely +conservative estimate. More likely it reached $10,000,000 a year. +Computing the sum upon which the average of his workers had to live (to +make a very liberal allowance) at $800 a year, this sum of $5,000,000 +flowing in to him every year, without in the slightest trenching upon +his principal, was equal to the entire amount that 6,250 of his +employees earned by the skill of their brains and hands, and upon which +they had to support themselves and their families. + +Here, then, was one individual who appropriated to his use as much as +six thousand; men and more who laboriously performed service to the +community. For that $5,000,000 a year Field had nothing to do in return +except to worry over the personal or business uses to which his surplus +revenues should be put; like a true industrial monarch he relieved +himself of superfluous cares by hiring the ability to supervise and +manage his properties for him. + +Such an avalanche of riches tumbled in upon him that, perforce, like the +Astors, the Goelets and other multimillionaires, he was put constantly +to the terrible extremity of seeking new fields for investment. +Luxuriously live, as he did, it would have required a superior inventive +capacity to have dissipated his full income. But, judging his life by +that of some other multimillionaires, he lived modestly. Of medium +height and spare figure, he was of rather unobtrusive appearance. In his +last years his hair and mustache were white. His eyes were gray and +cold; his expression one of determination and blandly assertive +selfishness. His eulogists, however, have glowingly portrayed him as +"generous, philanthropic and public-spirited." + + +"A MODEL OF BUSINESS INTEGRITY." + +In fact, it was a point descanted upon with extraordinary emphasis +during Field's lifetime and following his demise that, (to use the stock +phrase which with wearying ceaselessness went the rounds of the press), +he was "a business man of the best type." From this exceptional +commentary it can be seen what was the current and rooted opinion of the +character of business men in general. Field's rigorous exploitation of +his tens of thousands of workers in his stores, in his Pullman +factories, and elsewhere, was not a hermetically sealed secret; but this +exploitation, no matter to what extremes to which it was carried, was an +ordinary routine of prevailing business methods.[183] + +Of the virtual enslavement of the worker; of the robbing him of what he +produced; of the drastic laws enforced against him; of the debasement of +men, women and children--of all of these facts the organs of public +expression, the politicians and the clergy, with few exceptions, said +nothing. + +Everywhere, except in obscure quarters of despised workingmen's +meetings, or in the writings or speeches of a few intellectual +protestors, the dictum was proclaimed and instilled that conditions were +just and good. In a thousand disingenuous ways, backed by nimble +sophistry, the whole ruling class, with its clouds of retainers, turned +out either an increasing flood of praise of these conditions, or masses +of misinforming matter which tended to reconcile or blind the victim to +his pitiful drudgery. The masters of industry, who reaped fabulous +riches from such a system, were covered with slavish adulation, and were +represented in flowery, grandiloquent phrases as indispensable men, +without whom the industrial system of the country could not be carried +on. Nay, even more: while being plundered and ever anew plundered of the +fruits of their labor, the workers were told, (as they are increasingly +being told), that they should honor the magnates and be thankful to them +for providing work. + + +HE STEALS MILLIONS IN TAXES. + +Marshall Field, as we have said, was heralded far and wide as an +unusually honest business man, the implication being that every cent of +his fortune was made fairly and squarely. Those fawners to wealth, and +they were many, who persisted in acclaiming his business methods as +proper and honorable, were grievously at a loss for an explanation when +his will was probated, and it was found that even under the existing +laws, favorable as they were to wealth, he had been nothing more than a +common perjurer and a cheat. It was too true, alas! This man "of strict +probity" had to be catalogued with the rest of his class. + +For many years he had insisted on paying taxes on personal property on a +valuation of not more than $2,500,000; and the pious old shopkeeper had +repeatedly threatened, in case the board of assessors should raise his +assessment, that he would forthwith bundle off his domicile from +Chicago, and reside in a place where assessors refrain from too much +curiosity as to one's belongings. But lo! when the schedule of his +property was filed in court, it was disclosed that for many years he had +owned at least $17,500,000 of taxable personal property subject to the +laws of the State of Illinois. Thus was another idol cruelly shattered; +for the aforesaid fawners had never tired of exulting elaborately upon +the theme of Field's success, and how it was due to his absolute +integrity and pure, undented character. + +At another time the facts of his thefts of taxes might have been +suppressed or toned down. But at this particular juncture Chicago +happened to have a certain corporation counsel who, while mildly +infected with conventional views, was not a truckler to wealth. Suit was +brought in behalf of the city for recovery of $1,730,000 back taxes. So +clear was the case that the trustees of Field's estate decided to +compromise. On March 2, 1908, they delivered to John R. Thompson, +treasurer of Cook County, a check for one million dollars. If the +compound interest for the whole series of years during which Field +cheated in taxation were added to the $1,730,000, it would probably be +found that the total amount of his frauds had reached fully three +million dollars. + +The chorus of astonishment that ascended when these facts were divulged +was an edifying display. He who did not know that the entire propertied +class made a regular profession of perjury and fraud in order to cheat +the public treasury out of taxes, was either deliciously innocent or +singularly uninformed. Year after year a host of municipal and State +officials throughout the United States issued reports showing this +widespread condition. Yet aside from their verbose complainings, which +served political purpose in giving an air of official vigilance, the +authorities did nothing. + + +PERJURY AND CHEATING COMMON. + +As a matter of fact, the evasion of taxes by the Pullman Company had +been a public scandal for many years. John P. Altgeld, Governor of +Illinois in 1893-95, frequently referred to it in his speeches and +public papers. Field, then, not only personally cheated the public +treasury out of millions, but also the corporations which he controlled +did likewise. The propertied class everywhere did the same. The +unusually thorough report of the Illinois Labor Bureau of 1894 +demonstrated how the most valuable land and buildings in Chicago were +assessed at the merest fraction of their true value--the costliest +commercial buildings at about one-tenth, and the richest residences at +about one-fourteenth, of their actual value. As for personal property it +contributed a negligible amount in taxes.[184] + +The reports of the tax committee of the Boston Executive Business +Association in 1891 estimated that two billion dollars of property in +Boston escaped taxation, and that the public treasury was cheated out of +about $17,000,000 in taxes every year. As for New York City, we have +seen how the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Goelets--the whole aggregate +of the propertied class--systematically defrauded in taxes for many +decades. It is estimated that in New York City, at present, not less +than five billion dollars of property, real and personal, entirely +escapes taxation. This estimate is a conservative one. + +Spahr, after an exhaustive investigation in the United States concluded +more than a decade ago that, "the wealthy class pay less than one-tenth +of the indirect taxes, the well-to-do less than one-quarter, and the +relatively poorer classes more than two-thirds."[185] What Spahr omitted +was this highly important qualification: When the rich do pay. Tenants +of the property owners must pay their rent on time or suffer eviction, +but the capitalists are allowed to take their own leisurely time in +paying such portion of their taxes as remains after the bulk of the tax +list has been perjured away. Thus in a report he made public on February +28, 1908, Controller Metz, of New York City, pointed out that the huge +amount of $102,834,227, was due the city in uncollected taxes, much of +which amount ran several decades back. Of this sum $29,816,513 was owed +on real estate, on which the taxes were a direct lien. + +The beauties of law as made and enforced by the property interests, are +herein illustriously exemplified. A poor tenant can be instantly +dispossessed, whether sick or in destitution, for non-payment of rent; +the landowner is allowed by officials who represent, and defer to him +and his class, to owe large amounts in taxes for long periods, and not a +move is taken to dispossess him. + +And now by the most natural gradation, we come to those much bepraised +acts of our multimillionaires--the seignorial donating of millions to +"charitable" or "public-spirited" purposes. + +Like the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Rhinelanders and a galaxy of +others, Field diffused large sums; he, like them, was overwhelmed with +panegyrics. Millions Field gave toward the founding and sustaining of +the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago, and to the University of Chicago. +It may be parenthetically added that, (to repeat), he owned, adjacent to +this latter institution, many blocks of land the increased value of +which, after the establishment of the University, more than recouped him +for his gifts. This might have been either accidental or it might have +been cold calculation; judging from Field's consistent methods, it was +probably not chance. + +So composite, however, is the human character, so crossed and seamed by +conflicting influences, that at no time is it easy to draw any absolute +line between motives. Merely because he exploited his employees +mercilessly, and cheated the public treasury out of millions of dollars, +it does not necessarily follow that Field was utterly deficient in +redeeming traits. As business is conducted, it is well known that many +successful men (financially), who practice the most cruel and oppressive +methods, are, outside the realm of strict business transactions, +expansively generous and kind. In business they are beasts of prey, +because under the private property system, competition, whether between +small or large concerns, is reduced to a cutthroat struggle, and those +who are in the contest must abide by its desperate rules. They must let +no sympathy or tenderness interpose in their business dealings, else +they are lost. + +But without entering into a further philosophical disquisition, this +fact must be noted: The amounts that Field gave for "philanthropy" were +about identical with the sums out of which he defrauded Chicago in the +one item of taxes alone. Probed into, it is seen that a great part of +the sums that multimillionaires have given, represent but a tithe of the +sums cheated by them in taxes. William C. Schermerhorn donates $300,000 +to Columbia University; the aggregate amount that he defrauded in taxes +was much more. Thus do our magnates supply themselves with present and +posthumous fame gratuitously. Not to consider the far greater and +incalculably more comprehensive question of their appropriating the +resources of the country and the labor of hundreds of millions of +people,[186] and centering attention upon this one concrete instance of +frauds in taxes, the situation presented is an incongruous one. Money +belonging to the public treasury they retain by fraud; this money, +apparently a part of their "honestly acquired" fortune, is given in +some form of philanthropy; and then by some curious oversetting of even +conventional standards, they reap blessings and glory for giving what +are really stolen funds. + +"Those who enjoy his confidence," wrote an effervescent eulogist of +Field, "predict that the bulk of his vast fortune will be devoted to +purposes of public utility." But this prediction did not materialize. + + +$140,000,000 TO TWO BOYS. + +Field's fortune, conservatively estimated at $100,000,000, yet, in fact, +reaching about $140,000,000, was largely bequeathed to his two +grandsons, Marshall Field III., and Henry Field. Marshall Field, as did +many other multimillionaires of his period, welded his fortune into a +compact and vested institution. It ceased to be a personal attribute, +and became a thing, an inert mass of money, a corporate entity. This he +did by creating, by the terms of his will, a trust of his fortune for +the two boys. The provisions of the will set forth that $72,000,000 was +to set aside in trust for Marshall III., until the year 1954. At the +expiration of that period it, together with its accumulation, was to be +turned over to him. To the other grandson, Henry, $48,000,000 was +bequeathed under the same conditions. + +These sums are not in money, although at all times Field had a snug sum +of cash stowed away; when he died he had about $4,500,000 in banks. The +fortune that he left was principally in the form of real estate and +bonds and stocks. These constituted a far more effective cumulative +agency than money. They were, and are, inexorable mortgages on the labor +of millions of workers, men, women and children, of all occupations. By +this simple screed, called a will, embodying one man's capricious +indulgence, these boys, utterly incompetent even to grasp the magnitude +of the fortune owned by them, and incapable of exercising the +glimmerings of management, were given legal, binding power over a mass +of people for generations. Patterson says that in the Field stores and +Pullman factories fifty thousand people work for these boys.[187] But +these are the direct employees; as we have seen, Field owned bonds and +stock in more than one hundred and fifty industrial, railroad, mining +and other corporations. The workers of all these toil for the Field +boys. + +They delve in mines, and risk accident, disease and death, or suffer an +abjectly lingering life of impoverishment. Thousands of coal miners are +killed every year, and many thousands more are injured, in order that +two boys and others of their class may draw huge profits.[188] More than +10,000 persons are killed, and 97,000 injured, every year on the +railroads, so that the income enjoyed by these lads and others shall not +diminish. Nearly all of these casualties are due to economizing in +expense, working employees to an extreme fatiguing limit, and refusing +to provide proper safety appliances. Millions more workers drudge in +rolling mills, railroad shops and factories; they wear out their lives +on farms, in packing houses and stores. For what? Why, foolish +questioner, for the rudiments of an existence; do you not know that +the world's dispossessed must pay heavily for the privilege of living? +As these lads hold, either wholly or partly, the titles to all this +inherited property; in plain words, to a formidable part of the +machinery of business, the millions of workers must sweat and bend the +back, and pile up a ceaseless flow of riches for them. + +[Illustration: MARSHAL FIELD III. and HENRY FIELD. +The Boys Who Inherited $140,000,000.] + +Marshall Field III., still in knickerbockers, receives $60,000 a week; +his brother Henry, $40,000 a week. The sum in both cases automatically +increases as the interest on the principal compounds. What do many of +the workers who supply this revenue get? Patterson gives this authentic +list of wages: + +Pullman Company blacksmiths, $16.43 a week; boiler-makers, $17; +carpenters, $12.38; machinists, $16.65; painters, $13.60, and laborers, +$9.90 a week. As for the lower wages paid to the workers in the Field +stores, we have already given them. And apart from the exploitation of +employees, every person in Chicago who rides on the street or elevated +railroads, and who uses gas, electricity or telephones, must pay direct +tribute to these lads. How decayed monarchial establishments are in +these days! Kings mostly must depend upon Parliaments for their civil +lists of expenditure; but Capitalism does not have to ask leave of +anybody; it appropriates what it wants. + +This is the status of the Field fortune now. Let the Field striplings +bless their destiny that they live in no medieval age, when each baron +had to defend his possessions by his strong right arm successfully, or +be compelled to relinquish. This age is one when Little Lord Fauntleroys +can own armies of profit producers, without being distracted from their +toys. Whatever defense is needed is supplied by society, with its +governments and its judges, its superserviceable band of lawyers, and +its armed forces. Two delicate children are upheld in enormous +possessions and vast power, while millions of fellow beings are suffered +to remain in destitution. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[179] "The Truth About the Trusts":266-267. + +[180] "Industrial Evolution of the United States," 313. + +[181] Parsons, "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":196. Also, +Report of Chicago Chief of Police for 1894. This was a customary +practice of railroad, industrial and mining capitalists. Further facts +are brought out in other parts of this work. + +[182] "Report on the Chicago Strike of June and July, 1894," by the +United States Strike Commissioners, 1895.--Throughout all subsequent +years, and at present, the Pullman Company has continued charging the +public exorbitant rates for the use of its cars. Numerous bills have +been introduced in various legislatures to compel the company to reduce +its rates. The company has squelched these measures. Its consistent +policy is well known of paying its porters and conductors such poor +wages that the 15,000,000 passengers who ride in Pullman cars every year +are virtually obliged to make up the deficiency by tips. + +[183] Sweeping as this statement may impress the uninitiated, it is +entirely within the facts. As one of many indisputable confirmations it +is only necessary to refer to the extended debate over child labor in +the United States Senate on January 23, 28, and 29, 1907, in which it +was conclusively shown that more than half a million children under +fifteen years of age were employed in factories, mines and sweatshops. +It was also brought out how the owners of these properties bitterly +resisted the passage or enforcement of restrictive laws. + +[184] Eighth Biennial Report of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, +1894. The report, made public in August, 1909, of the Illinois Tax +Reform League's investigation of the Chicago Board of Review's +assessments, showed that these frauds in evading taxation not only +continue, but on a much greater scale than ever before. The Illinois Tax +Reform League asserted, among other statements, that Edward Morris, head +of a large packing company, was not assessed on personal property, +whereas he owned $43,000,000 worth of securities, which the League +specified. The League called upon the Board of Review to assess J. Ogden +Armour, one of the chiefs of the Beef Trust, on $30,840,000 of personal +property. Armour was being yearly assessed on only $200,000 of personal +property. These are two of the many instances given in the report in +question. It is estimated (in 1909), that back taxes on at least a +billion dollars of assessable corporate capital stock, are due the city +from a multitude of individuals and corporations. + +[185] "The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States":143. + +[186] "Hundreds of millions of people." Not only are the 85,000,000 +people of the United States compelled to render tribute, but the peoples +of other countries all over the globe. + +[187] "Marshall Field's Will" by Joseph Medill Patterson. Reprinted in +pamphlet form from "Collier's Weekly." + +[188] The number of men killed per 100,000 employed has increased from +267 a year in 1895 to about 355 at present. (See report of J. A. Holmes, +chief of the technological branch of the United States Geological +Survey.) The chief reason for this slaughter is because it is more +profitable to hire cheap, inexperienced men, and not surround the work +with proper safeguards. + + + + +END OF VOL. I. + + +(The index for Volumes I, II, and III will be found in Vol. III.) + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History of the Great American +Fortunes, Vol. I, by Myers Gustavus + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES *** + +***** This file should be named 30956-8.txt or 30956-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/9/5/30956/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I + Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times + +Author: Myers Gustavus + +Release Date: January 13, 2010 [EBook #30956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>THE HISTORY OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES</h1> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<h2>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h2> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The History of Tammany Hall</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">History of The Public Franchises in New York City</span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>HISTORY OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>GUSTAVUS MYERS</h2> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF TAMMANY HALL," "HISTORY OF</p> + +<p class="center">PUBLIC FRANCHISES IN NEW YORK CITY," ETC.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<h3>VOL. I.</h3> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><b>PART I: CONDITIONS IN SETTLEMENT AND COLONIAL TIMES</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><b>PART II: THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES</b></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<h4>CHICAGO</h4> + +<h4>CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY</h4> + +<h4>1910</h4> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p class="center">Copyright 1907, 1908 and 1909</p> + +<p class="center">By GUSTAVUS MYERS</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + +<p>In writing this work my aim has been to give the exact facts as far as +the available material allows. Necessarily it is impossible, from the +very nature of the case, to obtain all the facts. It is obvious that in +both past and present times the chief beneficiaries of our social and +industrial system have found it to their interest to represent their +accumulations as the rewards of industry and ability, and have likewise +had the strongest motives for concealing the circumstances of all those +complex and devious methods which have been used in building up great +fortunes. In this they have been assisted by a society so constituted +that the means by which these great fortunes have been amassed have been +generally lauded as legitimate and exemplary.</p> + +<p>The possessors of towering fortunes have hitherto been described in two +ways. On the one hand, they have been held up as marvels of success, as +preëminent examples of thrift, enterprise and extraordinary ability. +More recently, however, the tendency in certain quarters has been +diametrically the opposite. This latter class of writers, intent upon +pandering to a supposed popular appetite for sensation, pile exposure +upon exposure, and hold up the objects of their diatribes as monsters of +commercial and political crime. Neither of these classes has sought to +establish definitely the relation of the great fortunes to the social +and industrial system which has propagated them. Consequently, these +superficial effusions and tirades—based upon a lack of understanding of +the propelling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span> forces of society—have little value other than as +reflections of a certain aimless and disordered spirit of the times. +With all their volumes of print, they leave us in possession of a +scattered array of assertions, bearing some resemblance to facts, which, +however, fail to be facts inasmuch as they are either distorted to take +shape as fulsome eulogies or as wild, meaningless onslaughts.</p> + +<p>They give no explanation of the fundamental laws and movements of the +present system, which have resulted in these vast fortunes; nor is there +the least glimmering of a scientific interpretation of a succession of +states and tendencies from which these men of great wealth have emerged. +With an entire absence of comprehension, they portray our +multimillionaires as a phenomenal group whose sudden rise to their +sinister and overshadowing position is a matter of wonder and surprise. +They do not seem to realize for a moment—what is clear to every real +student of economics—that the great fortunes are the natural, logical +outcome of a system based upon factors the inevitable result of which is +the utter despoilment of the many for the benefit of a few.</p> + +<p>This being so, our plutocrats rank as nothing more or less than as so +many unavoidable creations of a set of processes which must imperatively +produce a certain set of results. These results we see in the +accelerated concentration of immense wealth running side by side with a +propertyless, expropriated and exploited multitude.</p> + +<p>The dominant point of these denunciatory emanations, however, is that +certain of our men of great fortune have acquired their possessions by +dishonest methods. These men are singled out as especial creatures of +infamy. Their doings and sayings furnish material for many pages of +assault. Here, again, an utter lack of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span> knowledge and perspective is +observable. For, while it is true that the methods employed by these +very rich men have been, and are, fraudulent, it is also true that they +are but the more conspicuous types of a whole class which, in varying +degrees, has used precisely the same methods, and the collective +fortunes and power of which have been derived from identically the same +sources.</p> + +<p>In diagnosing an epidemic, it is not enough that we should be content +with the symptoms; wisdom and the protection of the community demand +that we should seek and eradicate the cause. Both wealth and poverty +spring from the same essential cause. Neither, then, should be +indiscriminately condemned as such; the all-important consideration is +to determine why they exist, and how such an absurd contrast can be +abolished.</p> + +<p>In taking up a series of types of great fortunes, as I have done in this +work, my object has not been the current one of portraying them either +as remarkable successes or as unspeakable criminals. My purpose is to +present a sufficient number of examples as indicative of the whole +character of the vested class and of the methods which have been +employed. And in doing this, neither prejudice nor declamation has +entered. Such a presentation, I believe, cannot fail to be useful for +many reasons.</p> + +<p>It will, in the first place, satisfy a spirit of inquiry. As time +passes, and the power of the propertied oligarchy becomes greater and +greater, more and more of a studied attempt is made to represent the +origin of that property as the product of honest toil and great public +service. Every searcher for truth is entitled to know whether this is +true or not. But what is much more important is for the people to know +what have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> the cumulative effects of a system which subsists upon +the institutions of private property and wage-labor. If it possesses the +many virtues that it is said to possess, what are these virtues? If it +is a superior order of civilization, in what does this superiority +consist?</p> + +<p>This work will assist in explaining, for naturally a virtuous and +superior order ought to produce virtuous and superior men. The kind and +quality of methods and successful ruling men, which this particular +civilization forces to the front, are set forth in this exposition. +Still more important is the ascertainment of where these stupendous +fortunes came from, their particular origin and growth, and what +significance the concomitant methods and institutions have to the great +body of the people.</p> + +<p>I may add that in Part I no attempt has been made to present an +exhaustive account of conditions in Settlement and Colonial times. I +have merely given what I believe to be a sufficient resumé of conditions +leading up to the later economic developments in the United States.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 23em;"><span class="smcap">Gustavus Myers</span>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 23em;">September 1, 1909.</span><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#PREFACE"><b><span class="smcap">Preface</span></b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h4>PART I</h4> + +<h4>CONDITIONS IN COLONIAL AND SETTLEMENT TIMES</h4> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER I</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I_I"><b><span class="smcap">The Great Proprietary Estates</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER II</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I_II"><b><span class="smcap">The Sway of the Landgraves</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER III</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I_III"><b><span class="smcap">The Rise of the Trading Class</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER IV</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I_IV"><b><span class="smcap">The Shipping Fortunes</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER V</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I_V"><b><span class="smcap">The Shippers and Their Times</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER VI</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I_VI"><b><span class="smcap">Girard—The Richest of the Shippers</span></b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h4>PART II</h4> + +<h4>THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES</h4> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER I</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_I"><b><span class="smcap">The Origin of Huge City Estates</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER II</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_II"><b><span class="smcap">The Inception of the Astor Fortune</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER III</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_III"><b><span class="smcap">The Growth of the Astor Fortune</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER IV</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_IV"><b><span class="smcap">The Ramifications of the Astor Fortune</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER V</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_V"><b><span class="smcap">The Momentum of the Astor Fortune</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER VI</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_VI"><b><span class="smcap">The Propulsion of the Astor Fortune</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER VII</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_VII"><b><span class="smcap">The Climax of the Astor Fortune</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER VIII</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_VIII"><b><span class="smcap">Other Land Fortunes Considered</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER IX</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_IX"><b><span class="smcap">The Field Fortune in Extenso</span></b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>CHAPTER X</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II_X"><b><span class="smcap">Further Vistas of the Field Fortune</span></b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<h2>CONDITIONS IN SETTLEMENT AND COLONIAL TIMES</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_I" id="CHAPTER_I_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE GREAT PROPRIETARY ESTATES</h3> + +<p>The noted private fortunes of settlement and colonial times were derived +from the ownership of land and the gains of trading. Usually both had a +combined influence and were frequently attended by agriculture. +Throughout the colonies were scattered lords of the soil who held vast +territorial domains over which they exercised an arbitrary and, in some +portions of the colonies, a feudal sway.</p> + +<p>Nearly all the colonies were settled by chartered companies, organized +for purely commercial purposes and the success of which largely depended +upon the emigration which they were able to promote. These corporations +were vested with enormous powers and privileges which, in effect, +constituted them as sovereign rulers, although their charters were +subject to revision or amendment. The London Company, thrice chartered +to take over to itself the land and resources of Virginia and populate +its zone of rule, was endowed with sweeping rights and privileges which +made it an absolute monopoly. The impecunious noblemen or gentlemen who +transported themselves to Virginia to recoup their dissipated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> fortunes +or seek adventure, encountered no trouble in getting large grants of +land especially when after 1614 tobacco became a fashionable article in +England and took rank as a valuable commercial commodity.</p> + +<p>Over this colony now spread planters who hastened to avail themselves of +this new-found means of getting rich. Land and climate alike favored +them, but they were confronted with a scarcity of labor. The emergency +was promptly met by the buying of white servants in England to be resold +in Virginia to the highest bidder. This, however, was not sufficient, +and complaints poured over to the English government. As the demands of +commerce had to be sustained at any price, a system was at once put into +operation of gathering in as many of the poorer English class as could +be impressed upon some pretext, and shipping them over to be held as +bonded laborers. Penniless and lowly Englishmen, arrested and convicted +for any one of the multitude of offenses then provided for severely in +law, were transported as criminals or sold into the colonies as slaves +for a term of years. The English courts were busy grinding out human +material for the Virginia plantations; and, as the objects of commerce +were considered paramount, this process of disposing of what was +regarded as the scum element was adjudged necessary and justifiable. No +voice was raised in protest.</p> + +<h4>THE INTRODUCTION OF BLACK SLAVES.</h4> + +<p>But, fast as the English courts might work, they did not supply laborers +enough. It was with exultation that in 1619 the plantation owners were +made acquainted with a new means of supplying themselves with adequate +workers. A Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> cargo of negroes from +Guinea. The blacks were promptly bought at good prices by the planters. +From this time forth the problem of labor was considered sufficiently +solved. As chattel slavery harmonized well with the necessities of +tobacco growing and gain, it was accepted as a just condition and was +continued by the planters, whose interests and standards were the +dominant factor.</p> + +<p>After 1620, when the London Company was dissolved by royal decree, and +the commerce of Virginia made free, the planters were the only factor. +Virginia, it was true, was made a royal province and put under deputy +rule, but the big planters contrived to get the laws and customs their +self-interest called for. There were only two classes—the rich +planters, with their gifts of land, their bond-servants and slaves and, +on the other hand, the poor whites. A middle class was entirely lacking.</p> + +<p>As the supreme staple of commerce and as currency itself, tobacco could +buy anything, human, as well as inert, material. The labor question had +been sufficiently vanquished, but not so the domestic. Wives were much +needed; the officials in London instantly hearkened, and in 1620 sent +over sixty young women who were auctioned off and bought at from one +hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty pounds of tobacco each. +Tobacco then sold at three shillings a pound. Its cultivation was +assiduously carried on. The use of the land mainly for agricultural +purposes led to the foundation of numerous settlements along the shores, +bays, rivers, and creeks with which Virginia is interspersed and which +afforded accessibility to the sea ports. As the years wore on and the +means and laborers of the planters increased, their lands became more +extensive, so that it was not an unusual thing to find plantations of +fifty or sixty thousand acres. But neither in Virginia nor in Maryland,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +under the almost regal powers of Lord Baltimore who had propriety rights +over the whole of his province, were such huge estates to be seen as +were being donated in the northern colonies, especially in New +Netherlands and in New England.</p> + +<h4>FEUDAL GRANTS IN THE NORTH.</h4> + +<p>In its intense aim to settle New Netherlands and make use of its +resources, Holland, through the States General, offered extraordinary +inducements to promoters of colonization. The prospect of immense +estates, with feudal rights and privileges, was held out as the alluring +incentive. The bill of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629 made easy the +possibility of becoming a lord of the soil with comprehensive +possessions and powers. Any man who should succeed in planting a colony +of fifty "souls," each of whom was to be more than fifteen years old, +was to become at once a patroon with all the rights of lordship. He was +permitted to own sixteen miles along shore or on one side of a navigable +river. An alternative was given of the ownership of eight miles on one +side of a river and as far into the interior "as the situation of the +occupiers will permit." The title was vested in the patroon forever, and +he was presented with a monopoly of the resources of his domain except +furs and pelts. No patroon or other colonist was allowed to make woolen, +linen, cotton or cloth of any material under pain of banishment.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>These restrictions were in the interest of the Dutch West India Company, +a commercial corporation which had well-nigh dictatorial powers. A +complete monopoly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> throughout the whole of its subject territory, it was +armed with sweeping powers, a formidable equipment, and had a great +prestige. It was somewhat of a cross between legalized piracy and a body +of adroit colonization promoters. Pillage and butchery were often its +auxiliaries, although in these respects it in nowise equalled its twin +corporation, the Dutch East India Company, whose exploitation of +Holland's Asiatic possessions was a long record of horrors.</p> + +<h4>THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY.</h4> + +<p>The policy of the Dutch West India Company was to offer generous prizes +for peopling the land while simultaneously forbidding competition with +any of the numerous products or commodities dealt in by itself. This had +much to do with determining the basic character of the conspicuous +fortunes of a century and two centuries later. It followed that when +native industries were forbidden or their output monopolized not only by +the Dutch West India Company in New Netherlands, but by other companies +elsewhere in the colonies, that ownership of land became the mainstay of +large private fortunes with agriculture as an accompanying factor. +Subsequently the effects of this continuous policy were more fully seen +when England by law after law paralyzed or closed up many forms of +colonial manufacture. The feudal character of Dutch colonization, as +carried on by the Dutch West India Company, necessarily created great +landed estates, the value of which arose not so much from agriculture, +as was the case in Virginia, Maryland and later the Carolinas and +Georgia, but from the natural resources of the land. The superb +primitive timber<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> brought colossal profits in export, and there were +also very valuable fishery rights where an estate bounded a shore or +river. The pristine rivers were filled with great shoals of fish, to +which the river fishing of the present day cannot be compared. As +settlement increased, immigration pressed over, and more and more ships +carried cargo to and fro, these estates became consecutively more +valuable.</p> + +<p>To encourage colonization to its colonies still further, the States +General in 1635 passed a new decree. It repeated the feudal nature of +the rights granted and made strong additions.</p> + +<p>Did any aspiring adventurer seek to leap at a bound to the exalted +position of patroonship? The terms were easy. All that he had to do was +to found a colony of forty-eight adults and he had a liberal six years +in which to do it. For his efforts he was allowed even more extensive +grants of land than under the act of 1629. So complete were his powers +of proprietorship that no one could approach within seven or eight miles +of his jurisdiction without his express permission. His was really a +principality. Over its bays, rivers, and islands, had it any, as well as +over the mainland, he was given command forever. The dispensation of +justice was his exclusive right. He and he only was the court with +summary powers of "high, low and middle jurisdiction," which were +harshly or capriciously exercised. Not only did he impose sentence for +violation of laws, but he, himself, ordained those laws and they were +laws which were always framed to coincide with his interests and +personality. He had full authority to appoint officers and magistrates +and enact laws. And finally he had the power of policing his domain and +of making use of the titles and arms of his colonies. All these things +he could do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> "according to his will and pleasure." These absolute rights +were to descend to his heirs and assigns.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<h4>OLD WORLD TRADERS BECOME FEUDAL LORDS.</h4> + +<p>Thus, at the beginning of settlement times, the basis was laid in law +and custom of a landed aristocracy, or rather a group of intrenched +autocrats, along the banks of the Hudson, the shores of the ocean and +far inland. The theory then prevailed that the territory of the colonies +extended westward to the Pacific.</p> + +<p>From these patroons and their lineal or collateral descendants issued +many of the landed generations of families which, by reason of their +wealth and power, proved themselves powerful factors in the economic and +political history of the country. The sinister effects of this first +great grasping of the land long permeated the whole fabric of society +and were prominently seen before and after the Revolution, and +especially in the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century. +The results, in fact, are traceable to this very day, even though laws +and institutions are so greatly changed. Other colonies reflected the +constant changes of government, ruling party or policy of England, and +colonial companies chartered by England frequently forfeited their +charters. But conditions in New Netherlands remained stable under Dutch +rule, and the accumulation of great estates was intensified under +English rule. It was in New York that, at that period, the foremost +colonial estates and the predominant private fortunes were mostly held.</p> + +<p>The extent of some of those early estates was amazingly large. But they +were far from being acquired wholly by colonization methods.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>Many of the officers and directors of the Dutch West India Company were +Amsterdam merchants. Active, scheming, self-important men, they were +mighty in the money marts but were made use of, and looked down upon, by +the old Dutch aristocracy. Having amassed fortunes, these merchants +yearned to be the founders of great estates; to live as virtual princes +in the midst of wide possessions, even if these were still comparative +solitudes. This aspiration was mixed with the mercenary motive of +themselves owning the land from whence came the furs, pelts, timber and +the waters yielding the fishes.</p> + +<p>One of these directors was Kiliaen van Rensselaer, an Amsterdam pearl +merchant. In 1630 his agents bought for him from the Indians a tract of +land twenty-four miles long and forty-eight broad on the west bank of +the Hudson. It comprised, it was estimated, seven hundred thousand acres +and included what are now the counties of Albany, Rensselaer, a part of +Columbia County and a strip of what is at present Massachusetts. And +what was the price paid for this vast estate? As the deeds showed, the +munificent consideration of "certain quantities of duffels, axes, knives +and wampum,"<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> which is equal to saying that the pearl merchant got it +for almost nothing. Two other directors—Godyn and Bloemart—became +owners of great feudal estates. One of these tracts, in what is now New +Jersey, extended sixteen miles both in length and breadth, forming a +square of sixty-four miles.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p><p>So it was that these shrewd directors now combined a double advantage. +Their pride was satisfied with the absolute lordship of immense areas, +while the ownership of land gave them the manifold benefits and greater +profits of trading with the Indians at first hand. From a part of the +proceeds they later built manors which were contemplated as wonderful +and magnificent. Surrounded and served by their retainers, agents, +vassal tenants and slaves, they lived in princely and licentious style, +knowing no law in most matters except their unrestrained will. They +beheld themselves as ingenious and memorable founders of a potential +landed aristocracy whose possessions were more extended than that of +Europe. Wilderness much of it still was, but obviously the time was +coming when the population would be fairly abundant. The laws of entail +and primogeniture, then in full force, would operate to keep the estates +intact and gifted with inherent influence for generations.</p> + +<p>Along with their landed estates, these directors had a copious inflowing +revenue. The Dutch West India Company was in a thriving condition. By +the year 1629 it had more than one hundred full-rigged ships in +commission. Most of them were fitted out for war on the commerce of +other countries or on pirates. Fifteen thousand seamen and soldiers were +on its payroll; in that one year it used more than one hundred thousand +pounds of powder—significant of the grim quality of business done. It +had more than four hundred cannon and thousands of other destructive +weapons.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Anything conducive to profit, no matter if indiscriminate +murder, was accepted as legitimate and justifiable functions of trade, +and was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> imposed alike upon royalty, which shared in the proceeds, and +upon the people at large. The energetic trading class, concentrated in +the one effort of getting money, and having no scruples as to the means +in an age when ideals were low and vulgar, had already begun to make +public opinion in many countries, although this public opinion counted +for little among submissive peoples. It was the king and the governing +class, either or both, whose favor and declarations counted; and so long +as these profited by the devious extortions and villainies of trade the +methods were legitimatized, if not royally sanctified.</p> + +<h4>AN ARISTOCRACY SOLIDLY GROUNDED.</h4> + +<p>A more potentially robust aristocracy than that which was forming in New +Netherlands could hardly be imagined. Resting upon gigantic gifts of +land, with feudal accompaniments, it held a monopoly, or nearly one, of +the land's resources. The old aristocracy of Holland grew jealous of the +power and pretensions of what it frowned upon as an upstart trading +clique and tried to curtail the rights and privileges of the patroons. +These latter contended that their absolute lordship was indisputable; to +put it in modern legal terminology that a contract could not be +impaired. They elaborated upon the argument that they had spent a "ton +of gold" (amounting to one hundred thousand guilders or forty thousand +dollars) upon their colonies.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> They not only carried their point but +their power was confirmed and enlarged.</p> + +<p>Now was seen the spectacle of the middle-class men of the Old World, the +traders, more than imitating—far exceeding—the customs and pretensions +of the aristocracy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> of their own country which they had inveighed +against, and setting themselves up as the original and mighty landed +aristocracy of the new country. The patroons encased themselves in an +environment of pomp and awe. Like so many petty monarchs each had his +distinct flag and insignia; each fortified his domain with fortresses, +armed with cannon and manned by his paid soldiery. The colonists were +but humble dependants; they were his immediate subjects and were forced +to take the oath of fealty and allegiance to him.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>In the old country the soil had long since passed into the hands of a +powerful few and was made the chief basis for the economic and political +enslavement of the people. To escape from this thralldom many of the +immigrants had endured hardships and privation to get here. They +expected that they could easily get land, the tillage of which would +insure them a measure of independence. Upon arriving they found vast +available parts of the country, especially the most desirable and +accessible portions bordering shores or rivers, preëmpted. An exacting +and tyrannous feudal government was in full control. Their only recourse +in many instances was to accept the best of unwelcome conditions and +become tenants of the great landed functionaries and workers for them.</p> + +<h4>THE ABASEMENT OF THE WORKERS.</h4> + +<p>The patroons naturally encouraged immigration. Apart from the additional +values created by increased population, it meant a quantity of labor +which, in turn,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> would precipitate wages to the lowest possible scale. +At the same time, in order to stifle every aspiring quality in the +drudging laborer, and to keep in conformity with the spirit and custom +of the age which considered the worker a mere menial undeserving of any +rights, the whole force of the law was made use of to bring about sharp +discriminations. The laborer was purposely abased to the utmost and he +was made to feel in many ways his particular low place in the social +organization.</p> + +<p>Far above him, vested with enormous personal and legal powers, towered +the patroon, while he, the laborer, did not have the ordinary burgher +right, that of having a minor voice in public affairs. The burgher right +was made entirely dependent upon property, which was a facile method of +disfranchising the multitude of poor immigrants and of keeping them +down. Purchase was the one and only means of getting this right. To keep +it in as small and circumscribed class as possible the price was made +abnormally high. It was enacted in New Netherlands in 1659, for +instance, that immigrants coming with cargoes had to pay a thousand +guilders for the burgher right.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> As the average laborer got two +shillings a day for his long hours of toil, often extending from sunrise +to sunset, he had little chance of ever getting this sum together. The +consequence was that the merchants became the burgher class; and all the +records of the time seem to prove conclusively that the merchants were +servile instruments of the patroons whose patronage and favor they +assiduously courted. This deliberately pursued policy of degrading and +despoiling the laboring class incited bitter hatreds and resentments, +the effects of which were permanent.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 413px;"> +<img src="images/ill_001.jpg" width="413" height="500" alt="JEREMIAS VAN RENSSELAERR. One of the Patroons. (From an Engraving.)" title="" /> +<span class="caption">JEREMIAS VAN RENSSELAERR.<br />One of the Patroons.<br />(From an Engraving.)</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/ill_002.jpg" width="400" height="127" alt="Signature" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_II" id="CHAPTER_I_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE SWAY OF THE LANDGRAVES</h3> + +<p>While this seizure of land was going on in New Netherlands, vast areas +in New England were passing suddenly into the hands of a few men. These +areas sometimes comprised what are now entire States, and were often +palpably obtained by fraud, collusion, trickery or favoritism. The +Puritan influx into Massachusetts was an admixture of different +occupations. Some were traders or merchants; others were mechanics. By +far the largest portion were cultivators of the soil whom economic +pressure not less than religious persecution had driven from England. To +these land was a paramount consideration.</p> + +<p>Describing how the English tiller had been expropriated from the soil +Wallace says: "The ingenuity of lawyers and direct landlord legislation +steadily increased the powers of great landowners and encroached upon +the rights of the people, till at length the monstrous doctrine arose +that a landless Englishman has no right whatever to enjoyment even of +the unenclosed commons and heaths and the mountain and forest wastes of +his native country, but is everywhere in the eye of the law a trespasser +whenever he ventures off a public road or pathway."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> By the sixteenth +century the English peasantry had been evicted even from the commons, +which were turned into sheep walks by the impoverished barons to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +money from the Flemish wool market. The land at home wrenched from them, +the poor English immigrants ardently expected that in America land would +be plentiful. They were bitterly disappointed. The various English +companies, chartered by royal command with all-inclusive powers, despite +the frequent opposition of Parliament, held the trade and land of the +greater part of the colonies as a rigid monopoly. In the case of the New +England Company severe punishment was threatened to all who should +encroach upon its rights. It also was freed from payment for twenty-one +years and was relieved from taxes forever.</p> + +<h4>THE COLONIES CARVED INTO GREAT ESTATES.</h4> + +<p>The New England colonies were carved out into a few colossal private +estates. The example of the British nobility was emulated; but the +chartered companies did not have to resort to the adroit, disingenuous, +subterranean methods which the English land magnates used in +perpetuating their seizure, as so graphically described by S. W. +Thackery in his work, "The Land and the Community". The land in New +England was taken over boldly and arbitrarily by the directors of the +Plymouth Company, the most powerful of all the companies which exploited +New England. The handful of men who participated in this division, +sustained with a high hand their claims and pretensions, and augmented +and fortified them by every device. Quite regardless of who the changing +monarch was, or what country ruled, these colonial magnates generally +contrived to keep the power strong in their own hands. There might be a +superficial show of changed conditions, an apparent infusion of +democracy, but, in reality, the substance remained the same.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>This was nowhere more lucidly or strikingly illustrated than after New +Netherlands passed into the control of the English and was renamed New +York. Laws were decreed which seemed to bear the impress of justice and +democracy. Monopoly was abolished, every man was given the much-prized +right of trading in furs and pelts, and the burgher right was extended +and its acquisition made easier.</p> + +<p>However well-intentioned these altered laws were, they turned out to be +shallow delusions. Under English rule, the gifts of vast estates in New +York were even greater than under Dutch rule and beyond doubt were +granted corruptly or by favoritism. Miles upon miles of land in New York +which had not been preëmpted were brazenly given away by the royal +Governor Fletcher for bribes; and it was suspected, although not clearly +proved, that he trafficked in estates in Pennsylvania during the time +when, by royal order, he supplanted William Penn in the government of +that province. From the evidence which has come down it would appear +that any one who offered Fletcher his price could be transformed into a +great vested land owner. But still the people imagined that they had a +real democratic government. Had not England established representative +assemblies? These, with certain restrictions, alone had the power of +law-making for the provinces. These representative bodies were supposed +to rest upon the vote of the people, which vote, however, was determined +by a strict property qualification.</p> + +<h4>THE LANDED PROPRIETORS THE POLITICAL RULERS.</h4> + +<p>What really happened was that, apparently deprived of direct feudal +power, the landed interests had no difficulty in retaining their +law-making ascendancy by getting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> control of the various provincial +assemblies. Bodies supposedly representative of the whole people were, +in fact, composed of great landowners, of a quota of merchants who were +subservient to the landowners, and a sprinkling of farmers. In Virginia +this state was long-continuing, while in New York province it became +such an intolerable abuse and resulted in such oppressions to the body +of the people, that on Sept. 20, 1764, Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader +Colden, writing from New York to the Lords of Trade at London, strongly +expostulated. He described how the land magnates had devised to set +themselves up as the law-making class. Three of the large land grants +contained provisions guaranteeing to each owner the privilege of sending +a representative to the General Assembly. These landed proprietors, +therefore, became hereditary legislators. "The owners of other great +Patents," Colden continued, "being men of the greatest opulence in the +several American counties where these Tracts are, have sufficient +influence to be perpetually elected for those counties. The General +Assembly, then, of this Province consists of the owners of these +extravagant Grants, the merchants of New York, the principal of them +strongly connected with the owners of these Great Tracts by Family +interest, and of Common Farmers, which last are men easily deluded and +led away with popular arguments of Liberty and Privileges. The +Proprietors of the great tracts are not only freed from the quit rents +which the other landholders in the Provinces pay, but by their +influences in the Assembly are freed from every other public Tax on +their lands."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>What Colden wrote of the landed class of New York was substantially true +of all the other provinces. The small, powerful clique of great +landowners had cunningly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> taken over to themselves the functions of +government and diverted them to their own ends. First the land was +seized and then it was declared exempt of taxation.</p> + +<p>Inevitably there was but one sequel. Everywhere, but especially so in +New York and Virginia, the landed proprietors became richer and more +arrogant, while poverty, even in new country with extraordinary +resources, took root and continued to grow. The burden of taxation fell +entirely upon the farming and laboring classes; although the merchants +were nominally taxed they easily shifted their obligations upon those +two classes by indirect means of trade. Usurious loans and mortgages +became prevalent.</p> + +<p>It was now seen what meaningless tinsel the unrestricted right to trade +in furs was. To get the furs access to the land was necessary; and the +land was monopolized. In the South, where tobacco and corn were the +important staples, the worker was likewise denied the soil except as a +laborer or tenant, and in Massachusetts colony, where fortunes were +being made from timber, furs and fisheries, the poor man had practically +no chance against the superior advantages of the landed and privileged +class. These conditions led to severe reprisals. Several uprisings in +New York, Bacon's rebellion in Virginia, after the restoration of +Charles II, when that king granted large tracts of land belonging to the +colony to his favorites, and subsequently, in 1734, a ferment in +Georgia, even under the mild proprietary rule of the philanthropist +Oglethorpe, were all really outbursts of popular discontent largely +against the oppressive form in which land was held and against +discriminative taxation, although each uprising had its local issues +differing from those elsewhere.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>In this conflict between landed class and people, the only hope of the +mass of the people lay in getting the favorable attention of royal +governors. At least one of these considered earnestly and +conscientiously the grave existing abuses and responded to popular +protest which had become bitter.</p> + +<h4>A CONFLICT BETWEEN LAND MAGNATES AND PEOPLE.</h4> + +<p>This official was the Earl of Bellomont. Scarcely had he arrived after +his appointment as Captain-General and Governor of Massachusetts Bay, +New York and other provinces, when he was made acquainted with the +widespread discontent. The landed magnates had not only created an +abysmal difference between themselves and the masses in possessions and +privileges, but also in dress and air, founded upon strict distinctions +in law. The landed aristocrat with his laces and ruffles, his silks and +his gold and silver ornaments and his expensive tableware, his +consciously superior air and tone of grandiose authority, was far +removed in established position from the mechanic or the laborer with +his coarse clothes and mean habitation. Laws were long in force in +various provinces which prohibited the common people from wearing gold +and silver lace, silks and ornaments. Bellomont noted the sense of deep +injustice smouldering in the minds of the people and set out to +confiscate the great estates, particularly, as he set forth, as many of +them had been obtained by bribery.</p> + +<p>It was with amazement that Bellomont learned that one man, Colonel +Samuel Allen, claimed to own the whole of what is now the state of New +Hampshire. When, in 1635, the Plymouth Colony was about to surrender its +charter, its directors apportioned their territory to themselves +individually. New Hampshire went by lot to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> Captain John Mason who, some +years before, had obtained a patent to the same area from the company. +Charles I had confirmed the company's action. After Mason's death, his +claims were bought up by Allen for about $1,250. Mason, however, left an +heir and protracted litigation followed. In the meantime, settlers +taking advantage of these conflicting claims, proceeded to spread over +New Hampshire and hew the forests for cleared agricultural land. Allen +managed to get himself appointed governor of New Hampshire in 1692 and +declared the whole province his personal property and threatened to oust +the settlers as trespassers unless they came to terms. There was +imminent danger of an uprising of the settlers, who failed to see why +the land upon which they had spent labor did not belong to them. +Bellomont investigated; and in communication, dated June 22, 1700, to +the Lords of Trade, denounced Allen's title as defective and +insufficient, and brought out the charge that Allen had tried to get his +confirmation of his, Allen's, claims by means of a heavy bribe.</p> + +<h4>ATTEMPTED BRIBERY CHARGED.</h4> + +<p>"There was an offer made me," Bellomont wrote, "of £10,000 in money, but +I thank God I had not the least tempting thought to accept of the offer +and I hope nothing in this world will ever be able to attempt me to +betray England in the least degree. This offer was made me three or four +times." Bellomont added: "I will make it appear that the lands and woods +claimed by Colonel Allen are much more valuable than ten of the biggest +estates in England, and I will rate those ten estates at £300,000 a +piece, one with another, which is three millions. By his own confession +to me at Pescattaway last summer, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> valued the Quit Rents of his lands +(as he calls 'em) at £22,000 per annum at 3d per acre of 6d in the pound +of all improv'd Rents; then I leave your lordships to judge what an +immense estate the improv'd rents must be, which (if his title be +allowed) he has as good a right to the forementioned Quit Rents. And all +this besides the Woods which I believe he might very well value at half +the worth of the lands. There never was, I believe, since the world +began so great a bargain as Allen has had of Mason, if it be allowed to +stand good, that all this vast estate I have been naming should be +purchased for a poor £250 and that a desperate debt, too, as Col. Allen +thought. He pretends to a great part of this province as far Westward as +Cape St. Ann, which is said to take in 17 of the best towns in this +province next to Boston, the best improved land, and, (I think Col. +Allen told me) 8 or 900,000 acres of their land. If Col. Allen shall at +any time go about to make a forcible entry on these lands he pretends to +(for, to be sure, the people will never turn tenants to him willingly) +the present occupants will resist him by any force he shall bring and +the Province will be put to a combustion and what may be the course I +dread to think."...<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>But the persistent Allen did not establish his claim. Several times he +lost in the litigation, the last time in 1715. His death was followed by +his son's death; and after sixty years of fierce animosities and +litigation, the whole contention was allowed to lapse. Says Lodge: "His +heirs were minors who did not push the controversy, and the claim soon +sank out of sight to the great relief of the New Hampshire people, whose +right to their homes had so long been in question."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>Similarly, another area, the entirety of what is now the State of Maine, +went to the individual ownership of Sir Fernandino Gorges, the same who +had betrayed Essex to Queen Elizabeth and who had received rich rewards +for his treachery.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The domain descended to his grandson, Fernando +Gorges, who, on March 13, 1677, sold it by deed to John Usher, a Boston +merchant, for £1,250. The ominous dissatisfaction of the New Hampshire +and other settlers with the monopolization of land was not slighted by +the English government; at the very time Usher bought Maine the +government was on the point of doing the same thing and opening the land +for settlement. Usher at once gave a deed of the province to the +governor and company of Massachusetts, of which colony and later, State, +it remained a part until its creation as a State in 1820.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>These were two notable instances of vast land grants which reverted to +the people. In most of the colonies the popular outcry for free access +to the land was not so effective. In Pennsylvania, after the government +was restored to Penn, and in part of New Jersey conditions were more +favorable to the settlers. In those colonies corrupt usurpations of the +land were comparatively few, although the proprietary families continued +to hold extensive tracts. Penn's sons by his second wife, for instance, +became men of great wealth.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> The pacific and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> conciliatory Quaker +faith operated as a check on any local extraordinary misuse of power. +Unfortunately for historical accuracy and penetration, there is an +obscurity as to the intimate circumstances under which many of the large +private estates in the South were obtained. The general facts as to +their grants, of course, are well known, but the same specific, +underlying details, such as may be disinterred from Bellomont's +correspondence, are lacking. In New York, at least, and presumably +during Fletcher's sway of government in Pennsylvania, great land grants +went for bribes. This is definitely brought out in Bellomont's official +communications.</p> + +<h4>VAST ESTATES SECURED BY BRIBERY.</h4> + +<p>Fletcher, it would seem, had carried on a brisk traffic in creating by a +stroke of the quill powerfully rich families by simply granting them +domains in return for bribes.</p> + +<p>Captain John R. N. Evans had been in command of the royal warship +Richmond. An estate was his fervent ambition. Fletcher's mandate gave +him a grant of land running forty miles one way, and thirty another, on +the west bank of the Hudson. Beginning at the south line of the present +town of New Paltry, Ulster County, it included the southern tier of the +now existing towns in that picturesque county, two-thirds of the fertile +undulations of Orange County and a part of the present town of +Haverstraw. It is related of this area, that there was "but one house on +it, or rather a hut, where a poor man lives." Notwithstanding this lone, +solitary subject, Evans saw great trading and seignorial possibilities +in his tract. And what did he pay for this immense stretch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> of +territory? A very modest bribe; common report had it that he gave +Fletcher £100 for the grant.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>Nicholas Bayard, of whom it is told that he was a handy go-between in +arranging with the sea pirates the price that they should pay for +Fletcher's protection, was another favored personage. Bayard was the +recipient of a grant forty miles long and thirty broad on both sides of +Schoharie Creek. Col. William Smith's prize was a grant from Fletcher of +an estate fifty miles in length on Nassau—now Long Island. According to +Bellomont, Smith got this land "arbitrarily and by strong hand." Smith +was in collusion with Fletcher, and moreover, was chief justice of the +province, "a place of great awe as well as authority." This judicial +land wrester forced the town of Southampton to accept the insignificant +sum of £10 for the greater part of forty miles of beach—a singularly +profitable transaction for Smith, who cleared in one year £500, the +proceeds of whales taken there, as he admitted to Bellomont.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Henry +Beekman, the astute and smooth founder of a rich and powerful family, +was made a magnate of the first importance by a grant from Fletcher of a +tract sixteen miles in length in Dutchess County, and also of another +estate running twenty miles along the Hudson and eight miles inland. +This estate he valued at £5,000.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Likewise Peter Schuyler, Godfrey +Dellius and their associates had conjointly secured by Fletcher's +patent, a grant fifty miles long in the romantic Mohawk Valley—a grant +which "the Mohawk Indians have often complained of". Upon this estate +they placed a value of £25,000. This was a towering fortune for the +period; in its actual command of labor, necessities, comforts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> and +luxuries it ranked as a power of transcending importance.</p> + +<p>These were some of the big estates created by "Colonel Fletcher's +intolerable corrupt selling away the lands of this Province," as +Bellomont termed it in his communication to the Lords of Trade of Nov. +28, 1700. Fletcher, it was set forth, profited richly by these corrupt +grants. He got in bribes, it was charged, at least £4,000.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> But +Fletcher was not the only corrupt official. In his interesting work on +the times,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> George W. Schuyler presents what is an undoubtedly +accurate description of how Robert Livingston, progenitor of a rich and +potent family which for generations exercised a profound influence in +politics and other public affairs, contrived to get together an estate +which soon ranked as the second largest in New York state and as one of +the greatest in the colonies.</p> + +<p>Livingston was the younger son of a poor exiled clergyman. In currying +favor with one official after another he was unscrupulous, dexterous and +adaptable. He invariably changed his politics with the change of +administration. In less than a year after his arrival he was appointed +to an office which yielded him a good income. This office he held for +nearly half a century, and simultaneously was the incumbent of other +lucrative posts. Offices were created by Governor Dongan apparently for +his sole benefit. His passion was to get together an estate which would +equal the largest. Extremely penurious, he loaned money at frightfully +usurious rates and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> hounded his victims without a vestige of +sympathy.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> As a trader and government contractor he made enormous +profits; such was his cohesive collusion with high officials that +competitors found it impossible to outdo him. A current saying of him +was that he made a fortune by "pinching the bellies of the +soldiers"—that is, as an army contractor who defrauded in quantity and +quality of supplies. By a multitude of underhand and ignoble artifices +he finally found himself the lord of a manor sixteen miles long and +twenty-four broad. On this estate he built flour and saw mills, a bakery +and a brewery. In his advanced old age he exhibited great piety but held +on grimly to every shilling that he could and as long as he could. When +he died about 1728—the exact date is unknown—at the age of 74 years, +he left an estate which was considered of such colossal value that its +true value was concealed for fear of further enraging the discontented +people.</p> + +<h4>EFFECTS OF THE LAND SEIZURES.</h4> + +<p>The seizure of these vast estates and the arbitrary exclusion of the +many from the land produced a combustible situation. An instantaneous +and distinct cleavage of class divisions was the result. Intrenched in +their possessions the landed class looked down with haughty disdain upon +the farming and laboring classes. On the other hand, the farm laborer +with his sixteen hours work a day for a forty-cent wage, the carpenter +straining for his fifty-two cents a day, the shoemaker<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> drudging for his +seventy-three cents a day and the blacksmith for his seventy cents,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> +thought over this injustice as they bent over their tasks. They could +sweat through their lifetime at honest labor, producing something of +value and yet be a constant prey to poverty while a few men, by means of +bribes, had possessed themselves of estates worth tens of thousands of +pounds and had preëmpted great stretches of the available lands.</p> + +<p>In consulting extant historical works it is noticeable that they give +but the merest shadowy glimpse of this intense bitterness of what were +called the lower classes, and of the incessant struggle now raging, now +smouldering, between the landed aristocracy and the common people. +Contrary to the roseate descriptions often given of the independent +position of the settlers at that time, it was a time when the use and +misuse of law brought about sharp divisions of class lines which arose +from artificially created inequalities, economically and politically. +With the great landed estates came tenantry, wage slavery and chattel +slavery, the one condition the natural generator of the others.</p> + +<p>The rebellious tendency of the poor colonists against becoming tenants, +and the usurpation of the land, were clearly brought out by Bellomont in +a letter written on Nov. 28, 1700, to the Lords of Trade. He complained +that "people are so cramped here for want of land that several families +within my own knowledge and observation are remov'd to the new country +(a name they give to Pennsylvania and the Jerseys) for, to use Mr. +Graham's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> expression to me, and that often repeated, too, what man will +be such a fool as to become a base tenant to Mr. Dellius, Colonel +Schuyler, Mr. Livingston (and so he ran through the whole role of our +mighty landgraves) when for crossing Hudson's River that man can, for a +song, purchase a good freehold in the Jerseys."</p> + +<p>If the immigrant happened to be able to muster a sufficient sum he +could, indeed, become an independent agriculturist in New Jersey and in +parts of Pennsylvania and provide himself with the tools of trade. But +many immigrants landed with empty pockets and became laborers dependent +upon the favor of the landed proprietors. As for the artisans—the +carpenters, masons, tailors, blacksmiths—they either kept to the cities +and towns where their trade principally lay, or bonded themselves to the +lords of the manors.</p> + +<h4>ATTEMPT AT CONFISCATION THWARTED.</h4> + +<p>Bellomont fully understood the serious evils which had been injected +into the body politic and strongly applied himself to the task of +confiscating the great estates. One of his first proposals was to urge +upon the Lords of Trade the restriction of all governors throughout the +colonies from granting more than a thousand acres to any man without +leave from the king, and putting a quit rent of half a crown on every +hundred acres, this sum to go to the royal treasury. This suggestion was +not acted upon. He next attacked the assembly of New York and called +upon it to annul the great grants. In doing this he found that the most +powerful members of the assembly were themselves the great land owners +and were putting obstacle after obstacle in his path. After great +exertions he finally prevailed upon the assembly to vacate at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> least two +of the grants, those to Evans and Bayard. The assembly did this probably +as a sop to Bellomont and to public opinion, and because Evans and +Bayard had lesser influence than the other landed functionaries. But the +owners of the other estates tenaciously held them intact. The people +regarded Bellomont as a sincere and ardent reformer, but the landed men +and their following abused him as a meddler and destructionist. +Despairing of getting a self-interested assembly to act, Bellomont +appealed to the Lords of Trade:</p> + +<p>"If your Lordships mean I shall go on to break the rest of the +extravagant grants of land by Colonel Fletcher or other governors, by +act of assembly, I shall stand in need of a peremptory order from the +King so to do."<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> A month later he insisted to his superiors at home +that if they intended that the corrupt and extravagant grants should be +confiscated—"(which I will be bold to say by all the rules of reason +and justice ought to be done) I believe it must be done by act of +Parliament in England, for I am a little jealous I shall not have +strength enough in the assembly of New York to break them." The majority +of this body, he pointed out, were landed men, and when their own +interest was touched, they declined to act contrary to it. Unless, added +Bellomont, "the power of our Palatines, Smith, Livingston, the Phillips, +father and son<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>—and six or seven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> more were reduced ... the country +is ruined."<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + +<p>Despite some occasional breaches in its intrenchments, the landocracy +continued to rule everywhere with a high hand, its power, as a whole, +unbroken.</p> + +<h4>HOW THE LORDS OF THE SOIL LIVED.</h4> + +<p>A glancing picture of one of these landed proprietors will show the +manner in which they lived and what was then accounted their luxury. As +one of the "foremost men of his day," in the colonies Colonel Smith +lived in befitting style. This stern, bushy-eyed man who robbed the +community of a vast tract of land and who, as chief justice, was +inflexibly severe in dealing punishment to petty criminals and ever +vigilant in upholding the rights of property, was lord of the Manor of +St. George, Suffolk County. The finest silks and lace covered his +judicial person. His embroidered belts, costing £110, at once attested +his great wealth and high station. He had the extraordinary number of +one hundred and four silver buttons to adorn his clothing. When he +walked a heavy silver-headed cane supported him, and he rode on a fancy +velvet saddle. His three swords were of the finest make; occasionally he +affected a Turkish scimeter. Few watches in the colonies could compare +with his massive silver watch. His table was embellished with heavy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +silver plate, valued at £150, on which his coat-of-arms was engraved. +Twelve negro slaves responded to his nod; he had a large corps of +bounded apprentices and dependant laborers. His mansion looked down on +twenty acres of wheat and twenty of corn; and as for his horses and +cattle they were the envy of the country. In his last year thirty horses +were his, fourteen oxen, sixty steers, forty-eight cows and two +bulls.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> He lived high, drank, swore, cheated—and administered +justice.</p> + +<p>One of the best and most intimate descriptions of a somewhat +contemporaneous landed magnate in the South is that given of Robert +Carter, a Virginia planter, by Philip Vickers Fithian,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> a tutor in +Carter's family. Carter came to his estate from his grandfather, whose +land and other possessions were looked upon as so extensive that he was +called "King" Carter.</p> + +<p>Robert Carter luxuriated in Nomini Hall, a great colonial mansion in +Westmoreland County. It was built between 1725 and 1732 of brick covered +with strong mortar, which imparted a perfectly white exterior, and was +seventy-six feet long and forty wide. The interior was one of unusual +splendor for the time, such as only the very rich could afford. There +were eight large rooms, one of which was a ball-room thirty feet long. +Carter spent most of his leisure hours cultivating the study of law and +of music; his library contained 1,500 volumes and he had a varied +assortment of musical instruments. He was the owner of 60,000 acres of +land spread over almost every county of Virginia, and he was the master +of six hundred negro slaves. The greater part of a prosperous iron-works +near Baltimore was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> owned by him, and near his mansion he built a flour +mill equipped to turn out 25,000 bushels of wheat a year. Carter was not +only one of the big planters but one of the big capitalists of the age; +all that he had to do was to exercise a general supervision; his +overseers saw to the running of his various industries. Like the other +large landholders he was one of the active governing class; as a member +of the Provincial Council he had great influence in the making of laws. +He was a thorough gentleman, we are told, and took good care of his +slaves and of his white laborers who were grouped in workhouses and +little cottages within range of his mansion. Within his domain he +exercised a sort of benevolent despotism. He was one of the first few to +see that chattel slavery could not compete in efficiency with white +labor, and he reckoned that more money could be made from the white +laborer, for whom no responsibility of shelter, clothing, food and +attendance had to be assumed than from the negro slave, whose sickness, +disability or death entailed direct financial loss. Before his death he +emancipated a number of his slaves. This, in brief, is the rather +flattering depiction of one of the conspicuously rich planters of the +South.</p> + +<h4>THE NASCENT TRADING CLASS.</h4> + +<p>Land continued to be the chief source of the wealth of the rich until +after the Revolution. The discriminative laws enacted by England had +held down the progress of the trading class; these laws overthrown, the +traders rose rapidly from a subordinate position to the supreme class in +point of wealth.</p> + +<p>No close research into pre-Revolutionary currents and movements is +necessary to understand that the Revolution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> was brought about by the +dissatisfied trading class as the only means of securing absolute +freedom of trade. Notwithstanding the view often presented that it was +an altruistic movement for the freedom of man, it was essentially an +economic struggle fathered by the trading class and by a part of the +landed interests. Admixed was a sincere aim to establish free political +conditions. This, however, was not an aim for the benefit of all +classes, but merely one for the better interests of the propertied +class. The poverty-stricken soldiers who fought for their cause found +after the war that the machinery of government was devised to shut out +manhood suffrage and keep the power intact in the hands of the rich. Had +it not been for radicals such as Jefferson, Paine and others it is +doubtful whether such concessions as were made to the people would have +been made. The long struggle in various States for manhood suffrage +sufficiently attests the deliberate aim of the propertied interests to +concentrate in their own hands, and in that of a following favorable to +them, the voting power of the Government and of the States.</p> + +<p>With the success of the Revolution, the trading class bounded to the +first rank. Entail and primogeniture were abolished and the great +estates gradually melted away. For more than a century and a half the +landed interests had dominated the social and political arena. As an +acknowledged, continuous organization they ceased to exist. Great +estates no longer passed unimpaired from generation to generation, +surviving as a distinct entity throughout all changes. They perforce +were partitioned among all the children; and through the vicissitudes of +subsequent years, passed bit by bit into many hands. Altered laws caused +a gradual disintegration in the case of individual holdings, but brought +no change in instances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> of corporate ownership. The Trinity Corporation +of New York City, for example, has held on to the vast estate which it +was given before the Revolution except such parts as it voluntarily has +sold.</p> + +<h4>DISINTEGRATION OF THE GREAT ESTATES.</h4> + +<p>The individual magnate, however, had no choice. He could no longer +entail his estates. Thus, estates which were very large before the +Revolution, and which were regarded with astonishment, ceased to exist. +The landed interests, however, remained paramount for several decades +after the Revolution by reason of the acceleration which long possession +and its profits had given them. Washington's fortune, amounting at his +death, to $530,000, was one of the largest in the country and consisted +mainly of land. He owned 9,744 acres, valued at $10 an acre, on the Ohio +River in Virginia, 3,075 acres, worth $200,000, on the Great Kenawa, and +also land elsewhere in Virginia and in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, +Kentucky, the City of Washington and other places.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> About half a +century later it was only by persistent gatherings of public +contributions that his very home was saved to the nation, so had his +estate become divided and run down. After a long career, Benjamin +Franklin acquired what was considered a large fortune. But it did not +come from manufacture or invention, which he did so much to encourage, +but from land. His estate in 1788, two years before his death, was +estimated to be worth $150,000, mostly in land.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> By the opening +decades of the nineteenth century few of the great estates in New York +remained. One of the last of the patroons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> was Stephen Van Rensselaer, +who died at the age of 75 on Jan. 26, 1839, leaving ten children. Up to +this time the manor had devolved upon the eldest son. Although it had +been diminished somewhat by various cessions, it was still of great +extent. The property was divided among the ten children, and, according +to Schuyler, "In less than fifty years after his death, the seven +hundred thousand acres originally in the manor were in the hands of +strangers."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + +<p>Long before old Van Rensselaer passed away he had seen the rise and +growth of the trading and manufacturing class and a new form of landed +aristocracy, and he observed with a haughty bitterness how in point of +wealth and power they far overshadowed the well-nigh defunct old feudal +aristocracy. A few hundred thousand dollars no longer was the summit of +a great fortune; the age of the millionaire had come. The lordly, +leisurely environment of the old landed class had been supplanted by +feverish trading and industrial activity which imposed upon society its +own newer standards, doctrines and ideals and made them uppermost +factors.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_III" id="CHAPTER_I_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE RISE OF THE TRADING CLASS</h3> + +<p>The creation of the great landed estates was accompanied by the slow +development of the small trader and merchant. Necessarily, they first +established themselves in the sea ports where business was concentrated.</p> + +<p>Many obstacles long held them down to a narrow sphere. The great +chartered companies monopolized the profitable resources. The land +magnates exacted tribute for the slightest privilege granted. Drastic +laws forbade competition with the companies, and the power of law and +the severities of class government were severely felt by the merchants. +The chartered corporations and the land dignitaries were often one group +with an identity of men and interests. Against their strength and +capital the petty trader or merchant could not prevail. Daring and +enterprising though he be, he was forced to a certain compressed routine +of business. He could sell the goods which the companies sold to him but +could not undertake to set up manufacturing. And after the companies had +passed away, the landed aristocracy used its power to suppress all undue +initiative on his part.</p> + +<h4>THE MANORIAL LORDS MONOPOLIZE TRADE.</h4> + +<p>This was especially so in New York, where all power was concentrated in +the hands of a few landowners. "To say," says Sabine, "that the +political institutions of New York formed a feudal aristocracy is to +define<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> them with tolerable accuracy. The soil was owned by a few. The +masses were mere retainers or tenants as in the monarchies of +Europe."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> The feudal lord was also the dominant manufacturer and +trader. He forced his tenants to sign covenants that they should trade +in nothing else than the produce of the manor; that they should trade +nowhere else but at his store; that they should grind their flour at his +mill, and buy bread at his bakery, lumber at his sawmills and liquor at +his brewery. Thus he was not only able to squeeze the last penny from +them by exorbitant prices, but it was in his power to keep them +everlastingly in debt to him. He claimed, and held, a monopoly in his +domain of whatever trade he could seize. These feudal tenures were +established in law; woe to the tenant who presumed to infract them! He +became a criminal and was punished as a felon. The petty merchant could +not, and dared not, compete with the trading monopolies of the manorial +lords within these feudal jurisdictions. In such a system the merchant's +place for a century and a half was a minor one, although far above that +of the drudging laborer. Merchants resorted to sharp and frequently +dubious ways of getting money together. They bargained and sold +shrewdly, kept their wits ever open, turned sycophant to the aristocracy +and a fleecer of the laborer.</p> + +<p>It would appear that in New York, at least, the practice of the most +audacious usury was an early and favorite means of acquiring the +property of others. These others were invariably the mechanic or +laborer; the merchant dared not attempt to overreach the aristocrat +whose power he had good reason to fear. Money which was taken in by +selling rum and by wheedling the unsophisticated Indians into yielding +up valuable furs, was loaned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> at frightfully onerous rates. The loans +unpaid, the lender swooped mercilessly upon the property of the +unfortunate and gathered it in.</p> + +<p>The richest merchant of his period in the province of New York was +Cornelius Steenwyck, a liquor merchant, who died in 1686. He left a +total estate of £4,382 and a long list of book debts which disclosed +that almost every man in New York City owed money to him, partly for +rum, in part for loans.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> The same was true of Peter Jacob Marius, a +rich merchant who died in 1706, leaving behind a host of debtors, "which +included about all the male population on Manhattan Island."<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> This +eminent counter-man was "buried like a gentleman." At his funeral large +sums were spent for wine, cookies, pipes and tobacco, beer, spice for +burnt wine and sugar—all according to approved and reverent Dutch +fashion. The actual currency left by some of these rich men was a +curious conglomeration of almost every stamp, showing the results of a +mixed assemblage of customers. There were Spanish pistoles, guineas, +Arabian coin, bank dollars, Dutch and French money—a motley assortment +all carefully heaped together. Without doubt, those enterprising pirate +captains, Kidd and Burgess, and their crews, were good customers of +these accommodating and undiscriminating merchants. It was a time when +money was triply valued, for little of it passed in circulation. To a +people who traded largely by barter and whose media of exchange, for a +long time, were wampum, peltries and other articles, the touch and clink +of gold and silver were extremely precious and fascinating. Buccaneers +Kidd and Burgess deserved the credit for introducing into New York much +of the variegated gold and silver coin, and it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> was believed that they +long had some of the leading merchants as their allies in disposing of +their plundered goods, in giving them information and affording them +protection.</p> + +<h4>THE TRADERS' METHODS.</h4> + +<p>By one means or another, some of the New York merchants of the period +attained a standing in point of wealth equal to not a few of the land +magnates. William Lawrence of Flushing, Long Island, was "a man of great +wealth and social standing." Like the rest of his class he affected to +despise the merchant class. After his death, an inventory showed his +estate to be worth £4,032, mostly in land and in slaves, of which he +left ten.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> While the landed men often spent much of their time +carousing, hunting, gambling, and dispersing their money, the merchants +were hawk-eyed alert for every opportunity to gather in money. They +wasted no time in frivolous pursuits, had no use for sentiment or +scruples, saved money in infinitesimal ways and thought and dreamed of +nothing but business.</p> + +<p>Throughout the colonies, not excepting Pennsylvania, it was the general +practice of the merchants and traders to take advantage of the Indians +by cunning and treacherous methods. The agents of the chartered +companies and the land owners first started the trick of getting the +Indians drunk, and then obtaining, for almost nothing, the furs that +they had gathered—for a couple of bottles of rum, a blanket or an axe. +After the charters of the companies were annulled or expired, the +landgraves kept up the practice, and the merchants improved on it in +various ingenious ways. "The Indians," says Felt,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> "were ever ready +to give up their furs for knives, hatchets, beads, blankets, and +especially were anxious to obtain tobacco, guns, powder, shot and strong +water; the latter being a powerful instrument enabling the cunning +trader to perpetuate the grossest frauds. Immense quantities of furs +were shipped to Europe at a great profit."</p> + +<p>This description appropriately applied also to New York, New Jersey, and +the South. In New York there were severe laws against Indians who got +drunk, and in Massachusetts colony an Indian found drunk was subject to +a fine of ten shillings or whipping, at the discretion of the +magistrate. As to the whites who, for purposes of gain, got the Indians +drunk, the law was strangely inactive. Everyone knew that drink might +incite the Indians to uprisings and imperil the lives of men, women and +children. But the considerations of trade were stronger than even the +instinct of self-preservation and the practice went on, not infrequently +resulting in the butchery of innocent white victims and in great cost +and suspense to the whole community.</p> + +<p>Strict laws which pronounced penalties for profaneness and for not +attending church, connived at the systematic defrauding and swindling of +the Indians of land and furs. Two strong considerations were held to +justify this. The first was that the Indians were heathen and must give +way to civilization; that they were fair prey. The demands of trade, +upon which the colonies flourished was the second. The fact was that the +code of the trading class was everywhere gradually becoming the dominant +one, even breaking down the austere, almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> ascetic, Puritan moral +professions. Among the common people—those who were ordinary wage +laborers—the methods of the rich were looked upon with suspicion and +enmity, and there was a prevalent consciousness that wealth was being +amassed by one-sided laws and fraud. Some of the noted sea pirates of +the age made this their strong justification for preying upon +commerce.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p>In Virginia the life of the community depended upon agriculture; +therefore slavery was thought to be its labor prop and was joyfully +welcomed and earnestly defended. In Massachusetts and New York trading +was an elemental factor, and whatever swelled the volume and profits was +accounted a blessing to the community and was held justified. Laws, the +judges who enforced them, and the spirit of the age reflected not so +much the morality of the people as their trading necessities. The one +was often mistaken for the other.</p> + +<h4>THE BONDING OF LABORERS.</h4> + +<p>This condition was shown repeatedly in the trade conflicts of the +competing merchants, their system of bonded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> laborers and in the long +contests between the traders of the colonies and those of England, +culminating in the Revolution. In the churches the colonists prayed to +God as the Father of all men and showed great humility. But in actual +practice the propertied men recognized no such thing as equality and +dispensed with humility. The merchants imitated in a small way the +seignorial pretensions of the land nabobs. Few merchants there were who +did not deal in negro slaves, and few also were there who did not have a +bonded laborer or two, whose labor they monopolized and whose career was +their property for a long term of years. Limited bondage, called +apprenticeship, was general.</p> + +<p>Penniless boys, girls and adults were impressed by sheer necessity into +service. Nicholas Auger, 10 years old, binds himself, in 1694, to +Wessell Evertson, a cooper, for a term of nine years, and swears that +"he will truly serve the commandments of his master Lawfull, shall do no +hurt to his master, nor waste nor purloin his goods, nor lend them to +anybody at Dice, or other unlawful game, shall not contract matrimony, +nor frequent taverns, shall not absent himself from his master's service +day or night." In return Evertson will teach Nicholas the trade of a +cooper, give him "apparell, meat, drink and bedding" and at the +expiration of the term will supply him with "two good suits of wearing +apparell from head to foot." Cornelius Hendricks, a laborer, binds +himself in 1695 as an apprentice and servant to John Molet for five +years. Hendricks is to get £3 current silver money and two suits of +apparell—one for holy days, the other for working days, and also board +is to be provided. Elizabeth Morris, a spinster, in consideration of her +transportation from England to New York on the barkentine, "Antegun," +binds herself in 1696 as a servant to Captain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> William Kidd for four +years for board. When her term is over she is to get two dresses. These +are a few specific instances of the bonding system—a system which +served its purpose in being highly advantageous to the merchants and +traders.</p> + +<h4>THE FISHERIES OF NEW ENGLAND.</h4> + +<p>Toward the close of the seventeenth century the merchants of Boston were +the richest in the colonies. Trade there was the briskest. By 1687, +according to the records of the Massachusetts Historical Society, there +were ten to fifteen merchants in Boston whose aggregate property +amounted to £50,000, or about £5,000 each, and five hundred persons who +were worth £3,000 each. Some of these fortunes came from furs, timber +and vending merchandise.</p> + +<p>But the great stimuli were the fisheries of the New England coast. +Bellomont in 1700 ascribed the superior trade of Massachusetts to the +fact that Fletcher had corruptly sold the best lands in New York +province and had thus brought on bad conditions. Had it not been for +this, he wrote, New York "would outthrive the Massachusetts Province and +quickly outdoe them in people and trade." While the people of the South +took to agriculture as a main support, and the merchants of New York +were contented with the more comfortable method of taking in coin over +counters, a large proportion of the 12,000 inhabitants of Boston and +those of Salem and Plymouth braved dangers to drag the sea of its spoil. +They developed hardy traits of character, a bold adventurousness and a +singular independence of movement which in time engendered a bustling +race of traders who navigated the world for trade.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was from shipping that the noted fortunes of the early decades of the +eighteenth century came. The origin of the means by which these fortunes +were got together lay greatly in the fisheries. The emblem of the +codfish in the Massachusetts State House is a survival of the days when +the fisheries were the great and most prolific sources of wealth and the +chief incentive of all kinds of trade. A tremendous energy was shown in +the hazards of the business. So thoroughly were the fisheries recognized +as important to the life of the whole New England community that vessels +were often built by public subscription, as was instanced in Plymouth, +where public subscription on one occasion defrayed the expense.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p>In response to the general incessant demand for ships, the business of +shipbuilding soon sprang up; presently there were nearly thirty ship +yards in Boston alone and sixty ships a year were built. It was a +lucrative industry. The price of a vessel was dear, while the wages of +the carpenters, smiths, caulkers and sparmakers were low. Not a few of +the merchants and traders or their sons who made their money by +debauching and cheating the Indians went into this highly profitable +business and became men of greater wealth. By 1700 Boston was shipping +50,000 quintals of dried codfish every year. The fish was divided into +several kinds. The choice quality went to the Catholic countries, where +there was a great demand for it, principally to Bilboa, Lisbon and +Oporto. The refuse was shipped to the West India Islands for sale to the +negro slaves and laborers. The price varied. In 1699 it was eighteen +shillings a quintal; the next year, we read, it had fallen to twelve +shillings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> because the French fisheries had glutted the market +abroad.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> + +<h4>"FORCE AS GOOD AS FORCE."</h4> + +<p>Along with the fisheries, considerable wealth was extracted in New +England, as elsewhere in the colonies, from the shipment of timber. +Sharp traders easily got the advantage of Indians and landowners in +buying the privilege of cutting timber. In some cases, particularly in +New Hampshire, which Allen claimed to own, the timber was simply taken +without leave. The word was passed that force was as good as force, +fraud as good as fraud. Allen had got the province by force and fraud; +let him stop the timber cutters if he dare. Ship timber was eagerly +sought in European ports. One Boston merchant is recorded as having +taken a cargo of this timber to Lisbon and clearing a profit of £1,600 +on an expenditure of £300. "Everybody is excited," wrote Bellomont on +June 22, 1700, to the Lords Commissioners for Trades and Plantations. +"Some of the merchants of Salem are now loading a ship with 12,000 feet +of the noblest ships timber that was ever seen."<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + +<p>The whale fishery sprang up about this time and brought in great +profits. The original method was to sight the whale from a lookout on +shore, push out in a boat, capture him and return to the shore with the +carcass. The oil was extracted from the blubber and readily sold. As +whales became scarce around the New England islands the whalers pushed +off into the ocean in small vessels. Within fifty years at least sixty +craft were engaged in the venture. By degrees larger and larger vessels +were built until they began to double Cape Horn,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> and were sometimes +absent from a year and a half to three years. The labors of the cruise +were often richly rewarded with a thousand barrels of sperm oil and two +hundred and fifty barrels of whale oil.</p> + +<h4>BRITISH TRADERS' TACTICS.</h4> + +<p>By the middle of the seventeenth century the colonial merchants were in +a position to establish manufactures to compete with the British. A +seafaring race and a mercantile fleet had come into a militant +existence; and ambitious designs were meditated of conquering a part of +the import and export trade held by the British. The colonial shipowner, +sending tobacco, corn, timber or fish to Europe did not see why he +should not load his ship with commodities on the return trip and make a +double profit. It was now that the British trading class peremptorily +stepped in and used the power of government to suppress in its infancy a +competition that alarmed them.</p> + +<p>Heavy export duties were now declared on every colonial article which +would interfere with the monopoly which the British trading class held, +and aimed to hold, while the most exacting duties were put on +non-British imports. Colonial factories were killed off by summary +legislation. In 1699 Parliament enacted that no wool yarn or woolen +manufactures of the American colonies should be exported to any place +whatever. This was a destructive bit of legislation, as nearly every +colonial rural family kept sheep and raised flax and were getting expert +at the making of coarse linen and woolen cloths. No sooner had the +colonists begun to make paper than that industry was likewise choked. +With hats it was the same. The colonists had scarcely begun to export +hats<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> to Spain, Portugal and the West Indies before the British Company +of Hatters called upon the Government to put a stop to this colonial +interference with their trade. An act was thereupon passed by Parliament +forbidding the exportation of hats from any American colony, and the +selling in one colony of hats made in another. Colonial iron mills began +to blast; they were promptly declared a nuisance, and Parliament ordered +that no mill or engine for slitting or rolling iron be used, but +graciously allowed pig and bar iron to be imported from England into the +colonies. Distilleries were common; molasses was extensively used in the +making of rum and also by the fishermen; a heavy duty was put upon +molasses and sugar as also on tea, nails, glass and paints. Smuggling +became general; a narrative of the adroit devices resorted to would make +an interesting tale.</p> + +<p>These restrictive acts brought about various momentous results. They not +only arrayed the whole trading class against Great Britain, and in turn +the great body of the colonists, but they operated to keep down in size +and latitude the private fortunes by limiting the ways in which the +wealth of individuals could be employed. Much money was withdrawn from +active business and invested in land and mortgages. Still, despite the +crushing laws with which colonial capitalists had to contend, the +fisheries were an incessant source of profit. By 1765 they employed +4,000 seamen and had 28,000 tons of shipping and did a business +estimated at somewhat more than a million dollars.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_IV" id="CHAPTER_I_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE SHIPPING FORTUNES</h3> + +<p>Thus it was that at the time of the Revolution many of the consequential +fortunes were those of shipowners and were principally concentrated in +New England. Some of these dealt in merchandise only, while others made +large sums of money by exporting fish, tobacco, corn, rice and timber +and lading their ships on the return with negro slaves, for which they +found a responsive market in the South. Many of the members of the +Continental Congress were ship merchants, or inherited their fortunes +from rich shippers, as, for instance, Samuel Adams, Robert Morris, Henry +Laurens of Charleston, S. C., John Hancock, whose fortune of $350,000 +came from his uncle Thomas, Francis Lewis of New York and Joseph Hewes +of North Carolina. Others were members of various Constitutional +conventions or became high officials in the Federal or State +governments. The Revolution disrupted and almost destroyed the colonial +shipping, and trade remained stagnant.</p> + +<h4>FORTUNES FROM PRIVATEERING.</h4> + +<p>Not wholly so, for the hazardous venture of privateering offered great +returns. George Cabot of Boston was the son of an opulent shipowner. +During the Revolution, George, with his brother swept the coast with +twenty privateers carrying from sixteen to twenty guns each. For four or +five years their booty was rich and heavy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> but toward the end of the +war, British gun-boats swooped on most of their craft and the brothers +lost heavily. George subsequently became a United States Senator. Israel +Thorndike, who began life as a cooper's apprentice and died in 1832 at +the age of 75, leaving a fortune, "the greatest that has ever been left +in New England,"<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> made large sums of money as part owner and +commander of a privateer which made many successful cruises. With this +money he went into fisheries, foreign commerce and real estate, and +later into manufacturing establishments. One of the towering rich men of +the day, we are told that "his investments in real estate, shipping or +factories were wonderfully judicious and hundreds watched his movements, +believing his pathway was safe." The fortune he bequeathed was ranked as +immense. To each of his three sons he left about $500,000 each, and +other sums to another son, and to his widow and daughters. In all, the +legacies to the surviving members of his family amounted to about +$1,800,000.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>Another "distinguished merchant," as he was styled, to take up +privateering was Nathaniel Tracy, the son of a Newburyport merchant. +College bred, as were most of the sons of rich merchants, he started out +at the age of 25 with a number of privateers, and for many years +returned flushed with prizes. To quote his appreciative biographer: "He +lived in a most magnificent style, having several country seats or large +farms with elegant summer houses and fine fish ponds, and all those +matters of convenience or taste that a British nobleman might think +necessary to his rank and happiness. His horses were of the choicest +kind and his coaches of the most splendid make." But alas! this gorgeous +career was abruptly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> dispelled when unfeeling British frigates and +gun-boats hooked in his saucy privateers and Tracy stood quite ruined.</p> + +<p>Much more fortunate was Joseph Peabody. As a young man Peabody enlisted +as an officer on Derby's privateer "Bunker Hill." His second cruise was +on Cabot's privateer "Pilgrim" which captured a richly cargoed British +merchantman. Returning to shore he studied for an education, later +resuming the privateer deck. Some of his exploits, as narrated by George +Atkinson Ward in "Hunt's Lives of American Merchants," published in +1856, were thrilling enough to have found a deserved place in a gory +novel. With the money made as his share of the various prizes, he bought +a vessel which he commanded himself, and he personally made sundry +voyages to Europe and the West Indies. By 1791 he had amassed a large +fortune. There was no further need of his going to sea; he was now a +great merchant and could pay others to take charge of his ships. These +increased to such an extent that he built in Salem and owned +eighty-three ships which he freighted and dispatched to every known part +of the world. Seven thousand seamen were in his employ. His vessels were +known in Calcutta, Canton, Sumatra, St. Petersburg and dozens of other +ports. They came back with cargoes which were distributed by coasting +vessels among the various American ports. It was with wonderment that +his contemporaries spoke of his paying an aggregate of about $200,000 in +State, county and city taxes in Salem, where he lived.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> He died on +Jan. 5, 1844, aged 84 years.</p> + +<p>Asa Clapp, who at his death in 1848, at the age of 85 years, was +credited with being the richest man in Maine,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> began his career +during the Revolution as an officer on a privateer. After the war he +commanded various trading vessels, and in 1796 established a shipping +business of his own, with headquarters at Portland. His vessels traded +with Europe, the East and West Indies and South America. In his later +years he went into banking. Of the size of his fortune we are left in +ignorance.</p> + +<h4>A GLANCE AT OTHER SHIPPING FORTUNES.</h4> + +<p>These are instances of rich men whose original capital came from +privateering, which was recognized as a legitimate method of reprisal. +As to the inception of the fortunes of other prominent capitalists of +the period, few details are extant in the cases of most of them. Of the +antecedents and life of Thomas Russell, a Boston shipper, who died in +1796, "supposedly leaving the largest amount of property which up to +that time had been accumulated in New England," little is known. The +extent of his fortune cannot be learned. Russell was one of the first, +after the Revolution, to engage in trade with Russia, and drove many a +hard bargain. He built a stately mansion in Charleston and daily +traveled to Boston in a coach drawn by four black horses. In business he +was inflexible; trade considerations aside he was an alms-giver. Of +Cyrus Butler, another shipowner and trader, who, according to one +authority, was probably the richest man in New England<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a>—and who, +according to the statement of another publication<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a>—left a fortune +estimated at from three to four millions of dollars, few details +likewise are known. He was the son of Samuel Butler, a shoemaker who +removed from Edgartown, Mass., to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> Providence about 1750 and became a +merchant and shipowner. Cyrus followed in his steps. When this +millionaire died at the age of 82 in 1849, the size of his fortune +excited wonderment throughout New England. It may be here noted as a +fact worthy of comment that of the group of hale rich shipowners there +were few who did not live to be octogenarians.</p> + +<p>The rapidity with which large fortunes were made was not a riddle. Labor +was cheap and unorganized, and the profits of trade were enormous. +According to Weeden the customary profits at the close of the eighteenth +century on muslins and calicoes were one hundred per cent. Cargoes of +coffee sometimes yielded three or four times that amount. Weeden +instances one shipment of plain glass tumblers costing less than $1,000 +which sold for $12,000 in the Isle of France.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> + +<p>The prospects of a dazzling fortune, speedily reaped, instigated owners +of capital to take the most perilous chances. Decayed ships, +superficially patched up, were often sent out on the chance that luck +and skill would get them through the voyage and yield fortunes. Crew +after crew was sacrificed to this frenzied rush for money, but nothing +was thought of it. Again, there were examples of almost incredible +temerity. In his biography of Peter Charndon Brooks, one of the +principal merchants of the day, and his father-in-law, Edward Everett +tells of a ship sailing from Calcutta to Boston with a youth of nineteen +in command. Why or how this boy was placed in charge is not explained. +This juvenile captain had nothing in the way of a chart on board except +a small map of the world in Guthrie's Geography. He made the trip +successfully. Later, when he became a rich Boston banker, the tale of +this feat was one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> proud annals of his life and, if true, +deservedly so.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p> + +<p>Whitney's notable invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had given a +stupendous impetus to cotton growing in the Southern States. As the +shipowners were chiefly centered in New England the export of this +staple vastly increased their trade and fortunes. It might be thought, +parenthetically, that Whitney himself should have made a surpassing +fortune from an invention which brought millions of dollars to planters +and traders. But his inventive ability and perseverance, at least in his +creation of the cotton gin, brought him little more than a multitude of +infringements upon his patent, refusals to pay him, and vexatious and +expensive litigation to sustain his rights.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> In despair, he turned, +in 1808, to the manufacture in New Haven of fire-arms for the +Government, and from this business managed to get a fortune. From the +Canton and Calcutta trade Thomas Handasyd Perkins, a Boston shipper, +extracted a fortune of $2,000,000. His ships made thirty voyages around +the world. This merchant peer lived to the venerable age of 90; when he +passed away in 1854 his fortune, although intact, had shrunken to modest +proportions compared with a few others which had sprung up. James Lloyd, +a partner of Perkins', likewise profited; in 1808 he was elected a +United States Senator and later reëlected.</p> + +<p>William Gray, described as "one of the most successful of American +merchants," and as one who was considered and taxed in Salem "as one of +the wealthiest men in the place, where there were several of the largest +fortunes that could be found in the United States," owned, in his +heyday, more than sixty sail of vessels. Some scant details are +obtainable as to the career and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> personality of this moneyed colossus of +his day. He began as an apprenticed mechanic. For more than fifty years +he rose at dawn and was shaved and dressed. His letters and papers were +then spread before him and the day's business was begun. At his death in +1825 no inventory of his estate was taken. The present millions of the +Brown fortune of Rhode Island came largely from the trading activities +of Nicholas Brown and the accretions of which increased population and +values have brought. Nicholas Brown was born in Providence in 1760, of a +well-to-do father. He went to Rhode Island College (later named in his +honor by reason of his gifts) and greatly increased his fortune in the +shipping trade.</p> + +<p>It is quite needless, however, to give further instances in support of +the statement that nearly all the large active fortunes of the latter +part of the eighteenth and the early period of the nineteenth century, +came from the shipping trade and were mainly concentrated in New +England. The proceeds of these fortunes frequently were put into +factories, canals, turnpikes and later into railroads, telegraph lines +and express companies. Seldom, however, has the money thus employed +really gone to the descendants of the men who amassed it, but has since +passed over to men who, by superior cunning, have contrived to get the +wealth into their own hands. This statement is an anticipation of facts +that will be more cognate in subsequent chapters, but may be +appropriately referred to here. There were some exceptions to the +general condition of the large fortunes from shipping being compactly +held in New England. Thomas Pym Cope, a Philadelphia Quaker, did a brisk +shipping trade, and founded the first regular line of packets between +Philadelphia and Baltimore; with the money thus made he went into canal +and railroad enterprises. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> in New York and other ports there were a +number of shippers who made fortunes of several millions each.</p> + +<h4>THE WORKERS' MEAGER SHARE.</h4> + +<p>Obviously these millionaires created nothing except the enterprise of +distributing products made by the toil and skill of millions of workers +the world over. But while the workers made these products their sole +share was meager wages, barely sufficient to sustain the ordinary +demands of life. Moreover, the workers of one country were compelled to +pay exorbitant prices for the goods turned out by the workers of other +countries. The shippers who stood as middlemen between the workers of +the different countries reaped the great rewards. Nevertheless, it +should not be overlooked that the shippers played their distinct and +useful part in their time and age, the spirit of which was intensely +ultra-competitive and individualistic in the most sordid sense.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_V" id="CHAPTER_I_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE SHIPPERS AND THEIR TIMES</h3> + +<p>Unfortunately only the most general and eulogistic accounts of the +careers of most of the rich shippers have appeared in such biographies +as have been published.</p> + +<p>Scarcely any details are preserved of the underlying methods and +circumstances by which these fortunes were amassed. Sixty years ago, +when it was the unqualified fashion to extol the men of wealth as great +public benefactors and truckle to them, and when sociological inquiry +was in an undeveloped stage, there might have been some excuse for this. +But it is extremely unsatisfactory to find pretentious writers of the +present day glossing over essential facts or not taking the trouble to +get them. A "popular writer," who has pretended to deal with the origin +of one of the great present fortunes, the Astor fortune, and has given +facts, although conventionally interpreted, as to one or two of Astor's +land transactions,<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> passes over with a sentence the fundamental facts +as to Astor's shipping activities, and entirely ignores the peculiar +special privileges, worth millions of dollars, that Astor, in +conjunction with other merchants, had as a free gift from the +Government. This omission is characteristic, inasmuch as it leaves the +reader in complete ignorance of the kind of methods Astor used in +heaping up millions from the shipping trade—millions that enabled him +to embark in the buying of land in a large and ambitious way. Certainly +there is no lack of data regarding the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> two foremost millionaires of the +first decades of the nineteenth century—Stephen Girard and John Jacob +Astor. The very names of nearly all of the other powerful merchants of +the age have receded into the densest obscurity. But both those of +Girard and Astor live vivifyingly, the first by virtue of a memorable +benefaction, the second as the founder of one of the greatest fortunes +in the world.</p> + +<h4>COMMERCE SURCHARGED WITH FRAUD.</h4> + +<p>Because of their unexcelled success, these two were the targets for the +bitter invective or the envy of their competitors on the one hand, and, +on the other, of the laudation of their friends and beneficiaries. Harsh +statements were made as to the methods of both, but, in reality, if we +but knew the truth, they were no worse than the other millionaires of +the time except in degree. The whole trading system was founded upon a +combination of superior executive ability and superior cunning—not +ability in creating, but in being able to get hold of, and distribute, +the products of others' creation.</p> + +<p>Fraudulent substitution was an active factor in many, if not all, of the +shipping fortunes. The shippers and merchants practiced the grossest +frauds upon the unsophisticated people. Walter Barrett, that pseudonymic +merchant, who took part in them himself, and who writes glibly of them +as fine tricks of trade, gives many instances in his volumes dealing +with the merchants of that time.</p> + +<p>The firm of F. & G. Carnes, he relates, was one of the many which made a +large fortune in the China trade. This firm found that Chinese +yellow-dog wood, when cut into proper sizes, bore a strong superficial +resemblance to real Turkey rhubarb. The Carnes brothers proceeded to +have the wood packed in China in boxes counterfeiting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> those of the +Turkey product. They then made a regular traffic importing this spurious +and deleterious stuff and selling it as the genuine Turkey article at +several times the cost. It entirely superseded the real product. This +firm also sent to China samples of Italian, French and English silks; +the Chinese imitated them closely, and the bogus wares were imported +into the United States where they were sold as the genuine European +goods. The Carneses were but a type of their class. Writing of the trade +carried on by the shipping class, Barrett says that the shippers sent to +China samples of the most noted Paris and London products in sauces, +condiments, preserves, sweetmeats, syrups and other goods. The Chinese +imitated them even to fac-similies of printed Paris and London labels. +The fraudulent substitutions were then brought in cargoes to the United +States where they were sold at fancy prices.</p> + +<h4>MERCHANTS THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY.</h4> + +<p>This was the prevalent commercial system. The most infamous frauds were +carried on; and so dominant were the traders' standards that these +frauds passed as legitimate business methods. The very men who profited +by them were the mainstays of churches, and not only that, but they were +the very same men who formed the various self-constituted committees +which demanded severe laws against paupers and petty criminals. A study +of the names of the men, for instance, who comprised the New York +Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, 1818-1823, shows that nearly +all of them were shippers or merchants who participated in the current +commercial frauds. Yet this was the class that sat in judgment upon the +poverty of the people and the acts of poor criminals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> and which dictated +laws to legislatures and to Congress.</p> + +<p>Girard and Astor were the superfine products of this system; they did in +a greater way what others did in a lesser way. As a consequence, their +careers were fairly well illumined. The envious attacks of their +competitors ascribed their success to hard-hearted and ignoble +qualities, while their admirers heaped upon them tributes of praise for +their extraordinary genius. Both sets exaggerated. Their success in +garnering millions was merely an abnormal manifestation of an ambition +prevalent among the trading class. Their methods were an adroit +refinement of methods which were common. The game was one in which, +while fortunes were being amassed, masses of people were thrown into the +direst poverty and their lives were attended by injustice and suffering. +In this game a large company of eminent merchants played; Girard and +Astor were peers in the playing and got away with the greater share of +the stakes.</p> + +<h4>POST-REVOLUTIONARY CONDITIONS.</h4> + +<p>Before describing Girard's career, it is well to cast a retrospective +fleeting glance into conditions following the Revolution.</p> + +<p>Despite the lofty sentiments of the Declaration of +Independence—sentiments which were submerged by the propertied class +when the cause was won—the gravity of law bore wholly in favor of the +propertied interests. The propertyless had no place or recognition. The +common man was good enough to shoulder a musket in the stress of war but +that he should have rights after the war, was deemed absurd. In the +whole scheme of government neither the feelings nor the interests of the +worker were thought of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Revolution brought no immediate betterment to his conditions; such +slight amelioration as came later was the result of years of agitation. +No sooner was the Revolution over than in stepped the propertied +interests and assumed control of government functions. They were +intelligent enough to know the value of class government—a lesson +learned from the tactics of the British trading class. They knew the +tremendous impact of law and how, directly and indirectly, it worked +great transformations in the body social. While the worker was +unorganized, unconscious of what his interests demanded, deluded by +slogans and rallying-cries which really meant nothing to him, the +propertied class was alert in its own interests.</p> + +<h4>PROPERTY'S RULE INTRENCHED.</h4> + +<p>It proceeded to intrench itself in political as well as in financial +power. The Constitution of the United States was so drafted as to take +as much direct power from the people as the landed and trading interests +dared. Most of the State Constitutions were more pronounced in rigid +property discriminations. In Massachusetts, no man could be governor +unless he were a Christian worth a clear £1,000; in North Carolina if he +failed of owning the required £1,000 in freehold estate; nor in Georgia +if he did not own five hundred acres of land and £4,000, nor in New +Hampshire if he lacked owning £500 in property. In South Carolina he had +to own £1,500 in property clear of all debts. In New York by the +Constitution of 1777, only actual residents having freeholds to the +value of £100 free of all debts, could vote for governor and other State +officials. The laws were so arranged as effectually to disfranchise +those who had no property. In his "Reminiscenses" Dr. John W. Francis +tells of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> prevalence for years in New York of a supercilious class +which habitually sneered at the demand for political equality of the +leather-breeched mechanic with his few shillings a day.</p> + +<p>Theoretically, religious standards were the prevailing ones; in +actuality the ethics and methods of the propertied class were all +powerful. The Church might preach equality, humility and the list of +virtues; but nevertheless that did not give the propertyless man a vote. +Thus it was, that in communities professing the strongest religious +convictions and embodying them in Constitutions and in laws and customs, +glaring inconsistencies ran side by side. The explanation lay in the +fact that as regarded essential things of property, the standards of the +trading class had supplanted the religious. Even the very admonition +given by pastors to the poor, "Be content with your lot," was a +preachment entirely in harmony with the aims of the trading class which, +in order to make money, necessarily had to have a multitude of workers +to work for it and from whose labor the money, in its finality, had to +come. In the very same breath that they advised the poverty-stricken to +reverence their superiors and to expect their reward in heaven, the +ministers glorified the aggrandizing merchants as God's chosen men who +were called upon to do His work.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p>Since the laws favored the propertied interests, it was correspondingly +easy for them to get direct control of government functions and +personally exercise them. In New England rich shipowners rose at once to +powerful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> elective and appointive officers. Likewise in New York rich +landowners, and in the South, plantation men were selected for high +offices. Law-making bodies, from Congress down, were filled with +merchants, landowners, plantation men and lawyers, which last class was +trained, as a rule, by association and self-interest to take the views +of the propertied class and vote with, and for, it. A puissant +politico-commercial aristocracy developed which, at all times, was +perfectly conscious of its best interests. The worker was regaled with +flattering commendations of the dignity of labor and sonorous +generalizations and promises, but the ruling class took care of the +laws.</p> + +<p>By means of these partial laws, the propertied interests early began to +get tremendously valuable special privileges. Banking rights, canal +construction, trade privileges, government favors, public franchises all +came in succession.</p> + +<h4>THE RIGORS OF LAW ON THE POOR.</h4> + +<p>At the same time that laws were enacted or were twisted to suit the will +of property, other laws were long in force oppressing the poor to a +terrifying degree.</p> + +<p>Poor debtors could be thrown in jail indefinitely, no matter how small a +sum they owned. In law, the laborer was accorded few rights. It was easy +to defraud him of his meager wages, since he had no lien upon the +products of his labor. His labor power was all that he had to sell, and +the value of this power was not safeguarded by law. But the products +created by his labor power in the form of property were fortified by the +severest laws. For the laborer to be in debt was equal to a crime, in +fact, in its results, worse than a crime. The burglar or pickpocket +would get a certain sentence and then go free. The poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> debtor, +however, was compelled to languish in jail at the will of his creditor.</p> + +<p>The report of the Prison Discipline Society for 1829 estimated that +fully 75,000 persons were annually imprisoned for debt in the United +States and that more than one-half of these owed less than twenty +dollars.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> And such were the appalling conditions of these debtors' +prisons that there was no distinction of sex, age or character; all of +the unfortunates were indiscriminately herded together. Sometimes, even +in the inclement climate of the North, the jails were so poorly +constructed, that there was insufficient shelter from the elements. In +the newspapers of the period advertisements may be read in which +charitable societies or individuals appeal for food, fuel and clothing +for the inmates of these prisons. The thief and the murderer had a much +more comfortable time of it in prison than the poor debtor.</p> + +<h4>LAW KIND TO THE TRADERS.</h4> + +<p>With the law-making mercantile class the situation was very different. +The state and national bankruptcy acts, as apply to merchants, bankers, +storekeepers—the whole commercial class—were so loosely drafted and so +laxly enforced and judicially interpreted, that it was not hard to +defraud creditors and escape with the proceeds. A propertied bankrupt +could conceal his assets and hire adroit lawyers to get him off +scot-free on quibbling technicalities—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> condition which has survived +to the present time, though in a lesser degree.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> + +<p>But imprisonment for debt was not the only fate that befell the +propertyless. According to the "Annual Report of the Managers of the +Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in New York City," there were +12,000 paupers in New York City in 1820.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> Many of these were +destitute Irish who, after having been plundered and dispossessed by the +absentee landlords and the capitalists of their own country, were +induced to pay their last farthing to the shippers for passage to +America. There were laws providing that ship masters must report to the +Mayors of cities and give a bond that the destitutes that they brought +over should not become public charges. These laws were systematically +and successfully evaded; poor immigrants were dumped unceremoniously at +obscure places along the coast from whence they had to make their way, +carrying their baggage and beds, to the cities the best that they could. +Cadwallader D. Colden, mayor of New York for some years, tells, in his +reports, of harrowing cases of death after death resulting from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +exposure due to this horrible form of exploitation.</p> + +<p>Now when the immigrant or native found himself in a state of near, or +complete, destitution and resorted to the pawnbrokers's or to theft, +what happened? The law restricted pawnbrokers from charging more than +seven per cent on amounts more than $25, but on amounts below that they +were allowed to charge twenty-five per cent. which, as the wage value of +money then went, was oppressively high. Of course, the poor with their +cheap possessions seldom owned anything on which they could get more +than $25; consequently they were the victims of the most grinding +legalized usury. Occasionally some legislative committee recognized, +although in a dim and unanalytic way, this onerous discrimination of law +against the propertyless. "Their [the pawnbrokers'] rates of interest," +an Aldermanic committee reported in 1832, "have always been exorbitant +and exceedingly oppressive. It has from time to time been regulated by +law, and its sanctions have (as is usual upon most occasions when +oppression has been legalized) been made to fall most heavily upon the +poor." The committee continued with the following comments which were +naïve in the extreme considering that for generations all law had been +made by and for the propertied interests: "It is a singular fact that +the smallest sums advanced have always been chargeable with the highest +rates of interest.... It is a fact worthy of consideration that by far +the greater number of loans effected at these establishments are less +than one dollar, and of the whole twelve-fifteenths are in sums less +than one dollar and a half."<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> + +<p>On the other hand, the propertied class not only was able to raise money +at a fairly low rate of interest, but, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> will appear, had the free use +of the people's money, through the power of government, to the extent of +tens of millions of dollars.</p> + +<h4>THE PENALTIES OF POVERTY.</h4> + +<p>If a man were absolutely destitute and took to theft as the only means +of warding off starvation for himself or his family, the whole force of +law at once descended heavily upon him. In New York State the law +decreed it grand larceny to steal to the value of $25, and in other +States the statutes were equally severe. For stealing $25 worth of +anything the penalty was three years in prison at hard labor. The +unfortunate was usually put in the convict chain-gang and forced to work +along the roads. Street-begging was prohibited by drastic laws; poverty +was substantially a crime. The moment a propertyless person stole, the +assumption at once was that he was <i>prima facie</i> a criminal; but let the +powerful propertied man steal and government at once refused to see the +criminal <i>intent</i>; if he were prosecuted, the usual outcome was that he +never went to jail. Hundreds of specific instances could be given to +prove this. One of the most noted of these was that of Samuel Swartwout, +who was Collector of the Port of New York for a considerable period and +who, at the same time, was a financier and large land-speculation +promoter. It came out in 1838 that he had stolen the enormous sum of +$1,222,705.69 from the Government,<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> which money he had used in his +schemes. He was a fugitive from justice for a time, but upon his return +was looked upon extenuatingly as the "victim of circumstances" and he +never languished in jail.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>Money was the standard of everything. The propertied person could commit +any kind of crime, short of murder, and could at once get free on bail. +But what happened to the accused who was poor? Here is a contemporaneous +description of one of the prisons of the period:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In Bridewell, white females of every grade of character, from the +innocent who is in the end acquitted, down to the basest wretch +that ever disgraced the refuges of prostitution, are crowded into +the same abandoned abode. With the white male prisons, the case is +little altered.... And so it is with the colored prisoners of both +sexes. Hundreds are taken up and sent to these places, who, after +remaining frequently several weeks, are found to be innocent of +the crime alleged and are then let loose upon the community."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p></div> + +<p>"Let loose upon the community." Does not this clause in itself convey +volumes of significance of the attitude of the propertied interests, +even when banded together in a pseudo "charitable" enterprise, toward +the poverty-stricken? While thus the charitable societies were holding +up the destitute to scorn and contumely as outcasts and were loftily +lecturing down to the poor on the evils of intemperance and +gambling—practices which were astoundingly prevalent among the rich—at +no time did they make any attempt to alter laws so glaringly unjust that +they practically made poverty a distinct crime, subject to long terms of +imprisonment.</p> + +<p>For instance, if a rich man were assaulted and made a complaint, all +that he had to do was to give bail to insure his appearance as a +witness. But if a poor man or woman were cheated or assaulted and could +not give bail to insure his or her appearance at the trial as a +complaining witness, the law compelled the authorities to lock up that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +man or woman in prison. In the debates in the New York Constitutional +Convention of 1846, numerous cases were cited of this continuing +barbarity in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states. In +Maryland a young woman was assaulted and preferred criminal charges. As +she could not give bail she was locked up for eighteen months as a +detained witness. This was but one instance in thousands of similar +cases.</p> + +<h4>MASTER AND BONDED MAN.</h4> + +<p>For an apprenticed laborer to quit his master and job was a crime in +law; once caught he was forthwith bundled off to jail, there to await +the dispensation of his master. No matter how cruelly his master +ill-treated him, however dissatisfied he was, the apprenticed laborer in +law had no rights. Almost every day the newspapers of the eighteenth, +and the early part of the nineteenth, century contained offers of +rewards for the apprehension of fugitive apprentice laborers; from a +survey of the Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and other colonial +and state newspapers it is clear that thousands of these apprentices had +to resort to flight to escape their bondage. This is a specimen +advertisement:</p> + +<h4>TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>RAN away from the subscriber, an Apprentice Boy, named William +Rustes, about 18 years and 3 months old, by trade a house +carpenter, of a dark complexion, dark eye brows, black eyes and +black hair, about 5 feet, 8 inches high, his dress unknown as he +took with him different kinds of clothes. The above reward will be +paid to any person that will secure him in gaol or return him to +his master.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 24em;">GEORGE LORD,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 26em;">No. 12 First Street.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>In contradistinction to the scorpion-like laws which worked such +injustice to the poor and which made a mockery of doctrines of equality +before the law, the propertied interests endowed themselves, by their +control of government, with invaluable exemptions and peculiarly +profitable special privileges.</p> + +<p>Even where, in civil cases, all men, theoretically, had an equal chance +in courts of equity, litigation was made so expensive, whether purposely +or not, that justice was really a one-sided pastime, in which the rich +man could easily wear out the poor contestant. This, however, is not the +place for a dissertation on that most remarkable of noteworthy +sorcerer's arts, the making of justice an expensive luxury, while still +deluding the people with the notion that the law knows no preferences. +The preferences which are more to the point at present are those in +which government force is used to enrich the already rich and impoverish +the impoverished still further. At the very time that property was +bitterly resisting enlightened pleas for the abolition of imprisonment +for debt, for the enactment of a mechanic's lien law, and for the +extension of the suffrage franchise it was using the public money of the +whole people for its personal and private enterprises. In works dealing +with those times it is not often that we get penetration into the +underlying methods of the trading class. But a lucid insight is +inadvertently given by Walter Barrett (who, for sixty years, was in the +mercantile trade), in his smug and conventional, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> quaintly +entertaining, volumes, "The Merchants of Old New York." This strong +instance shows like a flashlight that while the success of the shippers +was attributed to a fine category of energetic qualities, the benevolent +assistance of the United States Government was, in a large measure, +responsible for part of their accumulations.</p> + +<h4>THE SHIPPERS' HUGE GRAFT.</h4> + +<p>The Griswolds of New York owned the ship, "Panama." She carried spelter, +lead, iron and other products to China and returned with tea, false +cinnamon and various other Chinese goods. The duty on these was +extremely high. But the Government was far more lenient to the trading +class than the trader was to the poor debtor. It generously extended +credit for nine, twelve and eighteen months before it demanded the +payment of the tariff duties. What happened under this system? As soon +as the ship arrived, the cargo was sold at a profit of fifty per cent. +The Griswolds, for example, would pocket their profits and instead of +using their own capital in further ventures, they would have the +gratuitous use of Government money, that is to say, the people's money, +for periods of from six months to a year and a half. Thus the endless +chain was kept up. According to Barrett, this was the customary attitude +of the Government toward merchants: it was anything but unusual for a +merchant to have the free use of Government money to the sum of four or +five hundred thousand dollars.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>"John Jacob Astor," says Barrett in a view of admiration, "at one period +of his life had several vessels operating in this way. They would go to +the Pacific and carry furs from thence to Canton. These would be sold at +large profits. Then the cargoes of tea would pay enormous duties which +Astor did not have to pay to the United States for a year and a half. +His tea cargoes would be sold for good four and six months paper, or +perhaps cash; so that for eighteen or twenty years John Jacob Astor had +what was actually a free-of-interest loan from the Government of over +<i>five millions</i> of dollars."<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> + +<p>"One house," continues Barrett, "was Thomas H. Smith & Sons. This firm +went enormously into the Canton trade, and, although possessing +originally but a few thousand dollars, Smith imported to such an extent +that when he failed he owed the United States three millions and not a +cent has ever been paid." Was Smith imprisoned for debt? Not at all.</p> + +<p>It is such revelations as these that indicate how it was possible for +the shippers to pile up great fortunes at a time when "a house that +could raise $260,000 in specie had an uncommon capital." They showed how +the same functions of government which were used as an engine of such +oppressive power against the poor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> were perverted into highly efficient +auxiliary of trading class aims and ambitions. By multifarious subtle +workings, these class laws inevitably had a double effect. They poured +wealth into the coffers of the merchant-class and simultaneously tended +to drive the masses into poverty. The gigantic profits taken in by +merchants had to be borne by the worker, perhaps not superficially, but +in reality so. They came from his slender wages, from the tea and cotton +and woolen goods that he used, the sugar and the coffee and so on. In +this indirect way the shippers absorbed a great part of the products of +his labor; what they did not expropriate the landlord did. Then when the +laborer fell in debt to the middleman tradesman to jail he went.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<h4>UNITE AGAINST THE WORKER.</h4> + +<p>The worker denounced these discriminations as barbarous and unjust. But +he could do nothing. The propertied class, with its keen understanding +of what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> was best for its interests, acted and voted, and usually +dragooned the masses of enfranchised into voting, for men and measures +entirely favorable to its designs. Sometimes these interests conflicted +as they did when a part of New England became manufacturing centers and +favored a high protective tariff in opposition to the importing trades, +the plantation owners and the agricultural class in general. Then the +vested class would divide, and each side would appeal with passionate +and patriotic exhortations to the voting elements of the people to +sustain it, or the country would go to ruin. But when the working class +made demands for better laws, the propertied class, as a whole, united +to oppose the workers bitterly. However it differed on the tariff, or +the question of state or national banks, substantially the whole trading +class solidly combated the principle of manhood suffrage and the +movements for the wiping out of laws for imprisonment for debt, for +mechanic's liens and for the establishment of shorter hours of work.</p> + +<p>Political institutions and their offspring in the form of laws being +generally in the control of the trading class, the conditions were +extraordinarily favorable for the accumulation of large fortunes, +especially on the part of the shipowners, the dominant class. The grand +climax of the galaxy of American fortunes during the period from 1800 to +1831—the greatest of all the fortunes up to the beginning of the third +decade of that century—was that of Girard. He built up what was looked +up to as the gigantic fortune of about ten millions of dollars and far +overtopped every other strainer for money except Astor, who survived him +seventeen years, and whose wealth increased during that time to double +the amount that Girard left.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_VI" id="CHAPTER_I_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>GIRARD—THE RICHEST OF THE SHIPPERS</h3> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 388px;"> +<img src="images/ill_003.jpg" width="388" height="500" alt="STEPHEN GIRARD. (From an Engraving.)" title="" /> +<span class="caption">STEPHEN GIRARD.<br />(From an Engraving.)</span> +</div> + +<p>Girard was born at Bordeaux, France, on May 21, 1750, and was the eldest +of five children of Captain Pierre Girard, a mariner. When eight years +old he became blind in one eye, a loss and deformity which subjected his +sensibilities to severe trials and which had the effect of rendering him +morose and sour. It was his lament in later life that while his brothers +had been sent to college, he was the ugly duckling of the family and +came in for his father's neglect and a shrewish step-mother's +waspishness. At about fourteen years of age he relieved himself of these +home troubles and ran away to sea. During the nine years that he sailed +between Bordeaux and the West Indies, he rose from cabin-boy to mate. +Evading the French law which required that no man should be made master +of a ship unless he had sailed two cruises in the royal navy and was +twenty-five years old, Girard got the command of a trading vessel when +about twenty-two years old. While in this service he clandestinely +carried cargoes of his own which he sold at considerable profit. In May, +1776, while en route from New Orleans to a Canadian port, he became +enshrouded in a fog off the Delaware Capes, signaled for aid, and when +the fog had cleared away sufficiently for an American ship, near by, to +come to his assistance, learned that war was on. He thereupon scurried +for Philadelphia, where he sold vessel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> and cargo, of which latter only +a part belonged to him, and with the proceeds opened up a cider and wine +bottling and grocery business in a small store on Water street.</p> + +<p>Girard made money fast; and in July, 1777, married Mary Lum, a woman of +his own class. She is usually described as a servant girl of great +beauty and as one whose temper was of quite tempestuous violence. This +unfortunate woman subsequently lost her reason; undoubtedly her +husband's meannesses and his forbidding qualities contributed to the +process. One of his most favorable biographers thus describes him: "In +person he was short and stout, with a dull repulsive countenance, which +his bushy eyebrows and solitary eye almost made hideous. He was cold and +reserved in manner, and was disliked by his neighbors, the most of whom +were afraid of him."<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p> + +<p>During the British occupation of Philadelphia he was charged by the +revolutionists with extreme double-dealing and duplicity in pretending +to be a patriot, and taking the oath of allegiance to the colonies, +while secretly trading with the British. None of his biographers deny +this. While merchant after merchant was being bankrupted from disruption +of trade, Girard was incessantly making money. By 1780 he was again in +the shipping trade, his vessels plying between American ports and New +Orleans and San Domingo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> not the least of his profits, it was said, +came from slave-trading.</p> + +<h4>HOW HE BUILT HIS SHIPS.</h4> + +<p>A troublous partnership with his brother, Captain Jean Girard, lasted +but a short time; the brothers could not agree. At the dissolution in +1790 Stephen Girard's share of the profits amounted to $30,000. Girard's +greatest stroke came from the insurrection of the San Domingo negroes +against the French several years later. He had two vessels lying in the +harbor of one of the island ports. At the first mutterings of danger, a +number of planters took their valuables on board one of these ships and +scurried back to get the remainder. The sequel, as commonly narrated, is +represented thus: The planters failed to return, evidently falling +victims to the fury of the insurrectionists. The vessels were taken to +Philadelphia, and Girard persistently advertised for the owners of the +valuables. As no owners ever appeared, Girard sold the goods and put the +proceeds, $50,000, into his own bank account. "This," says Houghton, +"was a great assistance to him, and the next year he began the building +of those splendid ships which enabled him to engage so actively in the +Chinese and West India trades."</p> + +<p>From this time on his profits were colossal. His ships circumnavigated +the world many times and each voyage brought him a fortune. He practiced +all of those arts of deception which were current among the trading +class and which were accepted as shrewdness and were inseparably +associated with legitimate business methods. In giving one of his +captains instructions he wrote, as was his invariable policy, the most +explicit directions to exercise secretiveness and cunning in his +purchases<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> of coffee at Batavia. Be cautious and prudent, was his +admonition. Keep to yourself the intention of the voyage and the amount +of specie that you have on board. To satisfy the curious, throw them off +the scent by telling them that the ship will take in molasses, rice and +sugar, if the price is very low, adding that the whole will depend upon +the success in selling the small Liverpool cargo. If you do this, the +cargo of coffee can be bought ten per cent cheaper than it would be if +it is publicly known there is a quantity of Spanish dollars on board, +besides a valuable cargo of British goods intended to be invested in +coffee for Stephen Girard of Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>By 1810 we see him ordering the Barings of London to invest in shares of +the Bank of the United States half a million dollars which they held for +him. When the charter expired, he was the principal creditor of that +bank; and he bought, at a great bargain, the bank and the cashier's +house for $120,000. On May 12, 1812, he opened the Girard Bank, with a +capital of $1,200,000, which he increased the following year by $100,000 +more.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> + +<h4>A DICTATOR OF FINANCE.</h4> + +<p>His wealth was now overshadowingly great; his power immense. He was a +veritable dictator of the realms of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> finance; an assiduous, repellent +little man, with his devil's eye, who rode roughshod over every obstacle +in his path. His every movement bred fear; his veriest word could bring +ruin to any one who dared cross his purposes. The war of 1812 brought +disaster to many a merchant, but Girard harvested fortune from the +depths of misfortune. "He was, it must be said," says Houghton, "hard +and illiberal in his bargains, and remorseless in exacting the last cent +due him." And after he opened the Girard Bank: "Finding that the +salaries which had been paid by the government were higher than those +paid elsewhere, he cut them down to the rate given by the other banks. +The watchman had always received from the old bank the gift of an +overcoat at Christmas, but Girard put a stop to this. He gave no +gratuities to any of his employees, but confined them to the +compensation for which they had bargained; yet he contrived to get out +of them service more devoted than was received by other men who paid +higher wages and made presents. Appeals to him for aid were unanswered. +No poor man ever came full-handed from his presence. He turned a deaf +ear to the entreaties of failing merchants to help them on their feet +again. He was neither generous nor charitable. When his faithful cashier +died, after long years spent in his service, he manifested the most +hardened indifference to the bereavement of the family of that +gentleman, and left them to struggle along as best they could."</p> + +<p>Further, Houghton unconsciously proceeds to bring out several incidents +which show the exorbitant profits Girard made from his various business +activities. In the spring of 1813, one of his ships was captured by a +British cruiser at the mouth of the Delaware. Fearing that his prize +would be recaptured by an American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> war ship if he sent her into port, +the English Admiral notified Girard that he would ransom the ship for +$180,000 in coin. Girard paid the money; and, even after paying that +sum, the cargo of silks, nankeens and teas yielded him a profit of half +a million dollars. His very acts of apparent public spirit were means by +which he scooped in large profits. Several times, when the rate of +exchange was so high as to be injurious to general business, he drew +upon Baring Bros. for sums of money to be transferred to the United +States. This was hailed as a public benefaction. But what did Girard do? +He disposed of the money to the Bank of the United States and charged +ten per cent. for the service.</p> + +<h4>BRIBERY AND INTIMIDATION.</h4> + +<p>The reëstablishment and enlarged sway of this bank were greatly due to +his efforts and influence; he became its largest stockholder and one of +its directors. No business institution in the first three decades of the +nineteenth century exercised such a sinister and overshadowing influence +as this chartered monopoly. The full tale of its indirect bribery of +politicians and newspaper editors, in order to perpetuate its great +privileges and keep a hold upon public opinion, has never been set +forth. But sufficient facts were brought out when, after years of +partizan agitation, Congress was forced to investigate and found that +not a few of its own members for years had been on the payrolls of the +bank.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p> + +<p>In order to get its charter renewed from time to time and retain its +extraordinary special privileges, the United States Bank systematically +debauched politics and such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> of the press as was venal; and when a +critical time came, as it did in 1832-34, when the mass of the people +sided with President Jackson in his aim to overthrow the bank, it +instructed the whole press at its command to raise the cry of "the +fearful consequences of revolution, anarchy and despotism," which +assuredly would ensue if Jackson were reëlected. To give one instance of +how for years it had manipulated the press: The "Courier and Enquirer" +was a powerful New York newspaper. Its owners, Webb and Noah, suddenly +deserted Jackson and began to denounce him. The reason was, as revealed +by a Congressional investigation, that they had borrowed $50,000 from +the United States Bank which lost no time in giving them the alternative +of paying up or supporting the bank.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p> + +<p>Girard's share in the United States Bank brought him millions of +dollars. With its control of deposits of government funds and by the +provisions of its charter, this bank swayed the whole money marts of the +United States and could manipulate them at will. It could advance or +depress prices as it chose. Many times, Girard with his fellow directors +was severely denounced for the arbitrary power he wielded. But—and let +the fact be noted—the denunciation came largely from the owners of the +State banks who sought to supplant the United States Bank. The struggle +was really one between two sets of capitalistic interests.</p> + +<p>Shipping and banking were the chief sources of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Girard's wealth, with +side investments in real estate and other forms of property. He owned +large tracts of land in Philadelphia, the value of which increased +rapidly with the growth of population; he was a heavy stockholder in +river navigation companies and near the end of his life he subscribed +$200,000 toward the construction of the Danville & Pottsville Railroad.</p> + +<h4>THE SOLITARY CRŒSUS.</h4> + +<p>He was at this time a solitary, crusty old man living in a four-story +house on Water street, pursued by the contumely of every one, even of +those who flattered him for mercenary purposes. Children he had none, +and his wife was long since dead. His great wealth brought him no +comfort; the environment with which he surrounded himself was mean and +sordid; many of his clerks lived in better style. There, in his dingy +habitation, this lone, weazened veteran of commerce immersed himself in +the works of Voltaire, Diderot, Paine and Rousseau, of whom he was a +profound admirer and after whom some of his best ships were named.</p> + +<p>This grim miser had, after all, the one great redeeming quality of being +true to himself. He made no pretense to religion and had an abhorrence +of hypocrisy. Cant was not in his nature. Out into the world he went, a +ferocious shark, cold-eyed for prey, but he never cloaked his motives +beneath a calculating exterior of piety or benevolence. Thousands upon +thousands he had deceived, for business was business, but himself he +never deceived. His bitter scoffs at what he termed theologic +absurdities and superstitions and his terrific rebuffs to ministers who +appealed to him for money, undoubtedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> called forth a considerable +share of the odium which was hurled upon him. He defied the anathemas of +organized churchdom; he took hold of the commercial world and shook it +harshly and emerged laden with spoils. To the last, his volcanic spirit +flashed forth, even when, eighty years old, he lay with an ear cut off, +his face bruised and his sight entirely destroyed, the result of being +felled by a wagon.</p> + +<p>In all his eighty-one years charity had no place in his heart. But +after, on Dec. 26, 1831, he lay stone dead and his will was opened, what +a surprise there was! His relatives all received bequests; his very +apprentices each got five hundred dollars, and his old servants +annuities. Hospitals, orphan societies and other charitable associations +all benefited. Five hundred thousand dollars went to the City of +Philadelphia for certain civic improvements; three hundred thousand +dollars for the canals of Pennsylvania; a portion of his valuable estate +in Louisiana to New Orleans for the improvement of that city. The +remainder of the estate, about six millions, was left to trustees for +the creation and endowment of a College for Orphans, which was promptly +named after him.</p> + +<p>A chorus of astonishment and laudation went up. Was there ever such +magnificence of public spirit? Did ever so lofty a soul live who was so +misunderstood? Here and there a protesting voice was feebly heard that +Girard's wealth came from the community and that it was only justice +that it should revert to the community; that his methods had resulted in +widows and orphans and that his money should be applied to the support +of those orphans. These protests were frowned upon as the mouthings of +cranks or the ravings of impotent envy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> Applause was lavished upon +Girard; his very clothes were preserved as immemorial mementoes.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p> + +<h4>"THE GREAT BENEFACTOR."</h4> + +<p>All of the benefactions of the other rich men of the period waned into +insignificance compared to those of Girard. His competitors and compeers +had given to charity, but none on so great a scale as Girard. +Distinguished orators vied with one another in extolling his wonderful +benefactions,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> and the press showered encomiums upon him as that of +the greatest benefactor of the age. To them this honestly seemed so, for +they were trained by the standards of the trading class, by the +sophistries of political economists and by the spirit of the age, to +concentrate their attention upon the powerful and successful only, while +disregarding the condition of the masses of the people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>The pastimes of a king or the foibles of some noted politician or rich +man were things of magnitude and were much expatiated upon, while the +common man, singly or in mass, was of absolutely no importance. The +finely turned rhetoric of the orators, pleasing as it was to that +generation, is, judged by modern standards, well nigh meaningless and +worthless. In that highflown oratory, with its carefully studied +exordiums, periods and perorations can be clearly discerned the +reverence given to power as embodied by possession of property. But +nowhere do we see any explanation, or even an attempt at explanation, of +the basic means by which this property was acquired or of its effect +upon the masses of the people. Woefully lacking in facts are the +productions of the time as to how the great body of the workers lived +and what they did. Facts as to the rich are fairly available, although +not abundant, but facts regarding the rest of the population are +pitifully few. The patient seeker for truth—the mind which is not +content with the presentation of one side—finds, with some impatience, +that only a few writers thought it worth while to give even scant +attention to the condition of the working class. One of these few was +Matthew Carey, an orthodox political economist, who, in a pamphlet +issued in 1829<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a>, gave this picture which forms both a contrast and a +sequel to the accumulations of multimillionaires, of which Girard was +then the archetype:</p> + +<h4>A STARK CONTRAST PRESENTED.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Thousands of our laboring people travel hundreds of miles in +quest of employment on canals at 62-1/2 cents to 87-1/2 cents per +day, paying $1.50 to $2.00 a week for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> board, leaving families +behind depending upon them for support. They labor frequently in +marshy grounds, where they inhale pestiferous miasmata, which +destroy their health, often irrevocably. They return to their poor +families broken hearted, and with ruined constitutions, with a +sorry pittance, most laboriously earned, and take to their beds, +sick and unable to work. Hundreds are swept off annually, many of +them leaving numerous and helpless families. Notwithstanding their +wretched fate, their places are quickly supplied by others, +although death stares them in the face. Hundreds are most +laboriously employed on turnpikes, working from morning to night +at from half a dollar to three-quarters a day, exposed to the +broiling sun in summer and all the inclemency of our severe +winters. There is always a redundancy of wood-pilers in our +cities, whose wages are so low that their utmost efforts do not +enable them to earn more than from thirty-five to fifty cents per +day.... Finally there is no employment whatever, how disagreeable +or loathsome, or deleterious soever it may be, or however reduced +the wages, that does not find persons willing to follow it rather +than beg or steal."</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<h3>THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES</h3> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 334px;"> +<img src="images/ill_004.jpg" width="334" height="400" alt="GEN. STEPHEN VAN RENSSLAER. The Last of the Patroons. (From an Engraving.)" title="" /> +<span class="caption">GEN. STEPHEN VAN RENSSLAER.<br />The Last of the Patroons.<br />(From an Engraving.)</span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_I" id="CHAPTER_II_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE ORIGIN OF HUGE CITY ESTATES</h3> + +<p>In point of succession and importance the next great fortunes came from +ownership of land in the cities. They far preceded fortunes from +established industries or from the control of modern methods of +transportation. Long before Vanderbilt and other of his contemporaries +had plucked immense fortunes from steamboat, railroad and street railway +enterprises, the Astor, Goelet, and Longworth fortunes were counted in +the millions. In the seventy years from 1800 the landowners were the +conspicuous fortune possessors; and, although fortunes of millions were +extracted from various other lines of business, the land fortunes were +preëminent.</p> + +<p>At the dawn of the nineteenth century and until about 1850, survivals of +the old patroon estates were to be met with. But these gradually +disintegrated. Everywhere in the North the tendency was toward the +partition of the land into small farms, while in the South the condition +was the reverse. The main fact which stood out was that the rich men of +the country were no longer those who owned vast tracts of rural land. +That powerful kind of landowner had well-nigh vanished.</p> + +<h4>THE MANORIAL LORDS PASS AWAY.</h4> + +<p>For more than two centuries the manorial lords had been conspicuous +functionaries. Shorn of much power<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> by the alterations of the Revolution +they still retained a part of their state and estate. But changing laws +and economic conditions drove them down and down in the scale until the +very names of many of them were gradually lost sight of. As they +descended in the swirl, other classes of rich men jutted into strong +view. Chief among these nascent classes were the landowners of the +cities, at first grabbling tradesmen and land speculators and finally +rising to the crowning position of multimillionaires. Originally, as we +have seen, the manorial magnate himself made the laws and decreed +justice; but in two centuries great changes had taken place. He now had +to fight for his very existence.</p> + +<p>Thus, to give one example, the manorial men in New York were confronted +in 1839 by a portentous movement. Their tenants were in a state of +unrest. On the Van Rensselaer, the Livingston and other of the old +feudal estates they rose in revolt. They objected to the continuing +system which gave the lords of these manors much the same rights over +them as a lord in England exercised over his tenants. Under the leases +that the manorial lords compelled their tenants to sign, there were +oppressive anachronisms. If he desired to entertain a stranger in his +house for twenty-four hours, the tenant was required to get permission +in writing. He was forced to obligate himself not to trade in any +Commodities except the produce of the manor. He could not get his flour +ground anywhere else than at the mill of the manor without violating his +lease and facing ejectment, nor could he buy anything at any place +except at the store of the manorial magnate. These were the rights +reserved to the manorial lords after the Revolution, because theirs were +the rights of private property; and as has often been set forth, +property absolutely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> dominated the laws and greatly nullified the spirit +of a movement made successful by the blood and lives of the masses in +the Revolutionary Army. Tardily, subsequent legislatures had abolished +all feudal tenures, but these laws were neither effective nor were +enforced by the authorities who reflected and represented the interests +of the proprietors of the manors.</p> + +<p>On their part the manorial men believed that self-interest, pride and +adherence to ancient traditions called for the perpetuation of their +arbitrary power of running their domains as they pleased. They refused +to acknowledge that law had any right to interfere in the managing of +what they considered their private affairs. Eager to avail themselves of +the police power of the law in dispossessing any fractious or +impecunious tenant and in suppressing protest meetings, they, at the +same time, denounced law as tyrannical when it sought to inject more +modern and humane conditions in the managing of their estates. They +stubbornly insisted upon a tenantry, and as obstinately contested any +forfeiture of what they deemed their property rights.</p> + +<h4>FEUDAL TENURES ABOLISHED.</h4> + +<p>A long series of reprisals and an intense agitation developed. The +Anti-Renters mustered such sympathetic political strength and threw the +whole state into such a vortex of radical discussion, that the +politicians of the day, fearing the effects of such a movement, +practically forced the manorial magnates to compromise by selling their +land in small farms,<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> which they did at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> exorbitant prices. They made +large profits on the strength of the very movement which they had so +bitterly opposed. Affrighted at the ominous unrest of a large part of +the people and hoping to stem it, the New York Constitutional Convention +in 1846 adopted a Constitutional inhibition on all feudal tenures, an +inhibition so drafted that no legislature could pass a law contravening +it.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p>So, in this final struggle, passed away the last vestiges of the sway of +the all-powerful patroons of old. They had become archaic. It was +impossible for them to survive in the face of newer conditions, for they +represented a bygone economic and social era. Their power was one +accruing purely from the extent of their possessions and discriminative +laws. When these were wrenched from their grasp, their importance as +wielders of wealth and influence ceased. They might still boast of their +lineage, their aristocratic enclosure and culture and their social +altitude, but these were about the only remnants of consolation left.</p> + +<p>The time was unpropitious for the continuation of great wealth based +upon rural or small-town land. Many influences conspired to make this +land a variable property, while these same influences, or a part of +them, fixed upon city land an enhancing and graduating permanency of +value. The growth of the shipping trade built up the cities and +attracted workers and population<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> generally. The establishment of the +factory system in 1790 had a two-fold effect. It began to drain country +sections of many of the younger generations and it immediately enlarged +the trading activities of the cities. Another and much more considerable +part of the farming population in the East was constantly migrating to +the West and Southwest with their promising opportunities. Some country +districts thinned out; others remained stationary. But whether the rural +census increased or not, there were other factors which sent up or down +the value of farming lands. The building of a canal would augment the +value of land in section and cause stimulation, and depress conditions +in another section not so favored. Even this stimulation, however, was +often transient. With each fresh settlement of the West and with the +construction of each pioneer railroad, new and complex factors turned up +which generally had a depreciating effect upon Eastern lands. A country +estate worth a large sum in one generation might very well succumb to a +mortgage in the next.</p> + +<h4>THE NEW ARISTOCRACY.</h4> + +<p>But fortunes based upon land in the cities were indued with a +mathematical certainty and a perpetuity. City real estate was not +subject to the extreme fluctuating processes which so disordered the +value of rural land. All of the tendencies and currents of the times +favored the building up of an aristocracy based upon ownership of city +property. Compared to their present colossal proportions the cities were +then mere villages. There was a nucleus of perhaps a mile or two of +houses, beyond which were fields and orchards, meadows and wastes. These +could be bought for an insignificant sum. With<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> the progressing growth +of commerce and population, with immigration continually going on, every +year witnessing a keener pressure for occupation of the land, the value +of this latter was certain to increase. There was no chance of its being +otherwise.</p> + +<p>Up to 1825 it was a mooted question whether the richest landowners would +arise in New York, Philadelphia, Boston or Baltimore. For many years +Philadelphia had been far in the lead in extent of commerce. But the +opening of the Erie Canal at once settled this question. At a bound New +York attained the rank of the foremost commercial city in the United +States, completely outstripping its competitors. While the trade of +these fell off precipitately, the population and trade of New York City +nearly doubled in a single decade. The value of land began to increase +stupendously. The swamps, rocky wastes and flats and the land under +water of a few years before became prolific sources of fortunes. Land +which had been worth a paltry sum ten or twenty years before sprang to a +considerable value and, in course of time, with the same causes in a +more intense ratio of operation, was vested with a value of hundreds of +millions of dollars. This being so, it was not surprising that the +richest landowners should appear first in New York City and should be +able to maintain their supremacy.</p> + +<p>The wealth of the landowners soon completely eclipsed that of the +shippers. Enormous as were the profits of the shipping business, they +were immediate only. In the contest for wealth it was inevitable that +the shippers should fall behind. Their business was one of peculiar +uncertainties. The hazards of the sea, the fluctuations and vicissitudes +of trade, the severe competition of the times, exposed their traffic to +many mutations. Many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> of the rich shipowners well understood this; the +surplus wealth derived from commerce on the seas they invested in land, +banks, factories, turnpikes, insurance companies, railroads and in some +instances, lotteries. Those shipping millionaires who clung exclusively +to the sea fell in the scale of the rich class, especially as the time +came when foreign shipping largely supplanted the trade hitherto carried +in American cutters. Other shippers who applied their surplus capital to +investments in other forms of trade and ownership advanced rapidly in +wealth.</p> + +<h4>CITY LAND THE SUPREME FACTOR.</h4> + +<p>Between land ownership and other forms, however, there was a great +difference. Trade was then extremely individualistic; the artificial +controlling power called the corporation was in its earliest infantile +condition. The heirs of the owner of sixty line of sail might not +possess the same astuteness, the same knowledge, adroitness, and +cunning—or let us say, unscrupulousness—the same severe application as +the founder. Consequently the business would decay or fall into the +hands of others shrewder or more fortunate. As to factories the +condition was somewhat the same; and, after the organization of labor +unions the possibility of strikes was an ever-present danger to the +constant flow of profits. Banks were by no means fixed, unchangeable +establishments. Like other media of profit-making, the extent of their +power and profits depended upon prevailing conditions and very largely +upon the favoritism or policy of Government. At any time the party +controlling government functions might change and a radically different +policy in banking, tariff or other laws be put in force.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>These changing laws did not, it is true, vitally benefit the masses of +the people, for one set or other of the propertied interests almost +invariably benefited. The laws enacted were usually in response to a +demand made by contending propertied interests. The trade and political +struggles carried on by the commercial interests were a series of +incessant wars, in which every individual owner, firm or combination was +fiercely resisting competitors or striving for their overthrow.</p> + +<h4>THE INVULNERABLE LANDOWNER.</h4> + +<p>But the landowner occupied a superior position which neither political +conditions nor the flux of changing circumstances could materially +assail. He was ardently individualistic also in that he demanded, and +was accorded, the unimpaired right to get land in any way that he +legally could, hold a monopoly of as much of it as he pleased, and +dispose of it as he willed. In the very act of asserting this +individualism he called upon Society, through its machinery of +Government, for the enactment of particular laws, to guarantee him the +sole possession of his land and uphold his claims and rights by force if +necessary. These were all the basic laws that he needed and these laws +did not change. From generation to generation they remained fixed, +immovable. The interests of all landowners were identical; those of the +traders were varying and conflicting. For long periods the landowner +could expect the continuance of existing fundamental laws regarding the +ownership of land, while the shipper, the factory owner, the banker did +not know what different set of laws might be enacted at any time.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, the landowner had an efficient and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> never-failing +auxiliary. He yoked society as a partner, but it was a partnership in +which the revenue went exclusively to the landowner. The principal +factor he depended upon was the work of collective humans in adding +greater and greater values to his land. Broadly speaking, his share +consisted in merely looking on; he had nothing to do except hold on to +his land. His sons, grandsons, his descendants down to remotest +posterity need do even less; they could leisurely hold on to their +inheritance, enlarge it, hire the necessary ability of superintendence +and vast and ever vaster riches would be theirs. Society worked +feverishly for the landowner. Every street laid and graded by the city; +every park plotted and every other public improvement; every child born +and every influx of immigrants; every factory, warehouse and dwelling +that went up;—all these and more agencies contributed toward the +abnormal swelling of his fortune.</p> + +<h4>A PROLIFIC BREEDER OF WEALTH.</h4> + +<p>Under such a system land was the one great auspicious, facile and +durable means of rolling up an overshadowing fortune. Its exclusive +possession struck at the very root of human necessity. At a pinch people +can do without trade or money, but land they must have, even if only to +lie down on and starve. The impoverish, jobless worker, with disaster +facing him, must first perforce give up his precious few coins to the +landlord and take chances on food and the remainder. Especially is land +in demand in a complicated industrial system which causes much of the +population to gravitate to centers where industries and trade are +concentrated and congest there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>A more formidable system for the foundation and amplification of lasting +fortunes has not existed. It is automatically self-perpetuating. And +that it is preëminently so is seen in the fact that the large shipping +fortunes of a century ago are now generally as completely forgotten as +the methods then used are obsolete. But the land has remained land; and +the fortunes then incubated have grown into mighty powers of great +national, and some of considerable international, importance.</p> + +<p>It was by favor of these propitious conditions that many of the great +fortunes, based upon land, were founded. According to the successive +census returns of the United States, by far the greater part of the +wealth of the country as regards real estate was, and is, concentrated +in the North Atlantic Division and the North Central Division, the one +taking in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the other +Chicago, Cincinnati and other cities.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> It is in the large cities that +the great land fortunes are to be found. The greatest of these fortunes +are the Astor, Goelet and Rhinelander estates in the East and, in the +West, the Longworth and Field estates are notable examples. To deal with +all the conspicuous fortunes based upon land would necessitate an +interminable narrative. Suffice it for the purposes of this work to take +up a few of the superlatively great fortunes as representatives of those +based upon land.</p> + +<h4>VAST FORTUNES FROM LAND.</h4> + +<p>The foremost of all American fortunes derived from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> land is the Astor +fortune. Its present bulk, embracing all the collateral family branches, +is estimated by some authorities at about $300,000,000. This, it is +generally believed, is an underestimate. As long ago as 1889, when the +population of New York City was much less than now, Thomas G. Shearman, +a keen student of land conditions, placed the collective wealth of the +Astors at $250,000,000.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> The stupendous magnitude of this fortune +alone may at once be seen in its relation to the condition of the masses +of the people. An analysis of the United States census of 1900, compiled +by Lucien Sanial, shows that while the total wealth of the country was +estimated at about $95,000,000,000, the proletarian class, composed +chiefly of wage workers and a small proportion of those in professional +classes, and numbering 20,393,137 persons, owned only about +$4,000,000,000. It is by such a contrast, bringing out how one family +alone, the Astors, own more than many millions of workers, that we begin +to get an idea of the overreaching, colossal power of a single fortune. +The Goelet fortune is likewise vast; it is variously estimated at from +$200,000,000 to $225,000,000, although what its exact proportions are is +a matter of some obscurity.</p> + +<p>In the case of these great fortunes it is well nigh impossible to get an +accurate idea of just how much they reach. All of them are based +primarily upon ownership of land, but they also include many other forms +such as shares in banks, coal and other mines, railroads, city +transportation systems, gas plants, industrial corporations. Even the +most indefatigable tax assessors find it such a fruitless and elusive +task in attempting to discover what personal property is held by these +multimillionaires, that the assessment is usually a conjectural or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +haphazard performance. The extent of their land holdings is known; these +cannot be hid in a safe deposit vault. But their other varieties of +property are carefully concealed from public and official knowledge. +Since this is so, it is entirely probable that the fortunes of these +families are considerably greater than is commonly estimated. The case +of Marshall Field, a Chicago Crœsus, who left a fortune valued at +about $100,000,000, is a strong illustration. This man owned $30,000,000 +worth of real estate in Chicago alone. There was no telling, however, +what his whole estate amounted to, for he refused year after year to pay +taxes on more than a valuation of $2,500,000 of personal property. Yet, +after his death in 1906, an inventory of his estate filed in January, +1907, disclosed a clear taxable personal property of $49,977,270. He was +far richer than he would have it appear.</p> + +<p>Let us investigate the careers of some of these powerful landed men, the +founders of great fortunes, and inquire into their methods and into the +conditions under which they succeeded in heaping up their immense +accumulations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_II" id="CHAPTER_II_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE INCEPTION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE</h3> + +<p>The founder of the Astor fortune was John Jacob Astor, a butcher's son. +He was born in Waldorf, Germany, on July 17, 1763. At the age of +eighteen, according to traditional accounts, he went to London, where a +brother, George Peter, was in the business of selling musical +instruments. Two years later with "one good suit of Sunday clothes, +seven flutes and five pounds sterling of money"<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> he emigrated to +America. Landing at Baltimore he proceeded to New York City.</p> + +<p>Here he became an apprentice to George Dieterich, a baker at No. 351 +Pearl street, for whom he peddled cakes, as was the custom. Walter +Barrett insists that this was Astor's first occupation in New York. +Later, Astor went into business for himself. "For a long time," says +Barrett, "he peddled [fur] skins, and bought them where he could; and +bartered cheap jewelry, etc., from the pack he carried on his back."<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> +Another story is that he got a job beating furs for $2 a week and board +in the store of Robert Bowne, a New York merchant; that while in this +place he showed great zest in quizzing the trappers who came in to sell +furs, and that in this fashion he gained considerable knowledge of the +fur animals. The story proceeds that as Bowne grew older he entrusted to +Astor the task of making long and fatiguing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> journeys to the Indian +tribes in the Adirondacks and Canada and bargaining with them for furs.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR'S EARLY CAREER.</h4> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 312px;"> +<img src="images/ill_005.jpg" width="312" height="500" alt="JOHN JACOB ASTOR. The Founder of the Colossal Astor Fortune. (From an Engraving.)" title="" /> +<span class="caption">JOHN JACOB ASTOR.<br />The Founder of the Colossal Astor Fortune.<br />(From an Engraving.)</span> +</div> + +<p>Astor got together enough money to start in the fur business for himself +in 1786 in a small store on Water street. It is not unreasonable to +suppose that at this time he, in common with all the fur dealers of the +time, participated in the current methods of defrauding the Indians. It +is certain that he contrived to get their most valuable furs for a jug +of rum or for a few toys or notions. Returning from these strokes of +trade, he would ship large quantities of the furs to London where they +were sold at great profit.</p> + +<p>His marriage to Sarah Todd, a cousin of Henry Brevoort, brought him a +good wife, who had the shining quality of being economical, and an +accession of some means and considerable family connections. Remarkably +close-fisted, he weighed over every penny. As fast as his means +increased he used them in extending his business. By 1794 he was +somewhat of an expansive merchant. Scores of trappers and agents ravaged +the wilderness at his command. Periodically he shipped large quantities +of furs to Europe. His modest, even niggardly, ways of living in rooms +over his store were not calculated to create the impression that he was +a rich man. It was his invariable practice habitually to deceive others +as to his possessions and plans. But when, in 1800, he removed to No. +223 Broadway, at the corner of Vesey street, then a fashionable +neighborhood, he was rated, perforce, as a man of no inconsiderable +means. He was, in fact, as nearly as can be gathered, worth at this time +a quarter of a million dollars—a monumental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> fortune at a period when +a man who had $50,000 was thought rich; when a good house could be +rented for $350 a year and when $750 or $800 would fully defray the +annual expenses of the average well-living family.</p> + +<p>The great profits from the fur trade naturally led him into the business +of being his own shipowner and shipper, for he was a highly efficient +organizer and well understood the needlessness of middlemen. A beaver +skin bought for one dollar from the Indian or white trappers in Western +New York could be sold in London for six dollars and a quarter. On all +other furs there were the same large profits. But, in addition to these, +Astor saw that his profits could be still further increased by investing +the money that he received from the sale of his furs in England, in +English goods and importing them to the United States. By this process, +the profit from a single beaver skin could be made to reach ten dollars. +At that time the United States depended upon British manufactures for +many articles, especially certain grades of woolen goods and cutlery. +These were sold at exorbitant profit to the American people. This trade +Astor carried on in his own ships.</p> + +<h4>HIS METHODS IN BUSINESS.</h4> + +<p>It is of the greatest importance to ascertain Astor's methods in his fur +trade, for it was fundamentally from this trade that he reaped the +enormous sums that enabled him to become a large landowner. What these +methods were in his earlier years is obscure. Nothing definite is +embodied in any documentary evidence. Not so, however, regarding the +methods of the greatest and most successful of his fur gathering +enterprises, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> American Fur Company. The "popular writer" referred to +before says that the circumstances of Astor's fur and shipping +activities are well known. On the contrary, they are distinctly not well +known nor have they ever been set forth. None of Astor's biographers +have brought them out, if, indeed, they knew of them. And yet these +facts are of the most absolute significance in that they reveal the +whole foundation of the colossal fortune of the Astor family.</p> + +<p>The pursuit and slaughter of fur animals were carried on with such +indefatigable vigor in the East that in time that territory became +virtually exhausted. It became imperative to push out into the fairly +virgin regions of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and of the Rocky +Mountains. The Northwest Company, a corporation running under British +auspices, was then scouring the wilds west and northwest of the Great +Lakes. Its yearly shipments of furs were enormous.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> Astor realized +the inconceivably vaster profits which would be his in extending his +scope to the domains of the far West, so prolific in opportunities for +furs.</p> + +<p>In 1808 he incorporated the American Fur Company. Although this was a +corporation, he was, in fact, the Company. He personally supplied its +initial capital of $500,000 and dictated every phase of its policy. His +first ambitious design was to found the settlement of Astoria in Oregon, +but the war of 1812 frustrated plans well under way, and the expedition +that he sent out there had to depart.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Had this plan succeeded, Astor +would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> been, as he rightly boasted, the richest man in the world; +and the present wealth of his descendants instead of being $450,000,000 +would be manifold more.</p> + +<h4>MONOPOLY BASED ON FORCE.</h4> + +<p>Thwarted in his project to get a monopoly of the incalculable riches of +furs in the extreme Northwest, he concentrated his efforts on that vast +region extending along the Missouri River, far north to the Great Lakes, +west to the Rocky Mountains and into the Southwest. It was a region +abounding in immense numbers of fur animals and, at that time, was +inhabited by the Indian tribes, with here and there a settlement of +whites. By means of Government favoritism and the unconcealed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> exercise +of both fraud and force, he obtained a complete monopoly, as complete +and arbitrary as ever feudal baron held over seignorial estates. +Nominally, the United States Government ruled this great sweep of +territory and made the laws and professed to execute them. In reality, +Astor's company was a law unto itself. That it employed both force and +fraud and entirely ignored all laws enacted by Congress, is as clear as +daylight from the Government reports of that period.</p> + +<p>The American Fur Company maintained three principal posts or depots of +receiving and distribution—one at St. Louis, one at Detroit, the third +at Mackinac. In response to an order from Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, +to send in complete reports of the fur trade, Joshua Pilcher reported +from St. Louis, December 1, 1831:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>About this time [1823] the American Fur Company had turned their +attention to the Missouri trade, and, as might have been expected, +soon put an end to all opposition. Backed, as it was, by any +amount of capital, and with skillful agents to conduct its affairs +at <i>every point</i>, it succeeded by the year 1827, in monopolizing +the trade of the Indians on the Missouri, and I have but little +doubt will continue to do so for years to come, as it would be +rather a hazardous business for small adventurers to rise in +opposition to it.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p></div> + +<p>In that wild country where the Government, at best, had an insufficient +force of troops, and where the agents of the company went heavily armed, +it was distinctly recognized, and accepted as a fact, that no possible +competitor's men, or individual trader, dare intrude. To do it was to +invite the severest reprisals, not stopping short of outright murder. +The American Fur Company overawed and dominated everything; it defied +the Government's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> representatives and acknowledged no authority superior +to itself and no law other than what its own interests demanded. The +exploitation that ensued was one of the most deliberate, cruel and +appalling that has ever taken place in any country.</p> + +<h4>THE DEBAUCHING OF INDIANS.</h4> + +<p>If there was any one serious crime at that time it was the supplying of +the Indians with whisky. The Government fully recognized the baneful +effects of debauching the Indians, and enacted strict laws with harsh +penalties. Astor's company brazenly violated this law, as well as all +other laws conflicting with its profit interests. It smuggled in +prodigious quantities of rum. The trader's ancient trick of getting the +Indians drunk and then swindling them of their furs and land was carried +on by Astor on an unprecedented scale. To say that Astor knew nothing of +what his agents were doing is a palliation not worthy of consideration; +he was a man who knew and attended to even the pettiest details of his +varied business. Moreover, the liquor was despatched by his orders +direct by ship to New Orleans and from thence up the Mississippi to St. +Louis and to other frontier points. The horrible effects of this traffic +and the consequent spoliation were set forth by a number of Government +officers.</p> + +<p>Col. J. Snelling, commanding the garrison at Detroit, sent an indignant +protest to James Barbour, Secretary of War, under date of August 23, +1825. "He who has the most whisky, generally carries off the most furs," +wrote Col. Snelling, and then continued:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The neighborhood of the trading houses where whisky is sold, +presents a disgusting scene of drunkenness, debauchery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> and +misery; it is the fruitful source of all our difficulties, and of +nearly all the murders committed in the Indian country.... For the +accommodation of my family I have taken a house three miles from +town, and in passing to and from it, I have daily opportunities of +seeing the road strewed with the bodies of men, women and +children, in the last stages of brutal intoxication. It is true +there are laws in this territory to restrain the sale of whisky, +but they are not regarded....<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p></div> + +<p>Col. Snelling added that during that year there had been delivered by +contract to an agent of the North American Fur Company, at Mackinac (he +meant the American Fur Company which, as we have seen, had one of its +principal headquarters at that post and maintained a monopoly there), +3,300 gallons of whisky and 2,500 gallons of high wines. This latter +liquor was preferred by the agents, he pointed out, as it could be +"increased at pleasure." Col. Snelling went on: "I will venture to add +that an inquiry into the manner in which the Indian trade is conducted, +especially by the North American Fur Company, is a matter of no small +importance to the tranquillity of the borders."<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p> + +<h4>VIOLATION OF LAWS.</h4> + +<p>A similar report was made the next winter by Thomas L. McKenney, +Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> Secretary of War. In a +communication dated Feb. 14, 1826, McKenney wrote that "the forbidden +and destructive article, whisky, is considered so essential to a +lucrative commerce, as not only to still those feelings [of repugnance] +but lead the traders to brave the most imminent hazards, and evade, by +various methods the threatened penalties of law." The superintendent +proceeded to tell of the recent seizure by General Tipton, Indian Agent +at Fort Wayne, of an outfit in transit containing a considerable supply +of whisky, which was owned in large part, he says, by the American Fur +Company. He then continued: "The trader with the whisky, it must be +admitted, is certain of getting the most furs.... There are many +honorable and high-minded citizens in this trade, but expediency +overcomes their objections and reconciles them for the sake of the +profits of the trade."<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> + +<p>In stating this fact, McKenney was unwittingly enunciating a profound +truth, the force of which mankind is only now beginning to realize, that +the pursuit of profit will transform natures inherently capable of much +good into sordid, cruel beasts of prey, and accustom them to committing +actions so despicable, so inhuman, that they would be terrified were it +not that the world is under the sway of the profit system and not merely +excuses and condones, but justifies and throws a glamour about, the +unutterable degradations and crimes which the profit system calls forth.</p> + +<p>Living in a more advanced time, in an environment adjusted to bring out +the best, instead of the worst, Astor and his henchmen might have been +men of supreme goodness and gentleness. As it was, they lived at a +period when it was considered the highest, most astute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> and successful +form of trade to resort to any means, however base, to secure profits. +Let not too much ignominy be cast upon their memories; they were but +creatures of their time; and their time was not that "golden age," so +foolishly pictured, but a wild, tempestuous, contending struggle in +which every man was at the throat of his fellowman, and in a vortex +which statesmen, college professors, editors, political economists, all +praised and sanctified as "progressive civilization."</p> + +<p>Like all other propertied interests, Astor's company regarded the law as +a thing to be rigorously invoked against the poor, the helpless and +defenseless, but as not to be considered when it stood in the way of the +claims, designs and pretensions of property. Superintendent McKenney +reported that all laws in the Indian country were inoperative—so much +dead matter. Andrew S. Hughes, reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 31, 1831, +to Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>.... The traders that occupy the largest and most important space +in the Indian country are the agents and engagees of the American +Fur Trade Company. They entertain, as I know to be the fact, no +sort of respect for our citizens, agents, officers or the +Government, or its laws or general policy.</p></div> + +<p>After describing the "baneful influence of these persons," Hughes went +on:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The capital employed in the Indian trade must be very large, +especially that portion which is employed in the annual purchase +of whisky and alcohol into the Indian country for the purpose of +trade with the Indians. It is not believed that the superintendent +is ever applied to for a permit for the one-hundredth gallon that +is taken into the Indian country. The whisky is sold to the +Indians in the face of the [Government] agents. Indians are made +drunk, and, of course, behave badly....</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<h4>PROFIT AND ITS RESULTS.</h4> + +<p>Not only, however, were the Indians made drunk with the express purpose +of befuddling and swindling them,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> but in the very commission of this +act, an enormous profit was made on the sale of the whisky. Those who +may be inclined to recoil with horror at the historic contemplation of +this atrocity, will do well to remember that this was simply one +manifestation of the ethics of the trading class—the same class which +formed and ruled government, made and interpreted laws, and constituted +the leading, superior and exclusive groups of high society. Hughes +continued:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I am informed that there is but little doubt, but a clear gain of +more than fifty thousand dollars has been made this year on the +sale of whisky to the Indians on the river Missouri; the <i>prices +are from $25 to $50 a gallon</i>. Major Morgan, United States sutler +at Cantonment Leavenworth, says that thousands of gallons of +alcohol has passed that post during the present year, destined for +the Indian country.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p></div> + +<p>These official reports were supplemented by another on the same subject +from William M. Gordon to General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> William Clark, at that time +Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In his report, Gordon, writing from +St. Louis, pointed out that, "whisky, though not an authorized article, +has been a principal, and I believe a very lucrative one for the last +several years."<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> + +<p>What a climax of trading methods, first to debauch the Indians +systematically in order to swindle them, and then make a large revenue +on the rum that enabled the company to do it! Undoubtedly it was by +these means that Astor became possessed of large tracts of land in +Wisconsin and elsewhere in the West. But the methods thus far enumerated +were but the precursors of others. When the Indians were made maudlin +drunk and bargained with for their furs were they paid in money? By no +means. The American Fur Company had another trick in reserve. Astor +employed the cunning expedient of exchanging merchandise for furs. Large +quantities of goods, especially woolens, made by underpaid adult and +child labor in England and America, and representing the sweat and +suffering of the labor of the workers, were regularly shipped by him to +the West. For these goods the Indians were charged one-half again or +more what each article cost after paying all expenses of +transportation.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> Reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 24, 1831, in a +communication to the Secretary of War, Thomas Forsyth gave a description +of this phase of the American Fur Company's dealings. He said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In the autumn of every year [when the hunting season began] the +trader carefully avoids giving credit to the Indians on many +costly articles such as silver works, wampum, scarlet cloth, fine +bridles, etc., etc., as also a few woolens, such as blankets, +strouds, etc., unless it be to an Indian whom he knows will pay +all his debts. In that case he will allow the Indian, on credit, +everything he wishes.</p> + +<p>Traders always prefer giving credit on gunpowder, flints, lead, +knives, tomahawks, hoes, domestic cottons, etc.; which they do <i>at +the rate of 300 or 400 per cent</i>, and if one-fourth of the price +of these articles be paid, he is amply remunerated.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p></div> + +<p>Nor were these the final injustices and infamies heaped upon the +untutored aborigines. It was not enough that they should be pillaged of +their possessions; that the rights guaranteed them by the solemn +treaties of Government should be blown aside like so much waste paper by +the armed force of the American Fur Company; that whole tribes should be +demoralized with rum and then defrauded; that shoddy merchandise, for +which generally no market could be found elsewhere, should be imposed +upon them at such incredibly high prices, that they were bound to be +beggared.<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> These methods were not enough. Never were human beings so +frightfully exploited as these ignorant, unsophisticated savages of the +West. Through the long winters they roamed the forests and the prairies, +and assiduously hunted for furs which eventually were to clothe and +adorn the aristocracy of America, Europe and Asia. When in the spring +they came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> in with their spoil, they were, with masterly cunning, +artfully made intoxicated and then robbed. Not merely robbed in being +charged ruinous prices for merchandise, but robbed additionally in the +weight of their furs. Forsyth relates that for every dollar in +merchandise that the Astor company exchanged for furs, the company +received $1.25 or $1.50 in fur values, undoubtedly by the trader's low +trick of short weighing.</p> + +<h4>A LONG RECORD OF VIOLENCE.</h4> + +<p>In law the Indian was supposed to have certain rights, but Astor's +company not only ignored but flouted them. Now when the Indians +complained, what happened? Did the Government protect them? The +Government, and especially the courts, were quick and generous in +affording the greatest protection and the widest latitude to Astor's +company. But when the Indians resented the robberies and injustices to +which they were subjected beyond bearing, they were murdered. They were +murdered wantonly and in cold blood; and then urgent alarmist +representations would be sent to Washington that the Indians were in a +rebellious state, whereupon troops would be punitively hurried forth to +put them down in slaughter. In turn, goaded by an intense spirit of +revenge, the Indians would resort to primitive force and waylay, rob and +murder the white agents and traders.<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p> + +<p>From 1815 to 1831 more than 150 traders were robbed and killed by +Indians.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> Many of these were Astor's men. But how many Indians were +killed by the whites has never been known, nor apparently was there any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +solicitude as to whether the number was great or small.</p> + +<p>What did Astor pay his men for engaging in this degrading and dangerous +business? Is it not a terrifying commentary on the lengths to which men +are forced to go in quest of a livelihood, and the benumbing effects on +their sensibilities, that Astor should find a host of men ready to +seduce the Indians into a state of drunkenness, cheat and rob them, and +all this only to get robbed and perhaps murdered in turn? For ten or +eleven months in the year Astor's subaltern men toiled arduously through +forest and plain, risking sickness, the dangers of the wilderness and +sudden death. They did not rob because it benefited them; it was what +they were paid to do; and it was likewise expected of them that they +should look upon the imminent chances of death as a part of their +contract.</p> + +<p>For all this what was their pay? It was the trifling sum of $130 for the +ten or eleven months. But this was not paid in money. The poor wretches +who gave up their labor, and often their health and lives, for Astor +were themselves robbed, or their heirs, if they had any. Payment was +nearly always made in merchandise, which was sold at exorbitant prices. +Everything that they needed they had to buy at Astor's stores; by the +time that they had bought a year's supplies they not only had nothing +coming to them, but they were often actually in debt to Astor.</p> + +<p>But Astor—how did he fare? His profits from the fur trade of the West +were truly stupendous for that period. He, himself, might plead to the +Government that the company was in a decaying state of poverty. These +pleas deceived no one. It was characteristic of his habitual deceit that +he should petition the Government for a duty on foreign furs on the +ground that the company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> was being competed with in the American markets +by the British fur companies. At this very time Astor held a virtual +monopoly of fur trading in the United States. One need not be surprised +at the grounds of such a plea. Throughout the whole history of the +trading class, this pathetic and absurdly false plea of poverty has +incessantly been used by this class, and used successfully, to get +further concessions and privileges from a Government which reflected, +and represented, its interests. Curiously, enough, however, if a +mendicant used the same plea in begging a mite of alms on the streets, +the law has invariably regarded him as a vagrant to be committed to the +Workhouse.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR'S ENORMOUS PROFITS.</h4> + +<p>At about the identical time that John Jacob Astor was persistently +complaining that the company was making no money, his own son and +partner, William B. Astor, was writing from New York on Nov. 25, 1831, +to the Secretary of War, that the company had a capital of about +$1,000,000 and that, "You may, however, estimate our annual returns at +half a million dollars."<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> Not less than $500,000 annual revenues on a +capital of $1,000,000! These were inconceivably large returns for the +time; Thomas J. Dougherty, Indian Agent at Camp Leavenworth, estimated +that from 1815 to 1830 the fur trade on the Missouri and its waters had +yielded returns amounting to $3,330,000 with a clear profit of +$1,650,000. This was unquestionably a considerable underestimate.</p> + +<p>It is hardly necessary to say that Astor, as the responsible head and +beneficiary of the American Fur Company, was never prosecuted for the +numerous violations of both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> penal and civil laws invariably committed +by his direction and for his benefit. With the millions that rolled in, +he was able to command the services of not only the foremost lawyers in +warding off the penalties of law, but in having as his paid retainers +some of the most noted and powerful politicians of the day.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> Senator +Benton, of Missouri, a leading light in the Democratic party, was not +only his legal representative in the West and fought his cases for him, +but as United States Senator introduced in Congress measures which Astor +practically drafted and the purport of which was to benefit Astor and +Astor alone. Thus was witnessed a notorious violator of the law, +invoking aid of the law to enrich himself still further,—a condition +which need not arouse exceptional criticism, since the whole trading +class in general did precisely the same thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_III" id="CHAPTER_II_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE GROWTH OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE</h3> + +<p>While at the outposts, and in the depths, of the Western wilderness an +armed host was working and cheating for Astor, and, in turn, being +cheated by their employer; while, for Astor's gain, they were violating +all laws, debauching, demoralizing and beggaring entire tribes of +Indians, slaying and often being themselves slain in retaliation, what +was the beneficiary of this orgy of crime and bloodshed doing in New +York?</p> + +<p>For a long time he lived at No. 223 Broadway in a large double house, +flanked by an imposing open piazza supported by pillars and arches. In +this house he combined the style of the ascending capitalist with the +fittings and trappings of the tradesman. It was at once residence, +office and salesroom. On the ground floor was his store, loaded with +furs; and here one of his sons and his chief heir, William B. could be +seen, as a lad, assiduously beating the furs to keep out moths. Astor's +disposition was phlegmatic and his habits were extremely simple and +methodical. He had dinner regularly at three o'clock, after which he +would limit himself to three games of checkers and a glass of beer. Most +of his long day was taken up with close attention to his many business +interests of which no detail escaped him. However execrated he might be +in the Indian territories far in the West, he assumed, and somewhat +succeeded in being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> credited with, the character of a patriotic, +respectable and astute man of business in New York.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR SUPERIOR TO LAW.</h4> + +<p>During (taking a wide survey) the same series of years that he was +directing gross violations of explicit laws in the fur-producing +regions—laws upon the observance of which depended the very safety of +the life of men, women and children, white and red, and which laws were +vested with an importance corresponding with the baneful and bloody +results of their infraction—Astor was turning other laws to his +distinct advantage in the East. Pillaging in the West the rightful and +legal domain, and the possessions, of a dozen Indian tribes, he, in the +East, was causing public money to be turned over to his private treasury +and using it as personal capital in his shipping enterprises.</p> + +<p>As applied to the business and landowning class, law was notoriously a +flexible, convenient, and highly adaptable function. By either the tacit +permission or connivance of Government, this class was virtually, in +most instances, its own law-regulator. It could consistently, and +without being seriously interfered with, violate such laws as suited its +interests, while calling for the enactment or enforcement of other laws +which favored its designs and enhanced its profits. We see Astor +ruthlessly brushing aside, like so many annoying encumbrances, even +those very laws which were commonly held indispensable to a modicum of +fair treatment of the Indians and to the preservation of human life. +These laws happened to conflict with the amassing of profits; and always +in a civilization ruled by the trading class,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> laws which do this are +either unceremoniously trampled upon, evaded or repealed.</p> + +<p>For all the long-continued violations of law in the West, and for the +horrors which resulted from his exploitation of the Indians, was Astor +ever prosecuted? To repeat, no; nor was he disturbed even by such a +triviality as a formal summons. Yet, to realize the full enormity of +acts for which he was responsible, and the complete measure of immunity +that he enjoyed, it is necessary to recall that at the time the +Government had already begun to assume the role of looking upon the +Indians as its wards, and thus of theoretically extending to them the +shield of its especial protection. If Government allowed a people whom +it pleased to signify as its wards to be debauched, plundered and slain, +what kind of treatment could be expected for the working class as to +which there was not even the fiction of Government concern, not to +mention wardship?</p> + +<h4>LAW BREAKERS AND LAW MAKERS.</h4> + +<p>But when it came to laws which, in the remotest degree, could be used or +manipulated to swell profits or to buttress property, Astor and his +class were untiring and vociferous in demanding their strict +enforcement. Successfully ignoring or circumventing laws objectionable +to them, they, at the same time, insisted upon the passage and exact +construction and severe enforcement of laws which were adjusted to their +interests. Law breakers, on the one hand, they were law makers on the +other. They caused to be put in statute, and intensified by judicial +precedent, the most rigorous laws in favor of property rights. They +virtually had the extraordinary power of choosing what laws they should +observe and what they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> should not. This choice was invariably at the +expense of the working class. Law, that much-sanctified product, was +really law only when applied to the propertyless. It confronted the poor +at every step, was executed with summary promptitude and filled the +prisons with them. Poverty had no choice in saying what laws it should +obey and what it should not. It, perforce, had to obey or go to prison; +either one or the other, for the laws were expressly drafted to bear +heavily upon it.</p> + +<p>It is illustrative, in the highest degree, of the character of +Government ruled by commercial interests, that Astor was allowed to +pillage and plunder, cheat, rob and (by proxy) slaughter in the West, +while, in the East, that same Government extended to him, as well as to +other shippers, the free use of money which came from the taxation of +the whole people—a taxation always weighted upon the shoulders of the +worker. In turn, this favored class, either consciously or +unconsciously, voluntarily or involuntarily, cheated the Government of +nearly half of the sums advanced. From the foundation of the Government +up to 1837, there were nine distinct commercial crises which brought +about terrible hardships to the wage workers. Did the Government step in +and assist them? At no time. But during all those years the Government +was busy in letting the shippers dig into the public funds and in being +extremely generous to them when they failed to pay up. From 1789 to 1823 +the Government lost more than $250,000,000 in duties,<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> all of which +sum represented what the shippers owed and did not, or could not, pay. +And no criminal proceedings were brought against any of these +defaulters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>This, however, was not all that the Government did for the favored, +pampered class that it represented. Laws were severe against labor-union +strikes, which were frequently judicially adjudged conspiracies. +Theoretically, law inhibited monopoly, but monopolies existed, because +law ceases to be effective law when it is not enforced; and the +propertied interests took care that it was not enforced. Their own class +was powerful in every branch of Government. Furthermore, they had the +money to buy political subserviency and legal dexterity. The $35,000 +that Astor paid to Cass, the very official who, as Secretary of War, had +jurisdiction over the Indian tribes and over the Indian trade, and the +sums that Astor paid to Benton, were, it may well be supposed, only the +merest parts of the total sums that he disbursed to officials and +politicians, high and low.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR'S MONOPOLIES.</h4> + +<p>Astor profited richly from his monopolies. His monopoly of furs in the +West was made a basis for the creation of other monopolies. China was a +voracious and highly profitable market for furs. In exchange for the +cargoes of these that he sent there, his ships would be loaded with teas +and silks. These products he sold at exorbitant prices in New York. His +profits from a single voyage sometimes reached $70,000; the average +profits from a single voyage were $30,000. During the War of 1812-15 tea +rose to double its usual price. Astor was invariably lucky in that his +ships escaped capture. At one period he was about the only merchant who +had a cargo of tea in the market. He exacted, and was allowed to exact, +his own price.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Astor was setting about making himself the richest and +largest landowner in the country. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> were not the most extensive land +possessions in point of extent but in regard to value. He aimed at being +a great city, not a great rural, landlord. It was estimated that his +trade in furs and associated commerce brought him a clear annual revenue +of about two million dollars. This estimate was palpably inadequate. Not +only did he reap enormous profits from the fur trade, but also from +banking privileges in which he was a conspicuous factor.</p> + +<p>It was on one of his visits to London, so the recital goes, that he +first became possessed of the idea of founding an extraordinarily rich +landed family. He admired, it is told, the great landed estates of the +British nobility, and observed the prejudice against the caste of the +trader and the corresponding exalted position of the landowner. Whether +this story is true or not, it is evident that he was impressed with the +increasing power and the stability of a fortune founded upon land, and +how it radiated a certain splendid prestige. The very definition of the +word landlord—lord of the soil—signified the awe-compelling and +authoritative position of him who owned land—a definition heightened +and enforced in a thousand ways by the laws.</p> + +<p>The speculative and solid possibilities of New York City real estate +held out dazzling opportunities gratifying his acquisitiveness for +wealth and power—the wealth that fed his avarice, and the power flowing +from the dominion of riches.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR NOT AN EXCEPTION.</h4> + +<p>It may here be observed that Astor's methods in trade or in acquiring of +land need not be indiscriminately condemned as an exclusive mania. Nor +should they be held up to the curiosity of posterity as a singular and +pernicious exhibition, detached from his time and generation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> and +independent of them. Again and again the facts disclose that men such as +he were merely the representative crests of prevailing commercial and +political life. Substantially the whole propertied class obtained its +wealth by methods which, if not the same, had a strong relationship. His +methods differed nowise from those of many cotton planters of the South +who stole, on a monstrous scale,<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> Government land and then with the +wealth derived from their thefts, bought negro slaves, set themselves up +in the glamour of a patriarchal aristocracy and paraded a florid display +of chivalry and honor. And it was this same grandiose class that +plundered Whitney of the fruits of his invention of the cotton-gin and +shamelessly defrauded him.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p><p>Far more flagrant, however, were the means by which other Southern +plantation owners and business firms secured landed estates in Alabama, +Georgia and in other States. Their methods in expropriating the +reservations of such Indian tribes as the Creeks and Chickasaws were not +less fraudulent than those that Astor used elsewhere. They too, those +fine Southern aristocrats, debauched Indian tribes with whisky, and +after swindling them of their land, caused the Government to remove them +westward. The frauds were so extensive, and the circumstances so +repellant, that President Andrew Jackson, in 1833, ordered an +investigation. From the records of this investigation,—four hundred and +twenty-five solid pages of official correspondence—more than enough +details can be obtained.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<h4>WHERE WAS FRAUD ABSENT?</h4> + +<p>In Wisconsin the most valuable Government lands, containing rich +deposits of lead and other mineral ore, were being boldly appropriated +by force and fraud. The House Committee on Public Lands reported on +December 18, 1840, that with the connivance of local land agents, these +lands, since 1835, had been sold at private sale before they were even +subject to public entry.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> "In consequence of which," the Committee +stated, "many tracts of land known to be rich and valuable mineral lands +for many years, and known to be such at the time of the entry, have been +entered by evil-minded persons, who have falsely made, or procured +others to make, the oath required by the land offices. Honest men have +been excluded from the purchase of these lands, while the dishonest and +unscrupulous have been permitted to enter them by means of false oath +and fraud."<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p> + +<p>These are but the merest glimpses of the widespread frauds in seizing +land, whether agricultural, timber or mineral. What of the mercantile +importers, the same class that the Government so greatly favored in +allowing it long periods in which to pay its customs duties? It was +defrauding the Government on the very importations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> on which it was +extended long-time credit for customs payments. The few official reports +available clearly indicate this. Great frauds were continuously going on +in the importations of lead.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Large quantities of sugar were imported +in the guise of molasses which, it was discovered, after being boiled a +few minutes, would produce an almost equal weight in brown sugar.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> +Doubtless similar frauds were being committed in other lines of +importations. Between the methods of these divisions of the capitalist +class, and those of Astor, no basic difference can be discerned.</p> + +<p>Neither was there any essential difference between Astor's methods and +those of the manufacturing capitalists of the North who remorselessly +robbed Charles Goodyear of the benefits of his discovery of vulcanized +rubber and who drove him, after protracted litigation, into insolvency, +and caused him to die loaded down with worries and debts, a broken-down +man, at the age of 60.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> As for that pretentious body of gentry who +professed to spread enlightenment and who set themselves high and +solemnly on a pinnacle as dispensers of knowledge and molders of public +opinion—the book, periodical and newspaper publishers—their methods at +bottom were as fraudulent as any that Astor ever used. They mercilessly +robbed and knew it, while making the most hypocritical professions of +lofty motives. Buried deep in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> dusty archives of the United States +Senate is a petition whereon appear the signatures of Moore, Carlyle, +the two Disraelis, Milman, Hallam, Southey, Thomas Campbell, Sir Charles +Lyell, Bulwer Lytton, Samuel Rogers, Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau +and other British literary luminaries, great or small. In this petition +these authors, some of them representing the highest and finest in +literary, philosophical, historical, and scientific thought and +expression, implore Congress to afford them protection against the +indiscriminate theft of their works by American booksellers. Their +works, they set forth, are not only appropriated without their consent +but even contrary to their expressed desire. And there is no redress. +Their productions are mutilated and altered, yet their names are +retained. They instance the pathetic case of Sir Walter Scott. His works +have been published and sold from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, yet not a +cent has he received. "An equitable remuneration," they set forth, +"might have saved his life, and would, at least have relieved his +closing years from the burdens of debts and destructive toils."<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p> + +<p>How fares this petition read in the United States Senate on February 2, +1837? The booksellers, magazine, periodical and newspaper publishers +have before succeeded in defeating one copyright bill. They now bestir +themselves again; the United States Senate consigns the petition to the +archives; and the piracy goes on as industriously as ever.</p> + +<h4>LEGALIZED PIRACY IN ALL BRANCHES OF TRADE.</h4> + +<p>What else could be expected from a Congress which represented the +commercial and landholding classes?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> No prodding was needed to cause it +to give the fullest protection to possessions in commerce, land and +negro slaves; these were concrete property. But thought was not +capitalized; it was not a manufactured product like iron or soap. +Nothing can express the pitying contempt or the lofty air of +patronization with which the dominant commercial classes looked down +upon the writer, the painter, the musician, the philosopher or the +sculptor. Regarding these "sentimentalists" as easy, legitimate and +defenseless objects of prey, and as incidental and impractical +hangers-on in a world where trade was all in all, the commercial classes +at all times affected a certain air of encouragement of the fine arts, +which encouragement, however, never attempted to put a stop to piracies +of publication or reproduction. How sordidly commercial that era was, to +what extremes its standards went, and how some of the basest forms of +theft were carried on and practically legalized, may be seen by the fate +of Peter Cardelli's petition to Congress. Cardelli was a Roman sculptor, +residing in the United States for a time. He prays Congress in 1820 to +pass an act protecting him from commercial pirates who make casts and +copies of his work and who profit at his expense. The Senate Committee +on Judiciary, to whom the petition is referred, rejects the plea. On +what ground? Because he "has not discovered any new invention on which +he can claim the right."<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> Could stupidity go further?</p> + +<p>All of the confluent facts of the time show conclusively that every +stratum of commercial society was permeated with fraud, and that this +fraud was accepted generally as a routine fixture of the business of +gathering property or profits. Astor, therefore, was not an isolated +phenomenon, but a typically successful representative of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> his time and +of the methods and standards of the trading class of that time.</p> + +<p>Whatever in the line of business yielded profits, that act, whether +cheating, robbing or slaughtering, was justified by some sophistry or +other. Astor did not debauch, spoliate, and incite slaughter because he +took pleasure in doing them. Perhaps—to extend charitable judgment—he +would have preferred to avoid them. But they were all part of the +formulated necessities of business which largely decreed that the +exercise of humane and ethical considerations was incompatible with the +zealous pursuit of wealth.</p> + +<p>In the wilderness of the West, Astor, operating through his agents, +could debauch, rob and slay Indians with impunity. As he was virtually +the governing body there, without fear of being hindered, he thus could +act in the most high-handed, arbitrary and forcible ways. In the East, +however, where law, or the forms of law, prevailed, he had to have +recourse to methods which bore no open trace of the brutal and +sanguinary. He had to become the insidious and devious schemer, acting +through sharp lawyers instead of by an armed force. Hence in his Eastern +operations he made deception a science and used every instrument of +cunning at his command. The result was precisely the same as in the +West, except that the consequences were not so overt, and the +perpetration could not be so easily distinguished. In the West, death +marched step by step with Astor's accumulating fortune; so did it in the +East, but it was not open and bloody as in the fur country. The +mortality thus accompanying Astor's progress in New York was of that +slow and indefinite, but more lingering and agonizing, kind ensuing from +want, destitution, disease and starvation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<p>Astor's supreme craft was at no time better shown than by the means by +which he acquired possession of an immense estate in Putnam County, New +York. During the Revolution, a tract consisting of 51,012 acres held by +Roger Morris and Mary his wife, Tories, had been confiscated by New York +State. This land, it is worth recalling, was part of the estate of +Adolphus Phillips, the son of Frederick who, as has been set forth, +financed and protected the pirate Captain Samuel Burgess in his +buccaneer expeditions, and whose share of the Burgess' booty was +extremely large.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> Mary Morris was a descendant of Adolph Phillips +and came into that part of the property by inheritance. The Morris +estate comprised nearly one-third of Putnam County. After confiscation, +the State sold the area in parts to various farmers. By 1809 seven +hundred families were settled on the property, and not a shadow of a +doubt had ever been cast on their title. They had long regarded it as +secure, especially as it was guaranteed by the State.</p> + +<h4>A NOTED LAND TRANSACTION.</h4> + +<p>In 1809 a browsing lawyer informed Astor that those seven hundred +families had no legal title whatever; that the State had had no legal +right to confiscate the Morris property, inasmuch as the Morrises held a +life lease only, and no State could ever confiscate a life lease. The +property, Astor was informed, was really owned by the children of the +Morris couple, to whom it was to revert after the lease of their parents +was extinguished. Legally, he was told, they were as much the owners as +ever. Astor satisfied himself that this point would hold in the courts. +Then he assiduously hunted up the heirs, and by a series of strategic +maneuvers worthy of the pen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> of a Balzac, succeeded in buying their +claim for $100,000.</p> + +<p>In the thirty-three years which had elapsed since confiscation, the land +had been greatly improved. Suddenly came a notification to these +unsuspecting farmers that not they, but Astor, owned the land. All the +improvements that they had made, all the accumulated standing products +of the thirty-three years' labor of the occupants, he claimed as his, by +virtue of the fact that, in law, they were trespassers. Dumfounded, they +called upon him to prove his claim. Whereupon his lawyers, men saturated +with the terminology and intricacies of legal lore, came forward and +gravely explained that the law said so and so and was such and such and +that the law was incontestible in support of Astor's claim. The +hard-working farmers listened with mystification and consternation. They +could not make out how land which they or their fathers had paid for, +and which they had tilled and improved, could belong to an absentee who +had never turned a spade on it, had never seen it, all simply because he +had the advantage of a legal technicality and a document emblazoned with +a seal or two.</p> + +<h4>THE PUBLIC UPROAR OVER ASTOR'S CLAIM.</h4> + +<p>They appealed to the Legislature. This body, influenced by the public +uproar over the transaction, refused to recognize Astor's title. The +whole State was aroused to a pitch of indignation. Astor's claim was +generally regarded as an audacious piece of injustice and robbery. He +contended that he was not subject to the provision of the statute +directing sales of confiscated estates which provided that tenants could +not be dispossessed without being paid for improvements. In fine, he +claimed the right to evict the entire seven hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> families without +being under the legal or moral necessity of paying them a single cent +for their improvements. In the state of public temper, the officials of +the State of New York decided to fight his claim. Astor offered to sell +his claim to the State for $667,000. But such was the public outburst at +the effrontery of a man who had bought what was virtually an extinct +claim for $100,000, and then attempting to hold up the State for more +than six times that sum, that the Legislature dared not consent.</p> + +<p>The contention went to the courts and there dragged along for many +years. Astor, however, won his point; it was decided that he had a valid +title. Finally in 1827 the Legislature allowed itself<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> to +compromise, although public opinion was as bitter as ever. The State +gave Astor $500,000 in five per cent stock, specially issued, in +surrender of his claim.<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> Thus were the whole people taxed to buy, at +an exorbitant price, the claim of a man who had got it by artifice and +whose estate eventually applied the interest and principal of that stock +to buying land in New York City. Thus also can a considerable part of +the Astor fortune be traced to Adolphus Phillips, son of Frederick, the +partner, protector and chief spoil-sharer of Captain Burgess, sea +pirate, and whose estate, the Phillips manor, had been obtained by +bribing Fletcher, the royal governor.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p><p>But while Astor gradually appropriated vast tracts of land in +Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa and other parts of the West, and levied his +toll on one-third of Putnam County, it was in New York City that he +concentrated the great bulk of his real estate speculations. To buy +steadily on the scale that he did required a constant revenue. This +revenue, as we have seen, came from his fur trading methods and +activities and the profits and privileges of his shipping. But these +factors do not explain his entire agencies in becoming a paramount +landocrat. One of these was the banking privilege—a privilege so +ordained by law that it was one of the most powerful and insidious +suctions for sapping the wealth created by the toil of the producers, +and for enriching its owners at a most appalling sacrifice to the +working and agricultural classes. And above all, Astor in common with +his class, made the most valuable asset of Law, whether exploiting the +violation, or the enforcement, of it.</p> + +<p>If we are to accept the superficial, perfunctory accounts of Astor's +real estate investments in New York City, then he will appear in the +usual eulogistic light of a law-loving, sagacious man engaged in a +legitimate enterprise. The truth, however, lies deeper than that—a +truth which has been either undiscerned or glossed over by those +conventional writers who, with a panderer's instinct, give a +wealth-worshipping era the thing it wants to read, not what it ought to +know. Although apparently innocent and in accord with the laws and +customs of the times, Astor's real estate transactions were inseparably +connected with consecutive evasions, trickeries, frauds and violations +of law. Extraordinarily favorable as the law was to the propertied +classes, even that law was constantly broken by the very classes to whom +it was so partial.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>Simultaneously, while reaping large revenues from his fur trade among +the Indians in both the East and West, Astor was employing a different +kind of fraud in using the powers of city and State government in New +York in obtaining, for practically nothing, enormously valuable grants +of land and other rights and privileges which added to the sum total of +his growing wealth.</p> + +<h4>CORRUPT GRANTS OF CITY LAND.</h4> + +<p>In this procedure he was but doing what a number of other contemporaries +such as Peter Goelet, the Rhinelanders, the Lorillards, the +Schermerhorns and other men who then began to found powerful landed +families, were doing at the same time. The methods by which these men +secured large areas of land, now worth huge sums, were unquestionably +fraudulent, although the definite facts are not as wholly available as +are, for instance, those which related to Fletcher's granting vast +estates for bribes in the seventeenth century, or the bribery which +corrupted the various New York legislatures beginning in the year 1805. +Nevertheless, considering the character of the governing politicians, +and the scandals that ensued from the granting and sales of New York +City land a century or more ago, it is reasonably certain that corrupt +means were used. The student of the times cannot escape from this +conclusion, particularly as it is borne out by many confirming +circumstances.</p> + +<p>New York City, at one time, owned a very large area of land which was +fraudulently granted or sold to private individuals. Considerable of +this granting or selling was done during the years when the corrupt +Benjamin Romaine was City Controller. Romaine was so badly involved in a +series of scandals arising from the grants and corrupt sales of city +land, that in 1806 the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> Common Council, controlled by his own party, the +Tammany machine, found it necessary to remove him from the office of +City Controller for malfeasance.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> The specific charge was that he +had fraudulently obtained valuable city land in the heart of the city +without paying for it. Something had to be done to still public +criticism, and Romaine was sacrificed. But, in fact, he was far from +being the only venal official concerned in the current frauds. These +frauds continued no matter which party or what set of officials were in +power. Several years after Romaine was removed, John Bingham, a powerful +member of the Aldermanic Committee on Finance, which passed upon and +approved these various land grants, was charged by public investigators +with having caused the city to sell to his brother-in-law land which he +later influenced the city administration to buy back at an exorbitant +price. Spurred by public criticism the Common Council demanded its +reconveyance.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> It is more than evident—it is indisputable—from the +records and the public scandals, that the successive city +administrations were corruptly conducted. The conservative newspaper +comments alone of the period indicate this clearly, if nothing else +does.</p> + +<h4>A PROCESS OF SPOLIATION.</h4> + +<p>Neither Astor nor Goelet were directly active members of the changing +political cliques which controlled the affairs of the city. It is likely +that they bore somewhat the same relation to these cliques that the +politico-industrial magnates and financiers of to-day do; to all +appearances distinctly apart from participation in politics, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> yet by +means of money, having a strong or commanding influence in the +background. But the Rhinelander brothers, William and Frederick, were +integral members of the political machine in power. Thus we find that in +1803, William Rhinelander was elected Assessor for the Fifth Ward (a +highly important and sumptuary office at that time), while both he and +Frederick were, at the same time, appointed inspectors of +elections.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></p> + +<p>The action of the city officials in disposing of city land to +themselves, to political accomplices and to favorites (who, it is +probable, although not a matter of proof, paid bribes) took two forms. +One was the granting of land under water, the other the granting of city +real estate. At that time the configuration of Manhattan Island was such +that it was marked by ponds, streams and marshes, while the marginal +lines of the Hudson River and the East River extended much further +inland than now. When an individual got what was called a water grant, +it meant land under shallow water, where he had the right to build +bulkheads and wharves and to fill in and make solid ground. Out of these +water grants was created property now worth hundreds upon hundreds of +millions of dollars. The value at that time was not great, but the +prospective value was immense. This fact was recognized in the official +reports of the day, which set forth how rapidly the city's population +and commerce were increasing. As for city land as such, the city not +only owned large tracts by reason of old grants and confiscations, but +it constantly came into possession of more because of non-payment of +taxes.</p> + +<p>The excuses by which the city officials covered their short-sighted or +fraudulent grants of the water rights and the city land were various. +One was that the gifts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> were for the purpose of assisting religious +institutions. This, however, was but an occasional excuse. The principal +excuse which was persisted in for forty years was that the city needed +revenue. This was a fact. The succeeding city administrations so +corruptly and extravagantly squandered the city's money that the city +was constantly in debt. Perhaps this debt was created for the very +purpose of having a plausible ground for disposing of city land. So it +was freely charged at that time.</p> + +<h4>THE CITY CREATES LANDLORDS.</h4> + +<p>Let us see how the religious motive worked. On June 10, 1794, the city +gave to Trinity Church a water grant covering all that land from +Washington street to the North River between Chambers and Reade streets. +The annual rent was one shilling per running foot after the expiration +of forty-two years from June 10, 1794. Thus, for forty-two years, no +rent was charged. Shortly after the passage of this grant, Trinity +Church conveyed it to William Rhinelander, and also all that ground +between Jay and Harrison streets, from Greenwich street to the North +River. By a subsequent arrangement with Trinity Church and the city, all +of this land as well as certain other Trinity land became William +Rhinelander's property; and then, by agreement of the Common Council on +May 29, 1797, and confirmation of Nov. 16, 1807, he was given all rights +to the land water between high and low water mark, bounding his +property, for an absurdly low rental.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> These water grants were +subsequently filled in and became of enormous value.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>Astor was as energetic as Rhinelander in getting grants from the city +officials. In 1806 he obtained two of large extent on the East Side—on +Mangin street between Stanton and Houston streets, and on South street +between Peck Slip and Dover street. On May 30, 1808, upon a favorable +report handed in by the Finance Committee, of which the notorious John +Bingham was a member, Astor received an extensive grant along the Hudson +bounding the old Burr estate which had come into his possession.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> In +1810 he received three more water grants in the vicinity of Hubert, +Laight, Charlton, Hammersly and Clarkson streets, and on April 28, 1828, +three at Tenth avenue, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth +streets. These were some of the grants that he received. But they do not +include the land in the heart of the city that he was constantly buying +from private owners or getting by the evident fraudulent connivance of +the city officials.</p> + +<p>Having obtained the water grants and other land by fraud, what did the +grantees next proceed to do? They had them filled in, not at their own +expense, but largely at the expense of the municipality. Sunken lots +were filled in, sewers placed, and streets opened, regulated and graded +at but the merest minimum of expense to these landlords. By fraudulent +collusion with the city authorities they foisted much of the expense +upon the taxpayers. How much money the city lost by this process in the +early decades of the nineteenth century was never known. But in 1855 +Controller Flagg submitted to the Common Council an itemized statement +for the five years from 1850 in which he referred to "the startling fact +that the city's payments, in a range of five years [for filling in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +sunken lots, regulating and grading streets, etc.], exceed receipts by +the sum of more than two millions of dollars."<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p> + +<h4>MANY PARTICIPANTS IN THE CURRENT FRAUDS.</h4> + +<p>In the case of most of these so-called water fronts, there was usually a +trivial rental attached. Nearly always, however, this was commuted upon +payment of a small designated sum, and a full and clear title was then +given by the city. In this rush to get water-grants—grants many of +which are now solid land filled with business and residential +buildings—many of the ancestors of those families which pride +themselves upon their exclusive air participated. The Lorillards, the +Goelets, William F. Havemeyer, Cornelius Vanderbilt, W. H. Webb, W. H. +Kissam, Robert Lenox, Schermerhorn, James Roosevelt, William E. Dodge, +Jr.—all of these and many others—not omitting Astor's American Fur +Company—at various times down to, and including the period of, the +monumentally corrupt Tweed "ring," got grants from corrupt city +administrations. Some of these water rights, that is to say, such +fragmentary parts of them as pertained to wharves and bulkheads, New +York City, in recent years, has had to buy back at exorbitant prices. +From the organization of the Dock Department down to 1906 inclusive, New +York City had expended $70,000,000 for the purchase of bulkhead and +wharf property and for construction.</p> + +<p>During all the years from 1800 on, Astor, in conjunction with other +landholders, was manipulating the city government not less than the +State and Federal Government. Now he gets from the Board of Aldermen +title to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> a portion of this or that old country road on Manhattan which +the city closes up; again and again he gets rights of land under water. +He constantly solicits the Board of Aldermen for this or that right or +privilege and nearly always succeeds. No property or sum is too small +for his grasp. In 1832, when Eighth avenue, from Thirteenth to +Twenty-third streets is graded down and the earth removed is sold by the +city to a contractor for $3,049.44, Astor, Stephen D. Beekman and Jacob +Taylor petition that each get a part of the money for earth removed from +in front of their lots. This is considered such a petty attempt at +defrauding, that the Aldermen call it an "unreasonable petition" and +refuse to accede.<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> In 1834 the Aldermen allow him a part of the old +Hurlgate road, and Rhinelander a part of the Southampton road. Not a +year passes but that he does not get some new right or privilege from +the city government. At his request some streets are graded and +improved; the improvement of such other streets as is not to his +interest to have improved is delayed. Here sewers are placed; then they +are refused. Every function of city administration was incessantly used +by him. The cumulative effect of this class use of government was to +give him and others a constant succession of grants and privileges that +now have a prodigious value.</p> + +<p>But it should be noted that those who thus benefited, singularly enjoyed +the advantages of laws and practices. For city land that they bought +they were allowed to pay on easy terms; not infrequently the city had to +bring action for final payment. But the tenants of these landlords had +to pay rent on the day that it fell due, or within a few days of the +time; they could not be in arrears more than three days without having +to face dispossess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> proceedings. Nor was this all the difference. On +land which they corruptly obtained from the city and which, to a large +extent, they fraudulently caused to be filled in, regulated, graded or +otherwise improved at the expense of the whole community, the landlords +refused to pay taxes promptly, just as they refused to pay them on land +that they had bought privately. What was the result? "Some of our +wealthiest citizens," reported the Controller in 1831, "are in the habit +of postponing the payment of taxes for six months and more, and the +Common Council are necessitated to borrow money on interest to meet the +ordinary disbursements of the city."<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> If a man of very moderate +means were backward in payment of taxes, the city promptly closed him +out, and if a tenant of any of these delinquent landlords were +dispossessed for non-payment of rent, the city it was which undertook +the process of eviction. The rich landlord, however, could do as he +pleased, since all government represented his interests and those of his +class. Instead of the punishment for non-payment of taxes being visited +upon him, it was imposed upon the whole community in the form of +interest-bearing bonds.</p> + +<h4>PILLAGE, PROFITS AND LAND.</h4> + +<p>The money that Astor secured by robbing the Indians and exploiting the +workers by means of monopolies, he thus put largely into land. In 1810, +a story runs, he offers to sell a Wall Street lot for $8,000. The price +is so low that a buyer promptly appears. "Yes, you are astonished," +Astor says. "But see what I intend to do with that eight thousand +dollars. That Wall Street lot, it is true, will be worth twelve thousand +dollars in a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> years. But I shall take that eight thousand dollars +and buy eighty lots above Canal street and by the time your one lot is +worth twelve thousand dollars, my eighty lots will be worth eighty +thousand dollars." So goes one of the fine stories told to illustrate +his foresight, and to prove that his fortune came exclusively from that +faculty and from his industry.</p> + +<p>This version bears all the impress of being undoubtedly a fraud. Astor +was remarkably secretive and dissembling, and never revealed his plans +to anyone. That he bought the lots is true enough, but his attributed +loquacity is mythical and is the invention of some gushing eulogist. At +that time he was buying for $200 or $300 each many lots on lower +Broadway, then, for the most part, an unoccupied waste. What he was +counting upon was the certain growth of the city and the vastly +increasing values not that he would give his land, but which would +accrue from the labor of an enlarged population. These lots are now +occupied by crowded business buildings and are valued at from $300,000 +to $400,000 each.</p> + +<p>Throughout those years in the first decade of the nineteenth century he +was constantly buying land on Manhattan Island. Practically all of it +was bought, not with the idea of using it, but of holding it and +allowing future populations to make it a thousand times more valuable. +An exception was his country estate of thirteen acres at Hurlgate +(Hellgate) in the vicinity of Sixtieth street and the East River. It was +curious to look back at the fact that less than a century ago the upper +regions of Manhattan Island were filled with country estates—regions +now densely occupied by huge tenement houses and some private dwellings. +In those days, not less than in these, a country seat was considered a +necessary appendage to the possessions of a rich man. Astor bought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> that +Hurlgate estate as a country seat; but as such it was long since +discontinued although the land comprising it has never left the hold of +the Astor family.</p> + +<p>What were the intrinsic circumstances of the means by which he bought +land, now worth hundreds of millions of dollars? For once, we get a +gleam of the truth, but a gleam only, in the "popular writer's" account +when he says: "John Jacob Astor's record is constantly crossed by +embarrassed families, prodigal sons, mortgages and foreclosure sales. +Many of the victims of his foresight were those highest in church and +state. He thus acquired for $75,000 one-half of Governor George +Clinton's splendid Greenwich country place [in the old Greenwich village +on the west side of Manhattan Island].... After the Governor's death, he +kept persistently at the heirs, lent them money and acquired additional +slices of the family property.... Nearly two-thirds of the Clinton farm +is now held by Astor's descendants, and is covered by scores of business +buildings, from which is derived an annual income estimated at +$500,000."</p> + +<h4>THE FATE OF OTHERS HIS GAIN.</h4> + +<p>In this transaction we see the beginnings of that period of conquest on +the part of the very rich using their surplus capital in effacing the +less rich—a period which really opened with Astor and which has been +vastly intensified in recent times. Clinton was accounted a rich man in +his day, but he was a pigmy in that respect compared to Astor. With his +incessant inflow of surplus wealth, Astor was in a position where on the +instant he could take advantage of the difficulties of less rich men and +take over to himself their property. A large amount of Astor's money was +invested in mortgages. In times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> of periodic financial and industrial +distress, the mortgagers were driven to extremities and could no longer +keep up their payments. These were the times that Astor waited for, and +it was in such times that he stepped in and possessed himself, at +comparatively small expense, of large additional tracts of land.</p> + +<p>It was this way that he became the owner of what was then the Cosine +farm, extending on Broadway from Fifty-third to Fifty-seventh streets +and westward to the Hudson River. This property, which he got for +$23,000 by foreclosing a mortgage, is now in the very heart of the city, +filled with many business, and every variety of residential, buildings, +and is rated as worth $6,000,000. By much the same means he acquired +ownership of the Eden farm in the same vicinity, coursing along Broadway +north from Forty-second street and slanting over to the Hudson River. +This farm lay under pledges for debt and attachments for loans. Suddenly +Astor turned up with a third interest in an outstanding mortgage, +foreclosed, and for a total payment of $25,000 obtained a sweep of +property now covered densely with huge hotels, theaters, office +buildings, stores and long vistas of residences and tenements—a +property worth at the very least $25,000,000. Any one with sufficient +security in land who sought to borrow money would find Astor extremely +accommodating. But woe betide the hapless borrower, whoever he was, if +he failed in his obligations to the extent of even a fraction of the +requirements covered by law! Neither personal friendship, religious +considerations nor the slightest feelings of sympathy availed.</p> + +<p>But where law was insufficient or non-existent, new laws were created +either to aggrandize the powers of landlordship, or to seize hold of +land or enchance its value, or to get extraordinary special privileges +in the form of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> banking charters. And here it is necessary to digress +from the narrative of Astor's land transactions and advert to his +banking activities, for it was by reason of these subordinately, as well +as by his greater trade revenues, that he was enabled so successfully to +pursue his career of wealth-gathering. The circumstances as to the +origin of certain powerful banks in which he and other landholders and +traders were large stockholders, the methods and powers of those banks, +and their effect upon the great body of the people, are component parts +of the analytic account of his operations. Not a single one of Astor's +biographers has mentioned his banking connections. Yet it is of the +greatest importance to describe them, inasmuch as they were closely +intertwined with his trade, on the one hand, and with his land +acquisitions, on the other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_IV" id="CHAPTER_II_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE</h3> + +<p>Astor flourished at that precise time when the traders and landowners, +flushed with revenues, reached out for the creation and control of the +highly important business of professionally dealing in money, and of +dictating, personally and directly, what the supply of the people's +money should be.</p> + +<p>This signalized the next step in the aggrandizement of individual +fortunes. The few who could center in themselves, by grace of +Government, the banking and manipulation of the people's money and the +restricting or inflating of money issues, were immediately vested with +an extraordinary power. It was a sovereign power at once coercive and +proscriptive, and a mighty instrument for transferring the produce of +the many to a small and exclusive coterie. Not merely over the labor of +the whole working class did this gripping process extend, but it was +severely felt by that large part of the landowning and trading class +which was excluded from holding the same privileges. The banker became +the master of the master. In that fierce, pervading competitive strife, +the banks were the final exploiters. Sparsely organized and wholly +unprotected, the worker was in the complete power of the trader, +manufacturer and landowner; in turn, such of these divisions of the +propertied class as were not themselves sharers in the ownership of +banks were at the mercy of the banking institutions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>At any time upon some pretext or other, the banks could arbitrarily +refuse the latter class credit or accommodation, or harass its victims +in other ways equally as destructive. As business was largely done in +expectations of payment, in other words, credit, as it is now, this was +a serious, often a desperate, blow to the lagging or embarrassed +brothers in trade. Banks were virtually empowered by law to ruin or +enrich any individual or set of individuals. As the banks were then +founded and owned by men who were themselves traders or landholders, +this power was crushingly used against competitors. Armed with the +strong power of law, the banks overawed the mercantile world, thrived on +the industry, misfortune or ruin of others, and swayed politics and +elections. The bank men loaned money to themselves at an absurdly low +rate of interest. But for loans of money to all others they demanded a +high rate of interest which, in periods of commercial distress, +overwhelmed the borrowers. Nominally banks were restricted to a certain +standard rate of interest; but by various subterfuges they easily evaded +these provisions and exacted usurious rates.</p> + +<h4>BANKS AND THEIR POWER.</h4> + +<p>These, however, were far from being the worst features. The most +innocent of their great privileges was that of playing fast and loose +with the money confidingly entrusted to their care by a swarm of +depositors who either worked for it, or for the matter of that, often +stole it; bankers, like pawnbrokers, ask no questions. The most +remarkable of their vested powers was that of manufacturing money. The +industrial manufacturer could not make goods unless he had the plant, +the raw material and the labor. But the banker, somewhat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> like the +fabled alchemists, could transmute airy nothing into bank-note money, +and then, by law, force its acceptance. The lone trader or landholder +unsupported by a partnership with law could not fabricate money. But let +trader and landholder band in a company, incorporate, then persuade, +wheedle or bribe a certain entity called a legislature to grant them a +certain bit of paper styled a charter, and lo! they were instantly +transformed into money manufacturers.</p> + +<h4>A MANDATE TO PREY.</h4> + +<p>The simple mandate of law was sufficient authorization for them to prey +upon the whole world outside of their charmed circle. With this scrap of +paper they could go forth on the highways of commerce and over the farms +and drag in, by the devious, absorbent processes of the banking system, +a great part of the wealth created by the actual producers. As it was +with taxation, so was it with the burdens of this system; they fell +largely upon the worker, whether in the shop or on the farm. When the +business man and the landowner were compelled to pay exorbitant rates of +interest they but apparently had to meet the demands. What these classes +really did was to throw the whole of these extra impositions upon the +working class in the form of increased prices for necessaries and +merchandise and in augmented rents.</p> + +<p>But how were these State or Government authorizations, called charters, +to be obtained? Did not the Federal Constitution prohibit States from +giving the right to banks to issue money? Were not private money +factories specifically barred by that clause of the Constitution which +declared that no State "shall coin money,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> emit bills of credit, or make +anything but gold or silver a tender in payment of debts?"</p> + +<p>Here, again, the power of class domination of Government came into +compelling effect. The onward sweep of the trading class was not to be +balked by such a trifling obstacle as a Constitutional provision. At all +times when the Constitution has stood in the way of commercial aims it +has been abrogated, not by repeal nor violent overthrow, but by the +effective expedient of judicial interpretation. The trading class +demanded State created banks with power of issuing money; and, as the +courts have invariably in the long run responded to the interests and +decrees of the dominant class, a decision was quickly forthcoming in +this case to the effect that "bills of credit" were not meant to cover +banknotes. This was a new and surprising construction; but judicial +decision and precedent made it virtually law, and law a thousandfold +more binding than any Constitutional insertion.</p> + +<h4>COURTS AND CONSTITUTION.</h4> + +<p>The trading class had already learned the importance of the principle +that while it was essential to control law-making bodies, it was +imperative to have as their auxiliary the bodies that interpreted law. +To a large extent the United States since then has lived not under +legislative-made law, but under a purely separate and extraneous form of +law which has superseded the legislature product, namely, court law. +Although nowhere in the United States Constitution is there even the +suggestion that courts shall make law, yet this past century and more +they have been gradually building up a formidable code of +interpretations which substantially ranks as the most commanding kind of +law. And these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> interpretations have, on the whole, consistently +followed, and kept pace with, the changing interests of the dominant +class, whether traders, slaveholders, or the present trusts.</p> + +<p>This decision of the august courts opened the way for the greatest orgy +of corruption and the most stupendous frauds. In New York, +Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and other States a +continuous rush to get bank charters ensued. Most of the legislatures +were composed of men who, while perhaps, not innately corrupt, were +easily seduced by the corrupt temptations held out by the traders. There +was a deep-seated hostility, in many parts of the country, on the part +of the middling tradesmen—the shopkeepers and the petty merchants—to +any laws calculated to increase the power and the privileges of the +superior traders and the landowners. Among the masses of workers, most +of whom were, however, disfranchised, any attempt to vest the rich with +new privileges, was received with the bitterest resentment. But the +legislatures were approachable; some members who were put there by the +rich families needed only the word as to how they should vote, while +others, representing both urban and rural communities, were swayed by +bribes. By one means or another the traders and landholders forced the +various legislatures into doing what was wanted.</p> + +<p>Omitting the records of other States, a few salient facts as to what +took place in New York State will suffice to give a clear idea of some +of the methods of the trading class in pressing forward their conquests, +in hurling aside every impediment, whether public opinion or law, and in +creating new laws which satisfied their extending plans for a +ramification of profit-producing interests. If forethought, an +unswerving aim and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> singleness of execution mean anything, then there +was something sternly impressive in the way in which this rising +capitalist class went forward to snatch what it sought, and what it +believed to be indispensable to its plans. There was no hesitation, nor +were there any scruples as to niceties of methods; the end in view was +all that counted; so long as that was attained, the means used were +considered paltry side-issues. And, indeed, herein lies the great +distinction of action between the world-old propertied classes and the +contending proletariat; for whereas the one have always campaigned +irrespective of law and particularly by bribery, intimidation, +repression and force, the working class has had to confine its movement +strictly to the narrow range of laws which were expressly prepared +against it and the slightest violation of which has called forth the +summary vengeance of a society ruled actually, if not theoretically, by +the very propertied classes which set at defiance all law.</p> + +<h4>THE BANKING FRAUDS BEGIN.</h4> + +<p>The chartered monopoly held by the traders who controlled the United +States Bank was not accepted passively by others of the commercial +class, who themselves wanted financial engines of the same character. +The doctrine of State's rights served the purpose of these excluded +capitalists as well as it did that of the slaveholders.</p> + +<p>The States began a course of reeling out bank charters. By 1799 New York +City had one bank, the Bank of New York; this admixed the terrorism of +trade and politics so overtly that presently an opposition application +for a charter was made. This solitary bank was run by some of the old +landowning families who fully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> understood the danger involved in the +triumph of the democratic ideas represented by Jefferson; a danger far +overestimated, however, since win as democratic principles did, the +propertied class continued its victorious march, for the simple reason +that property was able to divert manhood suffrage to its own account, +and to aggrandize itself still further on the ruins of every subsequent +similar reform expedient. What the agitated masses, for the most part, +of that period could not comprehend was that they who hold the +possession of the economic resources will indubitably sway the politics +of a country, until such time as the proletariat, no longer divided but +thoroughly conscious, organized, and aggressive, will avail itself of +its majority vote to transfer the powers of government to itself. The +Bank of New York injected itself virulently into politics and fought the +spread of democratic ideas with sordid but effective weapons. If a +merchant dared support what it denounced as heretical doctrines, the +bank at once black-listed him by rejecting his notes when he needed cash +most.</p> + +<p>It was now that Aaron Burr, that adroit leader of the opposition party, +stepped in. Seconded or instigated by certain traders, he set out to get +one of those useful and invaluable bank charters for his backers. The +explanation of how he accomplished the act is thus given: Taking +advantage of the epidemic of yellow fever then desolating New York City, +he, with much preliminary of philanthropic motives, introduced a bill +for the apparent beneficent purpose of diminishing the future +possibility of the disease by incorporating a company, called the +Manhattan Company, to supply pure, wholesome water. Supposing that the +charter granted nothing more than this, the explanation goes on, the +Legislature passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> the bill, and was most painfully surprised and +shocked when the fact came out that the measure had been so deftly +drawn, that it, in fact, granted an unlimited charter, conferring +banking powers on the company.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p> + +<p>This explanation is probably shallow and deficient. It is much more +likely that bribery was resorted to, considering the fact that the +granting of every successive bank charter was invariably accompanied by +bribery. Six years later the Mercantile Bank received a charter for a +thirteen years' period—a charter which, it was openly charged by +certain members of the Assembly, was secured by bribery. These charges +were substantially proved by the testimony before a legislative +investigating committee.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> In 1811 the Mechanics' Bank was chartered +with a time limit under circumstances indicating bribery.</p> + +<p>Indeed, so often was bribing done and so pronounced were charges of +corruption at frequent sessions of the Legislature, that in 1812, the +Assembly, in an heroic spasm of impressive virtue, passed a resolution +compelling each member to pledge himself that he had neither taken, nor +would take, "any reward or profit, direct or indirect, for any vote on +any measure."<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> This resolution was palpably intended to blind the +public; for, in that identical year, the Bank of America received a +charter amid charges of flagrant corruption. One Assemblyman declared +under oath that he had been offered the sum of $500, "besides, a +handsome present for his vote."<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> All of the banks, except the +Manhattan, had limited charters;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> measures for the renewal of these were +practically all put through by bribery.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> Thus, in 1818, the charter +of the Merchants' Bank was renewed until 1832, and renewed after that. +The chartering of the Chemical Bank (that staid and most eminently +respectable and solid New York institution of to-day) was accomplished +by bribery. The Chemical Bank was an outgrowth of the Chemical +Manufacturing Company, the plant and business of which were bought +expressly as an excuse to get a banking auxiliary. The Goelet brothers +were among the founders of this bank. In fact, many of the great landed +fortunes were inseparably associated with the frauds of the banking +system; money from land was used to bribe legislatures, and money made +from the banks was employed in buying more land. The promoters of the +Chemical Bank set aside a considerable sum of money and $50,000 in stock +for the bribery fund.<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> No sooner had it received its charter than it +began to turn out reams of paper money, based upon no value, which paper +was paid as wages to its employees as well as circulated generally. So +year after year the bribery went on industriously, without cessation.</p> + +<h4>BRIBERY A CRIME IN NAME ONLY.</h4> + +<p>Were the bribers ever punished, their illicitly gotten charters declared +forfeited, and themselves placed under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> the ban of virtuous society? +Far, very far, from it! The men who did the bribing were of the very +pinnacle of social power, elegance and position, or quickly leaped to +that height by reason of their wealth. They were among the foremost +landholders and traders of the day. By these and a wide radius of +similar means, they amassed wealth or greatly increased wealth already +accumulated. The ancestors of some of the most conspicuous +multimillionaire families of the present were deeply involved in the +perpetration of all of those continuous frauds and crimes—Peter Goelet +and his sons, Peter P. and Robert, for instance, and Jacob Lorillard, +who, for many years, was president of the Mechanics' Bank. No stigma +attached to these wealth-graspers. Their success as possessors of riches +at once, by the automatic processes of a society which enthroned wealth, +elevated them to be commanding personages in trade, politics, orthodoxy +and the highest social spheres. The cropped convict, released from +prison, was followed everywhere by the jeers and branding of a society +which gloated over his downfall and which forever reminded him of his +infamy. But the men who waded on to wealth through the muck of base +practices and by means of crimes a millionfold more insidious and +dangerous than the offense of the convict, were not only honored as +leading citizens, but they became the extolled and unquestioned +dictators of that supreme trading society which made modes, customs and +laws.</p> + +<p>It was a society essentially built upon money; consequently he who was +dexterous enough to get possession of the spoils, experienced no +difficulty in establishing his place among the elect and anointed. His +frauds were forgotten or ignored; only the fact that he was a rich man +was remembered. And yet, what is more natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> than to seek, and accept, +the obeisance lavished upon property, in a scheme of society where +property is crowned as the ruling power? In the rude centuries +previously mankind exalted physical prowess; he who had the greatest +strength and wielded the deftest strokes became victor of the judicial +combat and gathered in laurels and property. But now we have arrived at +the time when the cunning of mind supplants the cunning of muscle; +bribery takes the place of brawn; the contestants fight with statutes +instead of swords. And this newer plan, which some have decried as +degenerate, is a great advance over the old, for thereby has brute force +been legally abandoned in personal quarrels at least, and that cunning +of mind which has held sway, is the first evidence of the reign of mind, +which from a low order, will universally develop noble and supereminent +qualities charged with the good, and that alone, of the human race.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR'S BANKING ACTIVITIES.</h4> + +<p>With this preliminary sketch, we can now proceed to a consideration of +how Astor profited from the banking system. We see that constantly the +bold spirits of the trading class, with a part of the money made or +plundered in some direction or other, were bribing representative bodies +to give them exceptional rights and privileges which, in turn, were made +the fertile basis for further spoliation. Astor was a stockholder in at +least four banks, the charters of which had been obtained or renewed by +trickery and fraud, or both. He owned 1,000 shares of the capital stock +of the Manhattan Company; 1,000 of the Merchant's Bank; 500 of the Bank +of America; 1,604 of the Mechanic's Bank. He also owned at one time +considerable stock in the National<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> Bank, the charter of which, it was +strongly suspected had been obtained by bribery.</p> + +<p>There is no evidence that he, himself, did the actual bribing or was in +any way concerned in it. In all of the legislative investigations +following charges of bribery, the invariable practice was to throw the +blame upon the wicked lobbyists, while professing the most naïve +astonishment that any imputations should be cast upon any of the members +of the honorable Legislature. As for the bribers behind the scenes, +their names seldom or never were brought out or divulged. In brief, +these investigations were all of that rose-water order, generally termed +"whitewashing." But whether Astor personally bribed or not, he at any +rate consciously profited from the results of bribery; and, moreover, it +is not probable that his methods in the East were different, except in +form, from the debauching and exploitation that he made a system of in +the fur regions. It is not outside the realm of reasonable conjecture to +suppose that he either helped to debauch, or connived at the corruption +of legislatures, just as in another way he debauched Indian tribes.</p> + +<p>Furthermore his relations with Burr in one notorious transaction, are +sufficient to justify the conclusion that he held the closest business +relations with that political adventurer who lived next door to him at +No. 221 Broadway. This transaction was one which was partially the +outcome of the organization of the Manhattan Bank and was a source of +millions of dollars of profit to Astor and to his descendants.</p> + +<p>A century or more ago Trinity Church owned three times the extent of +even the vast real estate that it now holds. A considerable part of this +was the gift of that royal governor Fletcher, who, as has been set +forth, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> such a master-hand at taking bribes. There long existed a +contention upon the part of New York State, a contention embodied in +numerous official records, that the land held for centuries by Trinity +Church was usurped; that Trinity's title was invalid and that the real +title vested in the people of the city of New York. In 1854-55 the Land +Commissioners of New York State, deeply impressed by the facts as +marshalled by Rutger B. Miller,<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> recommended that the State bring +suit. But with the filing of Trinity's reply, mysterious influences +intervened and the matter was dropped. These influences are frequently +referred to in aldermanic documents.</p> + +<p>To go back, however: In 1767 Trinity Church leased to Abraham Mortier, +for ninety-nine years, at a total annual rental of $269 a year, a +stretch of land comprising 465 lots in what is now the vicinity bounded +by Greenwich, Spring and Hudson streets. Mortier used it as a country +place until 1797 when the New York Legislature, upon the initiative of +Burr, developed a consuming curiosity as to how Trinity Church was +expending its income. This was a very ticklish question with the pious +vestrymen of Trinity, as it was generally suspected that they were +commingling business and piety in a way that might, if known, cause them +some trouble. The law, at that time, restricted the annual income of +Trinity Church from its property to $12,000 a year. A committee of +investigation was appointed; of this committee Burr was made chairman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<h4>HOW ASTOR SECURED A LEASE.</h4> + +<p>Burr never really made any investigation. Why? The reason soon came out, +when Burr turned up with a transfer of the Mortier lease to himself. He +at once obtained from the Manhattan Bank a $38,000 loan, pledging the +lease as security. When his duel with Hamilton forced Burr to flee the +country, Astor promptly came along and took the lease off his hands. +Astor, it was said, paid him $32,000 for it, subject to the Manhattan +Bank's mortgage. At any rate, Astor now held this extraordinarily +valuable lease.<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> He immediately released it in lots; and as the city +fast grew, covering the whole stretch with population and buildings, the +lease was a source of great revenue to him and to his heirs.<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> As a +Lutheran, Astor could not be a vestryman of Trinity Church. Anthony +Lispenard, however, it may be passingly noted, was a vestryman, and, as +such, mixed piety and business so well, that his heirs became possessed +of millions of dollars by the mere fact that in 1779, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> a vestryman, +he got a lease, for eighty-three years of eighty-one Trinity lots +adjacent to the Astor leased land, at a total annual rental of +$177.50.<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p> + +<p>It was by the aid of the banking system that the trading class was +greatly enabled to manipulate the existing and potential resources of +the country and to extend invaluable favors to themselves. In this +system Astor was a chief participant. For many years the banks, +especially in New York State, were empowered by law to issue paper money +to the extent of three times the amount of their capital. The actual +specie was seized hold of by the shippers, and either hoarded, or +exported in quantities to Asia or Europe which, of course, would not +handle paper money. By 1819 the banks in New York had issued +$12,500,000, and the total amount of specie to redeem this fiat stuff +amounted to only $2,000,000. These banknotes were nothing more or less +than irresponsible promises to pay. What became of them?</p> + +<h4>WHAT THE WORKER GOT AS WAGES.</h4> + +<p>What, indeed, became of them? They were imposed upon the working class +as payment for labor. Although these banknotes were subject to constant +depreciation, the worker had to accept them as though they were full +value. But when the worker went to buy provisions or pay rent, he was +compelled to pay one-third, and often one-half, as much as the value +represented by those banknotes. Sometimes, in crises, he could not get +them cashed at all; they became pitiful souvenirs in his hands. This +fact was faintly recognized by a New York Senate Committee when it +reported in 1819 that every artifice in the wit of man had been devised +to find ways of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> putting these notes into circulation; that when the +merchant got this depreciated paper, he "saddled it upon the departments +of productive labor." "The farmer and the mechanic alike," went on the +report, "have been invited to make loans and have fallen victims to the +avarice of the banker. The result has been the banishment of metallic +currency, the loss of commercial confidence, fictitious capital, +increase of civil prosecutions and multiplication of crimes."<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> What +the committee did not see was that by this process those in control of +the banks had, with no expenditure, possessed themselves of a +considerable part of the resources of the country and had made the +worker yield up twice and three times as much of the produce of his +labor as he had to give before the system was started.</p> + +<p>The large amount of paper money, without any basis of value whatever, +was put out at a heavy rate of interest. When the merchant paid his +interest, he charged it up as extra cost on his wares; and when the +worker came to buy these same wares which he or some fellow-worker had +made, he was charged a high price which included three things all thrown +upon him: rent, interest and profit. The banks indirectly sucked in a +large portion of these three factors. And so thoroughly did the banks +control legislation that they were not content with the power of issuing +spurious paper money; they demanded, and got through, an act exempting +bank stock from taxation.</p> + +<p>Thus year after year this system went on, beggaring great numbers of +people, enriching the owners of the banks and virtually giving them a +life and death power over the worker, the farmer and the floundering, +struggling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> small business man alike. The laws were but slightly +altered. "The great profits of the banks," reported a New York Senate +Committee on banks and insurance in 1834, "arise from their issues. It +is this privilege which enables them, in fact, to coin money, to +substitute their evidences of debt for a metallic currency and to loan +more than their actual capitals. A bank of $100,000 capital is permitted +to loan $250,000; and thus receive an interest on twice and a half the +amount actually invested."<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p> + +<h4>THE WORKINGMEN'S PARTY PROTEST.</h4> + +<p>It cannot be said that all of the workingmen were apathetic, or that +some did not see through the fraud of the system. They had good reason +for the deepest indignation and exasperation. The terrible injustices +piled upon them from every quarter—the low wages that they were forced +to accept, often in depreciated or worthless banknotes, the continually +increasing exactions of the landlords, the high prices squeezed out of +them by monopolies, the arbitrary discriminations of law—these were not +without their effect. The Workingmen's Party, formed in 1829 in New York +City, was the first and most ominous of these proletarian uprisings. Its +resolutions read like a proletarian Declaration of Independence, and +would unquestionably have resulted in the most momentous agitation, had +it not been that it was smothered by its leaders, and also because the +slavery issue long obscured purely economic questions. "Resolved,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> ran +its resolutions adopted at Military Hall, Oct. 19, 1829,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>in the opinion of this meeting, that the first appropriation of +the soil of the State to private and exclusive possession was +eminently and barbarously unjust. That it was substantially feudal +in its character, inasmuch as those who received enormous and +unequal possessions were <i>lords</i> and those who received little or +nothing were <i>vassals</i>. That hereditary transmission of wealth on +the one hand and poverty on the other, has brought down to the +present generation all the evils of the feudal system, and that, +in our opinion, is the prime source of all our calamities.</p></div> + +<p>After declaring that the Workingmen's Party would oppose all exclusive +privileges, monopolies and exemptions, the resolutions proceeded:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We consider it an exclusive privilege for one portion of the +community to have the <i>means of education in colleges</i>, while +another is restricted to common schools, or, perhaps, by extreme +poverty, even deprived of the limited education to be acquired in +those establishments. Our voice, therefore, shall be raised in +favor of a system of education which shall be equally open to +<i>all</i>, as in a real republic, it should be.</p></div> + +<p>Finally the resolutions told what the Workingmen's Party thought of the +bankers and the banking system. The bankers were denounced as "the +greatest knaves, impostors and paupers of the age." The resolutions went +on:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>As banking is now conducted, the owners of the banks receive +annually of the people of the State not less than two millions of +dollars in their paper money (and it might as well be pewter +money) for which there is and can be nothing provided for its +redemption on demand....</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>The mockery that went up from all that was held influential, respectable +and stable when these resolutions were printed, was echoed far and wide. +They were looked upon first as a joke, and then, when the Workingmen's +Party began to reveal its earnestness and strength, as an insolent +challenge to constituted authority, to wealth and superiority, and as a +menace to society.</p> + +<h4>RADICALISM VERSUS RESPECTABILITY.</h4> + +<p>The "Courier and Enquirer," owned by Webb and Noah, in the pay of the +United States Bank, burst out into savage invective. It held the +Workingmen's Party up to opprobrium as an infidel crowd, hostile to the +morals and the institutions of society, and to the rights of property. +Nevertheless the Workingmen's Party proceeded with an enthusiastic, +almost ecstatic, campaign and polled 6,000 votes, a very considerable +number compared to the whole number of voters at the time.</p> + +<p>By 1831, however, it had gone out of existence. The reason was that it +allowed itself to be betrayed by the supineness, incompetence, and as +some said, the treachery, of its leaders, who were content to accept +from a Legislature controlled by the propertied interests various +mollifying sops which slightly altered certain laws, but which in no +great degree redounded to the benefit of the working class. For a few +bits of counterfeit, this splendid proletarian uprising, glowing with +energy, enthusiasm and hope, allowed itself to be snuffed out of +existence.</p> + +<p>What a tragedy was there! And how futile and tragic must inevitably be +the fate of any similar movement which depends not upon itself, not upon +its own intrinsic, collective strength and wisdom, but upon the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> say-so +of leaders who come forward to assume leadership. Representing only +their own timidity of thought and cowardice of action, they often end by +betraying the cause placed confidingly in their charge. That class which +for these immemorial generations has done the world's work, and as long +has been plundered and oppressed and betrayed, thus had occasion to +learn anew the bitter lesson taught by the wreckage of the past, that it +is from itself that the emancipation must come; that it is itself which +must essentially think, act and strike; that its forces, long torn +asunder and dispersed, must be marshalled in invulnerable compactness +and iron discipline; and so that its hosts may not again be routed by +strategy, no man or set of men should be entrusted with the irrevocable +power of executing its decrees, for too often has the courage, boldness +and strength of the many been shackled or destroyed by the compromising +weakness of the leaders.</p> + +<h4>THE PANIC OF 1837.</h4> + +<p>Passing over the Equal Rights movement in 1834, which was a diluted +revival of the Workingmen's Party, and which, also, was turned into +sterility by the treachery of its leaders, we arrive at the panic of +1837, the time when Astor, profiting from misfortune on every side, +vastly increased his wealth.</p> + +<p>The panic of 1837 was one of those periodic financial and industrial +convulsions resulting from the chaos of capitalist administration. No +sooner had it commenced, than the banks refused to pay out any money, +other than their worthless notes. For thirty-three years they had not +only enjoyed immense privileges, but they had used the powers of +Government to insure themselves a monopoly of the business of +manufacturing money. In 1804<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> the Legislature of New York State had +passed an extraordinary law, called the restraining act. This +prohibited, under severe penalties, all associations and individuals not +only from issuing notes, but "from receiving deposits, making discounts +or transacting any other business which incorporated banks may or do +transact." Thus the law not only legitimatized the manufacture of +worthless money, but guaranteed a few banks a monopoly of that +manufacture. Another restraining act was passed in 1818. The banks were +invested with the sovereign privilege of depreciating the currency at +their discretion, and were authorized to levy an annual tax upon the +country, nearly equivalent to the interest on $200,000,000 of deposits +and circulation. On top of these acts, the Legislature passed various +acts compelling the public authorities in New York City to deposit +public money with the Manhattan Company. This company, although, as we +have seen, expressly chartered to supply pure water to the city of New +York, utterly failed to do so; at one stage the city tried to have its +charter revoked on the ground of failure to carry out its chartered +function, but the courts decided in the company's favor.<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p> + +<p>At the outbreak of the panic of 1837, the New York banks held more than +$5,500,000 of public money. When called upon to pay only about a million +of that sum, or the premium on it, they refused. But far worse was the +experience of the general public. When they frantically besieged the +banks for their money, the bank officials filled the banks with heavily +armed guards and plug-uglies with orders to fire on the crowd in case a +rush was attempted.<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> + +<p>In every State conditions were the same. In May, 1837, not less than +eight hundred banks in the United States suspended payment, refusing a +single dollar to the Government whose deposits of $30,000,000 they held, +and to the people in general who held $120,000,000 of their notes. No +specie whatever was in circulation. The country was deluged with small +notes, colloquially termed shinplasters. Of every form and every +denomination from the alleged value of five cents to that of five +dollars, they were issued by every business individual or corporation +for the purpose of paying them off as wages to their employees. The +worker was forced to take them for his labor or starve. Moreover, the +shinplasters were so badly printed that it was not hard to counterfeit +them. The counterfeiting of them quickly became a regular business; +immense quantities of the stuff were issued. The worker never knew +whether the bills paid him for his work were genuine or counterfeit, +although essentially there was not any great difference in basic value +between the two.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p> + +<h4>THE RESULTING WIDESPREAD DESTITUTION.</h4> + +<p>Now the storm broke. Everywhere was impoverishment, ruination and +beggary. Every bank official in New York City was subject to arrest for +the most serious frauds and other crimes, but the authorities took no +action. On the contrary, so complete was the dominance of the banks over +Government,<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> that they hurriedly got the Legislature to pass an act +practically authorizing a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> suspension of specie payments. The +consequences were appalling. "Thousands of manufacturing, mercantile, +and other useful establishments in the United States," reported a New +York Senate Committee, "have been broken down or paralyzed by the +existing crisis.... In all our great cities numerous individuals, who, +by a long course of regular business, had acquired a competency, have +suddenly been reduced, with their families to beggary."<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> New York +City was filled with the homeless and unemployed. In the early part of +1838 one-third of all the persons in New York City who subsisted by +manual labor, were wholly or substantially without employment. Not less +than 10,000 persons were in utter poverty, and had no other means of +surviving the winter than those afforded by the charity of neighbors. +The almshouses and other public and charitable institutions overflowed +with inmates, and 10,000 sufferers were still uncared for.</p> + +<p>The prevailing system, as was pointed out even by the conventional and +futile reports of legislative committees, was one inevitably calculated +to fill the country with beggars, vagrants and criminals. This important +fact was recognized, although in a remote way, by De Beaumont and De +Tocqueville who, however, had no fundamental understanding of the deep +causes, nor even of the meaning of the facts which they so accurately +gathered. In their elaborate work on the penitentiary system in the +United States, published in 1833, they set forth that it was their +conclusion that in the four States, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut +and Pennsylvania, the prison system of which they had fully +investigated, almost all of those convicted for crimes from 1800 to 1830 +were convicted for offenses against property. In these four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> States, +collectively, with a population amounting to one-third of that of the +Union, not less than 91.29 out of every 100 convictions were for crimes +against property, while only 8.66 of every 100 were for crimes against +persons, and 4.05 of every 100 were for crimes against morals. In New +York State singly, 93.56 of every 100 convictions were for crimes +against property and 6.26 for crimes against persons.<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a></p> + +<h4>PROPERTY AND CRIME.</h4> + +<p>Thus we see from these figures filled with such tragic eloquence, the +economic impulse working at bottom, and the property system corrupting +every form of society. But here a vast difference is to be noted. Just +as in England the aristocracy for centuries had made the laws and had +enforced the doctrine that it was they who should wield the police power +of the State, so in the United States, to which the English system of +jurisprudence had been transplanted, the propertied interests, +constituting the aristocracy, made and executed the laws. De Beaumont +and De Tocqueville passingly observed that while the magistrates in the +United States were plebeian, yet they followed out the old English +system; in other words, they enforced laws which were made for, and by, +the American aristocracy, the trading classes.</p> + +<p>The views, aims and interests of these classes were so thoroughly +intrenched in law that the fact did not escape the keen notice of these +foreign investigators. "The Americans, descendants of the English," they +wrote, "have provided in every respect for the rich and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> hardly at all +for the poor.... In the same country where the complainant is put in +prison, the thief remains at liberty, if he can find bail. Murder is the +only crime whose authors are not protected<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a>.... The mass of lawyers +see in this nothing contrary to their ideas of justice and injustice, +nor even to their democratic institutions."<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p> + +<h4>THE SYSTEM—HOW IT WORKED.</h4> + +<p>The system, then, frequently forced the destitute into theft and +mendicancy. What resulted? Laws, inconceivably harsh and brutal, enacted +by, and in behalf of, property rights were enforced with a rigor which +seems unbelievable were it not that the fact is verified by the records +of thousands of cases. Those convicted for robbery usually received a +life sentence; they were considered lucky if they got off with five +years. The ordinary sentence for burglary was the same, with variations. +Forgery and grand larceny were punishable with long terms, ranging from +five to seven years. These were the laws in practically all of the +States with slight differences. But they applied to whites only. The +negro slave criminal had a superior standing in law, for the simple +reason that while the whites were "free" labor, negroes were property, +and, of course, it did not pay to send slaves to prison. In Maryland and +in most Southern States, where the slaveholders were both makers and +executors of law, the slaves need have no fear of prison. "The slaves, +as we have seen before, are not subject to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> the Penal Code of the +whites; they are hardly ever sent to prison. Slaves who commit grave +crimes are hung; those who commit heinous crimes not punishable with +death are sold out of the State. In selling him care is taken that his +character and former life are not known, <i>because it would lessen his +price</i>." Thus wrote De Beaumont and De Tocqueville; and in so writing +they handed down a fine insight into the methods of that Southern +propertied class which assumed so exalted an opinion of its honor and +chivalry.</p> + +<p>But the sentencing of the criminal was merely the beginning of a weird +life of horror. It was customary at that period to immure prisoners in +solitary confinement. There, in their small and reeking cells, filled +with damps and pestilential odors, they were confined day after day, +year after year, condemned to perpetual inactivity and silence. If they +presumed to speak, they were brutally lashed with the whip. They were +not allowed to write letters, nor to communicate with any member of +their family. But the law condescended to allow a minister to visit them +periodically in order to awaken their religious thoughts and preach to +them how bad a thing it was to steal! Many were driven stark mad or died +of disease; others dashed their brains out; while others, when finally +released, went out into the world filled with an overpowering hatred of +Society, and all its institutions, and a long-cherished thirst for +vengeance against it for having thus so cruelly misused them.</p> + +<p>Such were the laws made by the propertied classes. But they were not +all. When a convict was released, the law allowed only three dollars to +be given him to start anew with. "To starve or to steal is too often the +only alternative," wrote John W. Edmonds, president<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> of the New York +board of prison inspectors in 1844.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> If the released convict did +steal he was nearly always sent back to prison for life.</p> + +<p>Equally severe in their way were the laws applying to mendicants and +vagrants. Six months or a year in the penitentiary or workhouse was the +usual sentence. After the panic of 1837, crime, mendicancy, vagrancy and +prostitution tremendously increased, as they always do increase after +two events: war, which, when over, turns into civil life a large number +of men who cannot get work; and panics which chaotically uproot +industrial conditions and bring about widespread destitution. Although +undeniably great frauds had been committed by the banking class, not a +single one of that class went to jail. But large numbers of persons +convicted of crimes against property, and great batches of vagrants were +dispatched there, and also many girls and women who had been hurled by +the iron force of circumstances into the horrible business of +prostitution.</p> + +<p>These were some of the conditions in those years. Let it not, however, +be supposed that the traders, bankers and landowners were impervious to +their own brand of sensibilities. They dressed fastidiously, went to +church, uttered hallelujahs, gave dainty receptions, formed associations +to dole out alms and—kept up prices and rents. Notwithstanding the +general distress, rents in New York City were greater than were paid in +any other city or village upon the globe.<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_V" id="CHAPTER_II_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE MOMENTUM OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE</h3> + +<p>It was at this identical time, in the panic of 1837, that Astor was +phenominally active in profiting from despair. "He added immensely to +his riches," wrote a contemporaneous narrator, "by purchases of State +stocks, bonds and mortgages in the financial crisis of 1836-37. He was a +willing purchaser of mortgages from needy holders at less than their +face; and when they became due, he foreclosed on them, and purchased the +mortgaged property at the ruinous prices which ranged at that +time."<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a></p> + +<p>If his seven per cent was not paid at the exact time, he inflexibly made +use of every provision of the law and foreclosed mortgages. The courts +quickly responded. To lot after lot, property after property, he took +full title. The anguish of families, the sorrow and suffering of the +community, the blank despair and ruination which drove many to beggary +and prostitution, others to suicide, all had no other effect upon him +than to make him more eagerly energetic in availing himself of the +misfortunes and the tragedies of others.</p> + +<p>Now was observable the operation of the centripetal principle which +applied to every recurring panic, namely, that panics are but the easy +means by which the very rich are enabled to get possession of more and +more of the general produce and property. The ranks of petty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> landowners +were much thinned out by the panic of 1837 and the number of independent +business men was greatly reduced; a considerable part of both classes +were forced down into the army of wageworkers.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR'S WEALTH MULTIPLIES.</h4> + +<p>Within a few years after the panic of 1837 Astor's wealth multiplied to +an enormous extent. Business revived, values increased. It was now that +immigration began to pour in heavily. In 1843 sixty thousand immigrants +entered the port of New York. Four years later the number was 129,000 a +year. Soon it rose to 300,000 a year; and from that time on kept on ever +increasing. A large portion of these immigrants remained in New York +City. Land was in demand as never before; fast and faster the city grew. +Vacant lots of a few years before became congested with packed humanity; +landlordism and slums flourished side by side, the one as a development +of the other. The outlying farm, rocky and swamp lands of the New York +City of 1812, with its 100,000 population became the thickly-settled +metropolis of 1840, with 317,712 inhabitants and the well-nigh +half-million population of 1850. Hard as the laborer might work, he was +generally impoverished for the reason that successively rents were +raised, and he had to yield up more and more of his labor for the simple +privilege of occupying an ugly and cramped habitation.</p> + +<p>Once having fastened his hold upon the land, Astor never sold it. From +the first, he adopted the plan, since religiously followed, for the most +part, by his descendants, of leasing the land for a given number of +years, usually twenty-one. Large tracts of land in the heart of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> the +city he let lie unimproved for years while the city fast grew up all +around them and enormously increased their value. He often refused to +build, although there was intense pressure for land and buildings. His +policy was to wait until the time when those whom necessity drove to use +his land should come to him as supplicants and accept his own terms. For +a considerable time no one cared to take his land on lease at his +onerous terms. But, finally, such was the growth of population and +business, that his land was indispensable and it was taken on +leaseholds.</p> + +<p>Astor's exactions for leaseholds were extraordinarily burdensome. But he +would make no concessions. The lessee was required to erect his dwelling +or business place at his own expense; and during the period of the +twenty-one years of the lease, he not only had to pay rent in the form +of giving over to Astor five or six per cent of the value of the land, +but was responsible for all taxes, repairs and all other charges. When +the ground lease expired the buildings became Astor's absolute property. +The middleman landlord, speculative lessee or trading tenant who leased +Astor's land and put up tenements or buildings, necessarily had to +recoup himself for the high tribute that he had to pay to Astor. He did +this either by charging the worker exorbitant rents or demanding +excessive profits for his wares; in both of which cases the producers +had finally to foot the bill.</p> + +<h4>EVASION OF ASSESSMENTS BY THE LANDLORDS.</h4> + +<p>The whole machinery of the law Astor, in common with all other +landlords, used ruthlessly in enforcing his rights as landlord or as +lessor or lessee. Not a single instance has come down of any act of +leniency on Astor's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> part in extending the time of tenants in arrears. +Whether sickness was in the tenant's family or not, however dire its +situation might be, out it was summarily thrown into the streets, with +its belongings, if it failed in the slightest in its obligations.</p> + +<p>While he was availing himself of the rigors of the law to oust tenants +in arrears, he was constantly violating the law in evading assessments. +But this practice was not by any means peculiar to Astor. Practically +the whole propertied class did it, not merely once, but so continually +that year after year official reports adverted to the fact. An +Aldermanic report on taxation in 1846 showed that thirty million dollars +worth of assessable property escaped taxation every year, and that no +bona fide efforts were made by the officials to remedy that state of +affairs.<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> The state of morality among the propertied classes—those +classes which demanded such harsh laws for the punishment of vagrants +and poor criminals—is clearly revealed by this report made by a +committee of the New York Board of Aldermen in 1847:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>For several years past the evasion of taxation on the part of +those engaged in the business of the city, and enjoying the +protection and benefits of its municipal government and its great +public improvements, has engaged the attention of the city +authorities, called forth reports of committees and caused +application to the Legislature for relief, but the demands of +justice and the dictates of sound policy have hitherto been +entirely unheeded.</p></div> + +<p>Necessarily they were unheeded, for the very obvious reason that it was +this same class which controlled the administration of government. This +class distorted the powers of government by calling either for the +drastic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> enforcement of laws operating for its interests, or for the +partial or entire immunity from other laws militating against its +interests and profit. The report thus continued:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Our rich merchants and heavy capitalists ... find excuses to +remove their families to nearby points and thus escape all +taxation whatever, except for the premises that they occupy. <i>More +than 2,000 firms engaged in business</i> in New York, whose capital +is invested and used in New York, and with an aggregate personal +property of $30,000,000, thus escape taxation.<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></p></div> + +<h4>DEFRAUDING A FINE ART.</h4> + +<p>The committee pointed out that at the taxable rate of 1 per cent the +city was, in that way, being cheated out of the sum of $225,000 or +$300,000 a year. These two thousand firms who every year defrauded the +city were the eminently respectable and influential merchants of the +city; most of them were devout church members; many were directors or +members of charitable societies to relieve the poor; and all of them, +with vast pretensions of superior character and ability, joined in +opposing any movement of the working classes for better conditions and +in denouncing those movements as hostile to the security of property and +as dangerous to the welfare of society. Each of these two thousand firms +year after year defrauded the city out of an average of $150 annually in +that one item, not to mention other frauds. Yet not once was the law +invoked against them. The taxation that they shirked fell upon the +working class in addition to all of those other myriad forms of indirect +taxation which the workers finally had to bear. Yet, as we have noted +before, if a poor man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> or woman stole property of the value of $25 or +more, conviction carried with it a long term in prison for grand +larceny. In every city—in Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Baltimore, +New Orleans and in every other place—the same, or nearly the same, +conditions prevailed. The rich evaded taxation; and if in the process it +was necessary to perjure themselves, they committed perjury with +alacrity. Astor was far from being an exception. He was but an +illustrious type of the whole of his class.</p> + +<p>But, how, in a Government theoretically democratic and resting on +popular suffrage, did the propertied interests get control of Government +functions? How were they able to sway the popular vote and make, or +evade, laws?</p> + +<p>By various influences and methods. In the first place, the old English +ideas of the superiority of aristocracy had a profound effect upon +American thought, customs and laws. For centuries these ideas had been +incessantly disseminated by preachers, pamphleteers, politicians, +political economists and editors. Where in England the concept applied +mainly to rank by birth, in America it was adapted to the native +aristocracy, the traders and landowners. In England it was an admixture +of rank and property; in America, where no titles of nobility existed, +it became exclusively a token of the propertied class. The people were +assiduously taught in many open and subtle ways to look up to the +inviolability of property, just as in the old days they had been taught +to look humbly up to the majesty of the king. Propertied men, it was +preached and admonished, represented the worth, stability, virtue and +intelligence of the community. They were the solid, substantial men. +What importance was to be attached to the propertyless? They, forsooth, +were regarded as irresponsible and vulgar;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> their opinions and +aspirations were held of small account.</p> + +<h4>HOW PUBLIC OPINION WAS MADE.</h4> + +<p>The churches professed to preach to all; yet they depended largely upon +men of property for contributions; and moreover the clergy, at least the +influential of them, were propertied men themselves. The preachings of +the colleges and the doctrines of the political economists corresponded +precisely to the views the trading interests at different periods wanted +taught. Many of the colleges were founded with funds contributed or +bequeathed by traders. The newspapers were supported by the +advertisements of the propertied class. The various legislative bodies +were mainly, and the judicial benches wholly, recruited from the ranks +of the lawyer class; these lawyers either had, or sought to have, the +rich as clients;<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> few attorneys are overzealous for poor men's +cases. Still further, the lawyers were deeply impregnated, not with the +conception of law as it might be, but as it had been handed down through +the centuries. Encrusted creatures of precedent and self-interest, they +thoroughly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> accepted the doctrine that in the making and enforcement of +law their concern should be for the propertied interests. With few +exceptions they were aligned with the propertied.</p> + +<p>So that here were many influences all of which conspired to spread on +every hand, and drill deep in the minds of all classes, often even of +those who suffered so keenly by prevalent conditions, the idea that the +propertied men were the substantial element. Consequently with this idea +continuously driven into every stratum of society, it was not surprising +that it should be embodied in thoughts, customs, laws and tendencies. +Nor was it to be wondered at that when occasionally a proletarian +uprising enunciated radical principles, these principles should seem to +be abnormally ultra-revolutionary. All society, for the most part, +except a fragment of the working class, was enthralled by the spell of +property.</p> + +<h4>THE SANCTITY OF PROPERTY.</h4> + +<p>Out of this prevailing idea grew many of the interpretations and partial +enforcements. A legislator, magistrate or judge might be the very +opposite of venal, and yet be irresistibly impelled by the force of +training and association to take the current view of the unassailable +rights and superiority of property. It would be biassed, in fact, +ridiculous to say that the privileges and exemptions enjoyed by the rich +were altogether the outcome of corruption by bribes. There is a much +more subtle and far more effective and dangerous form of corruption. +This is corruption of the mind. For innumerable centuries all government +had proceeded, perhaps not avowedly, but in reality, upon the settled +and consistent principle that the sanctity of property was superior to +considerations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> of human life, and that a man of property could not very +well be a criminal and a peril to the community. Under various disguises +church, college, newspaper, politician, judge, all were expositors of +this principle.</p> + +<p>The people were drugged with laudations of property. But these teachings +were supplemented by other methods which added to their effectiveness. +We have seen how after the Revolution the propertied classes withheld +suffrage from those who lacked property. They feared that property would +no longer be able to dominate Government. Gradually they were forced to +yield to the popular demand and allow manhood suffrage. This seemed to +them a new and affrighting force; if votes were to determine the +personnel and policy of Government, then the propertyless, being in the +majority, would overwhelm them eventually and pass an entirely new code +of laws.</p> + +<p>In one State after another, the propertied class were driven, after a +prolonged struggle, to grant citizens a vote, whether they had property +or not. In New York State unqualified manhood suffrage was adopted in +1822, but in other States it was more difficult to bring about this +revolutionary change. The fundamental suffrage law of New Jersey, for +instance, remained, for more than sixty years after the adoption of the +Declaration of Independence, in accordance with an act passed by the +Provincial Congress of New Jersey on July 2, 1776, two days before the +adoption of the Declaration of Independence, or according to some +authorities, on the very day of its adoption. Among other requirements +this act (1 Laws, N. J. p. 4.) decreed that the voter must be "worth £50 +proclamation money, clear estate within the colony." The fourth section +of an act passed by the New Jersey Legislature in June, 1820 (1 Laws N. +J. p. 741), expressly reenacted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> this same property qualification. By +about the year 1840, however, nearly all the States had adopted manhood +suffrage, so far as it applied to whites. The severest and most dramatic +conflict took place in Rhode Island. In 1762 an act had been passed +declaring that the possession of £40 was necessary to become qualified +as a voter. This law continued in force in Rhode Island for more than +eighty years. In the years 1811, 1819, 1824, 1829, 1832 and 1834 the +workingmen (or the mechanics, as the official reports styled them), made +the most determined efforts to have this property qualification +abolished, but the propertied classes, holding the legislative power, +declined to make any change. Under such a law it was easy for one-third +of the total number of resident male adults to have the exclusive +decisions in elections; the largest vote ever polled in Rhode Island, +was in the Presidential election of 1840, when 8,662 votes were cast, in +a total adult male population of permanent resident citizens of about +24,000. The result of this hostility of the propertied classes was a +rising in 1840 of the workingmen in what is slurringly misdescribed in +conventional history as "Dorr's Rebellion,"—an event the real history +of which has not as yet been told. This movement eventually compelled +the introduction in Rhode Island of suffrage without the property +qualification.</p> + +<p>How did the propertied classes meet this extension of suffrage +throughout the United States?</p> + +<h4>CORRUPTION AT THE POLLS.</h4> + +<p>A systematic corruption of the voters was now begun. The policy of +bribing certain legislators to vote for bank, railroad, insurance +company and other charters was extended to reach down into ward +politics, and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> corrupt the voters at the springs of power. With a +part of the money made in the frauds of trade or from exactions for +land, the propertied interests, operating at first by personal entry +into politics and then through the petty politicians of the day, packed +caucuses and primaries and bought votes at the polls. This was equally +true of both city and rural communities. In many of the rural sections +the morals of the people were exceedingly low, despite their +church-going habits. The cities contained, as they always do contain, a +certain quota of men, products of the industrial system, men of the +slums and alleyways, so far gone in destitution or liquor that they no +longer had manhood or principle. Along came the election funds of the +traders, landholders and bankers to corrupt these men still further by +the buying of their votes and the inciting of them to commit the crime +of repeating at the polls. Exalted society and the slums began to work +together; the money of the one purchased the votes of the other. Year +after year this corruption fund increased until in the fall of 1837 the +money raised in New York City by the bankers alone amounted to $60,000. +Although this sum was meager compared to the enormous corruption funds +which were employed in subsequent years, it was a sum which, at that +time, could do great execution. Ignorant immigrants were persuaded by +offerings of money to vote this way or that and to repeat their votes. +Presently the time came when batches of convicts were brought from the +prisons to do repeating, and overawe the polls in many precincts.<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>As for that class of voters who could not be bribed and who voted +according to their conceptions of the issues involved, they were +influenced in many ways:—by the partisan arguments of newspapers and of +political speech-makers. These agencies of influencing the body politic +were indirectly controlled by the propertied interests in one form or +another. A virtual censorship was exercised by wealth; if a newspaper +dared advocate any issue not approved by the vested interests, it at +once felt the resentment of that class in the withdrawal of +advertisements and of those privileges which banks could use or abuse +with such ruinous effect.</p> + +<h4>POLITICAL SUBSERVIENCY.</h4> + +<p>Finally, both of the powerful political parties were under the +domination of wealth; not, to be sure, openly so, but insidiously. +Differences of issue there assuredly were, but these issues did not in +any way affect the basic structure of society, or threaten the overthrow +of any of the fundamental privileges held by the rich. The political +campaigns, except that later contest which decided the eventual fate of +chattel slavery, were, in actuality, sham battles. Never were the masses +so enthusiastic since the campaign of 1800 when Jefferson was elected, +as they were in 1832 when they sided with President Jackson in his fight +against the United States Bank. They considered this contest as one +between the people, on the one side, and, on the other, the monied +aristocracy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> of the country. The United States Bank was effaced; but the +State banks promptly took over that share of the exploitative process so +long carried on by the United States Bank and the people, as has already +been explained, were no better off than they were before. One set of +ruling capitalists had been put down only to make way for another.</p> + +<p>Both parties received the greater part of their campaign funds from the +men of large property and from the vested corporations or other similar +interests. Astor, for example, was always a liberal contributor, now to +the Whig party and again to the Democratic. In return, the politicians +elected by those parties to the legislature, the courts or to +administrative offices usually considered themselves under obligations +to that element which financed its campaigns and which had the power of +defeating their reëlection by the refusal of funds or by supporting the +opposite party. The masses of the people were simply pawns in these +political contests, yet few of them understood that all the excitement, +partisan activity and enthusiasm into which they threw themselves, +generally had no other significance than to enchain them still faster to +a system whose beneficiaries were continuously getting more and more +rights and privileges for themselves at the expense of the people, and +whose wealth was consequently increasing by precipitate bounds.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR BECOMES AMERICA'S RICHEST MAN.</h4> + +<p>Astor was now the richest man in America. In 1847 his fortune was +estimated at fully $20,000,000. In all the length and breadth of the +United States there was no man whose fortune was within even +approachable distance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> of his. With wonderment his contemporaries +regarded its magnitude. How great it ranked at that period may be seen +by a contrast with the wealth of other men who were considered very +rich.</p> + +<p>In 1847 and 1852 a pamphlet listing the number of rich men in New York +was published under the direction of Moses Yale Beach, publisher of the +"New York Sun." The contents of this pamphlet were vouched for as +strictly accurate.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> The pamphlet showed that there were at that time +perhaps twenty-five men in New York City who were ranked as +millionaires. The most prominent of these were Peter Cooper with an +accredited fortune of $1,000,000; the Goelets, $2,000,000; the +Lorillards, $1,000,000; Moses Taylor, $1,000,000; A. T. Stewart, +$2,000,000; Cornelius Vanderbilt, $1,500,000, and William B. Crosby, +$1,500,000. There were a few fortunes of $500,000 each, and several +hundred ranging from $100,000 to $300,000. The average fortunes graded +from $100,000 to $200,000. A similar pamphlet published in Philadelphia +showed that that city contained a bevy of nine millionaires, only two of +whose individual fortunes exceeded $1,000,000.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> No facts are +available as to the private fortunes in Boston and other cities. +Occasionally the briefest mention would appear in the almanacs of the +period of the death of this or that rich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> man. There is a record of the +death of Alexander Milne, of New Orleans, in 1838 and of his bequest of +$200,000 to charitable institutions, and of the death of M. Kohne, of +Charleston, S. C., in the same year with the sole fact that he left +$730,000 in charitable bequests. In 1841 there appeared a line that +Nicholas Girod, of New Orleans, died leaving $400,000 to "various +objects," and a scant notice of the death of William Bartlett, of +Newburyport, Mass., coupled with the fact that he left $200,000 to +Andover Seminary. It is entirely probable that none of these men were +millionaires; otherwise the fact would have been brought out +conspicuously. Thus, when Pierre Lorillard, a New York snuff maker, +banker, and landholder, died in 1843, his fortune of $1,000,000 or so, +was considered so unusual that the word millionaire, newly-coined, was +italicized in the rounds of the press. Similarly in the case of Jacob +Ridgeway, a Philadelphia millionaire, who died in the same year.</p> + +<p>The passing away now of a man worth a mere million, calls forth but a +trifling, passing notice. Yet when Henry Brevoort died in New York City +in 1848, his demise was accounted an event in the annals of the day. His +property was estimated at a valuation of about $1,000,000, the chief +source of which came from the ownership of eleven acres of land in the +heart of the city. Originally his ancestors cultivated a truck farm and +ran a dairy on this land, and daily in the season carried vegetables, +butter and milk to market. Brevoort, the newspaper biography read, was a +"man of fine taste in painting, literature and intellectual pursuits of +every kind. He owned a large property in the fashionable part of the +city, where he erected a splendid house, elegantly adorned and furnished +in the Italian style; for he was quite a connoisseur in the arts."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<p>It can be at once seen in what transcendent degree Astor's wealth +towered far above that of every other rich man in the United States.</p> + +<h4>ASTOR'S TOWERING WEALTH.</h4> + +<p>His fortune was the colossus of the times; an object of awe to all +wealth-strivers. Necessary as manufactures were in the social and +industrial system, they, as yet, occupied a strikingly subordinate and +inferior position as an agency in accumulating great fortunes. +Statistics issued in 1844 of manufactures in the United States showed a +total gross amount of $307,196,844 invested. Astor's wealth, then, was +one-fifteenth of the whole amount invested throughout the territory of +the United States in cotton and wool, leather, flax and iron, glass, +sugar, furniture, hats, silks, ships, paper, soap, candles, wagons—in +every kind of goods which the demands of civilization made +indispensable.</p> + +<p>The last years of this magnate were passed in an atmosphere of luxury, +laudation and power. On Broadway, by Prince street, he built a +pretentious mansion, and adorned it with works of art which were more +costly than artistic. Of medium height, he was still quite stout, but +his once full, heavy face and his deep set eyes began to sag from the +encroachments of extreme advanced age. He could be seen every weekday +poring over business reports at his office on Prince street—a +one-story, fireproof brick building, the windows of which were guarded +by heavy iron bars. The closing weeks of his life were passed at his +country seat at Eighty-eighth street and the East River. Infirm and +debilitated, so weak and worn that he was forced to get his nourishment +like an infant at a woman's breast, and to have exercise administered by +being tossed in a blanket, he yet retained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> his faculty of vigilantly +scrutinizing every arrear on the part of tenants, and he compelled his +agent to render daily accounts. Parton relates this story:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>One morning this gentleman [the agent] chanced to enter his room +while he was enjoying his blanket exercise. The old man cried out +from the middle of his blanket:</p> + +<p>"Has Mrs. —— paid that rent yet?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied the agent.</p> + +<p>"Well, but she must pay it," said the poor old man.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Astor," rejoined the agent, "she can't pay it now; she has +had misfortunes, and we must give her time."</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Astor; "I tell you she can pay it and she will pay +it. You don't go the right way to work with her."</p> + +<p>The agent took leave, and mentioned the anxiety of the old +gentleman with regard to this unpaid rent to his son, who counted +out the requisite sum, and told the agent to give it to the old +man, as if he had received it from the tenant.</p> + +<p>"There," exclaimed Mr. Astor when he received the money. "I told +you that she would pay it if you went the right way to work with +her."<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a></p></div> + +<h4>THE DEATH OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR.</h4> + +<p>So, to the last breath, squeezing arrears out of tenants; his mind +focused upon those sordid methods which had long since become a religion +to him; contemplating the long list of his possessions with a radiant +exaltation; so Astor passed away. He died on March 29, 1848, aged +eighty-four years, four months; and almost as he died, the jubilant +shouts of the enthusiastic workingmen's processions throughout the city +resounded high and often. They were celebrating the French Revolution of +1848, intelligence of which had just arrived;—a Revolution brought +about by the blood of the Parisian workingmen, only to be subsequently +stifled by the stratagems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> of the bourgeoisie and turned into the +corrupt despotism of Napoleon III.</p> + +<p>The old trader left an estate valued at about $20,000,000. The bulk of +this descended to William B. Astor. The extent of wealth disclosed by +the will made a profound impression. Never had so rich a man passed +away; the public mind was not accustomed to the sight of millions of +dollars being owned by one man. One New York newspaper, the "Journal," +after stating that Astor's personal estate amounted to seven or nine +million dollars, and his real estate to perhaps more, observed: "Either +sum is quite out of our small comprehension; and we presume that with +most men, the idea of one million is about as large an item as that of +any number of millions." An entirely different and exceptional view was +taken by James Gordon Bennett, owner and editor of the New York +"Herald;" Bennett's comments were the one distinct contrast to the mass +of flowery praise lavished upon Astor's memory and deeds. He thus +expressed himself in the issue of April 5, 1848:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We give in our columns an authentic copy of one of the greatest +curiosities of the age—the will of John Jacob Astor, disposing of +property amounting to about twenty million dollars, among his +various descendants of the first, second, third, and fourth +degrees.... If we had been an associate of John Jacob Astor ... +the first idea that we should have put into his head would have +been that <i>one-half of his immense property—ten millions at +least—belonged to the people of the city of New York</i>. During the +last fifty years of the life of John Jacob Astor, his property has +been augmented and increased in value by the aggregate +intelligence, industry, enterprise and commerce of New York, fully +to the amount of one-half its value. The farms and lots of ground +which he bought forty, twenty and ten and five years ago, have all +increased in value entirely by the industry of the citizens of New +York. Of course, it is plain as that two and two make four, that +the half of his immense estate,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> in its actual value, has accrued +to him by the industry of the community.</p></div> + +<h4>THE WONDER OF THE AGE.</h4> + +<p>The analyst might well be tempted to smile at the puerility of this +logic. If Astor was entitled to one-half of the value created by the +collective industry of the community, why was he not entitled to all? +Why make the artificial division of one-half? Either he had the right to +all or to none. But this editorial, for all its defects of reasoning, +was an unusual expression of newspaper opinion, although of a single +day, and was smothered by the general course of that same newspaper in +supporting the laws and institutions demanded by the commercial +aristocracy.</p> + +<p>So the arch multimillionaire passed away, the wonder and the emulation +of the age. His friends, of whom he had a few, deeply mourned him, and +his bereaved family suffered a deep loss, for, it is related, he was a +kind and indulgent husband and father. He left a legacy of $400,000 for +the establishment of the Astor Library; for this and this alone his +memory has been preserved as that of a philanthropist. The announcement +of this legacy was hailed with extravagant joy; yet such is the value of +meretricious glory and the ideals of present society, that none has +remarked that the proceeds of one year's pillage of the Indians were +more than sufficient to found this much-praised benevolence. Thus does +society blind itself to the origin of the fortunes, a fraction of which +goes to gratify it with gifts. The whole is taken from the collective +labor of the people, and then a part is returned in the form of +institutional presents which are in reality bits of charity bestowed +upon the very people from whose exploitation the money has come. Astor, +no doubt, thought that, in providing for a public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> library, he was doing +a service to mankind; and he must be judged, not according to the +precepts and demands of the scarcely heard working class of his day with +its altruistic aspirations, nor of more advanced present ideas, but by +the standards of his own class, that commercial aristocracy which +arrogated to itself superiority of aims and infallibility of methods.</p> + +<p>He died the richest man of his day. But vast fortunes could not be +heaped up by him and his contemporaries without having their +corresponding effect upon the mass of the people. What was this effect? +At about the time that he died there was in New York City one pauper to +every one hundred and twenty-five inhabitants and one person in every +eighty-three of the population had to be supported at the public +expense.<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_VI" id="CHAPTER_II_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h4>THE PROPULSION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE</h4> + +<p>At the time of his father's death, William B. Astor, the chief heir of +John Jacob Astor's twenty million dollars, was fifty-six years old. A +tall, ponderous man, his eyes were small, contracted, with a rather +vacuous look, and his face was sluggish and unimpressionable. Extremely +unsocial and taciturn, he never betrayed emotion and generally was +destitute of feeling. He took delight in affecting a carelessly-dressed, +slouchy appearance as though deliberately notifying all concerned that +one with such wealth as he was privileged to ignore the formulas of +punctilious society. In this slovenly, stoop-shouldered man with his +cold, abstracted air no one would have detected the richest man in +America.</p> + +<p>Acquisitiveness was his most marked characteristic. Even before his +father's death he had amassed a fortune of his own by land speculations +and banking connections, and he had inherited $500,000 from his uncle +Henry, a butcher on the Bowery. It was said in 1846 that he possessed an +individual fortune of $5,000,000. During the last years of his father he +had been president of the American Fur Co., and he otherwise knew every +detail of his father's multifarious interests and possessions.</p> + +<h4>WILLIAM B. ASTOR'S PARSIMONY.</h4> + +<p>He lived in what was considered a fine mansion on Lafayette place, +adjoining the Astor Library. The sideboards were heaped with gold plate, +and polyglot servants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> in livery stood obediently by at all times to +respond to his merest nod. But he cared little for this show, except in +that it surrounded him with an atmosphere of power. His frugality did +not arise from wise self-control, but from his parsimonious habits. He +scanned and revised the smallest item of expense. Wine he seldom +touched, and the average merchant spent more for his wardrobe than he +did. At a time when the rich despised walking and rode in carriages +drawn by fast horses, he walked to and from his business errands. This +severe economy he not only practiced in his own house, but he carried it +into every detail of his business. Arising early in the morning, he +attended to his private correspondence before breakfast. This meal was +served punctually at 9 o'clock. Then he would stride to his office on +Prince street. A contemporary writer says of him:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>He knew every inch of real estate that stood in his name, every +bond, contract and lease. He knew what was due when leases +expired, and attended personally to the matter. No tenants could +expend a dollar, or put in a pane of glass without his personal +inspection. His father sold him the Astor House [an hotel] for the +sum of one dollar. The lessees were not allowed to spend one cent +on the building, without his supervision and consent, unless they +paid for it themselves.</p> + +<p>In the upper part of New York hundreds of lots can be seen +enclosed by dilapidated fences, disfigured by rocks and waste +material, or occupied as [truck] gardens. They are eligibly +located, many of them surrounded by a fashionable population.... +Mr. Astor owned most of these corner lots but kept the corners for +a rise. He would neither sell nor improve them.... He knew that no +parties can improve the center of a block without benefiting the +corners.</p> + +<p>He was sombre and solitary, dwelt alone, mixed little with general +society, gave little and abhorred beggars.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a></p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was a common saying of him "when he paid out a cent he wanted a cent +in return;" and as to his abject meannesses we forbear relating the many +stories of him. He pursued, in every respect, his father's methods in +using the powers of city government to obtain valuable water grants for +substantially nothing, and in employing his surplus wealth for further +purchases of land and in investments in other profitable channels. No +scruples of any kind did he allow to interfere with his constant aim of +increasing his fortune. His indifference to compunctions was shown in +many ways, not the least in his open support of notoriously corrupt city +and State administrations.</p> + +<p>This corruption was by no means one existing despite him and his class, +and one that was therefore accepted grudgingly as an irremediable evil. +Far from it. Corrupt government was welcomed by the landholding, trading +and banking class, for by it they could secure with greater facility the +perpetual rights, franchises, privileges and the exemptions which were +adapted to their expanding aims and riches. By means of it they were not +only enabled to pile up greater and greater wealth, but to set +themselves up in law as a conspicuously privileged body, distinct from +the mass of the people.</p> + +<h4>THE PURCHASE OF LAWS.</h4> + +<p>Publicly they might pretend a proper and ostentatious horror of +corruption. Secretly, however, they quickly dispensed with what were to +them idle dronings of political cant. As capitalists they ascribed their +success to a rigid application and practicality; and being practical +they went about purchasing laws by the most short-cut and economical +method. They had the money; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> office-holders had the votes and +governmental power; consequently the one bought the other. It was a +systematic corruption springing entirely from the propertied classes; +they demanded it, were responsible for it and kept it up. It worked like +an endless chain; the land, charters, franchises and privileges +corruptly obtained in one set of years yielded vast wealth, part of +which was used in succeeding years in getting more law-created sources +of wealth. If professional politicians had long since got into the habit +of expecting to be bought, it was because the landholders, traders and +bankers had accustomed them to the lucrative business of getting bribes +in return for extraordinary laws.</p> + +<p>Since the men of wealth, or embryo capitalists who by hook or crook +raised the funds to bribe, were themselves ready at all times to buy +laws in common councils, legislatures and in Congress, it naturally +followed that each of them was fully as eager to participate in the +immense profits accruing from charters, franchises or special grants +obtained by others of their own class. They never questioned the means +by which these laws were put through. They did not care. The mere fact +that a franchise was put through by bribery was a trite, immaterial +circumstance. The sole, penetrating question was whether it were a +profitable project. If it were, no man of wealth hesitated in investing +his money in its stock and in sharing its revenue. It could not be +expected that he would feel moral objections, even the most attenuated, +for the chances were that while he might not have been a party to the +corrupt obtaining of this or that particular franchise, yet he was +involved in the grants of other special endowments. Moreover, money +making was not built on morality; its whole foundation and impetus lay +in the extraction of profits. Society,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> it is true, professed to move on +lofty moral planes, but this was a colossal pretension and nothing less.</p> + +<h4>THE INVERTED NATURE OF SOCIETY.</h4> + +<p>Society—and this is a truth which held equally strong of succeeding +decades—was incongruously inverted. In saying this, the fact should not +be ignored that the capitalist, as applied to the man who ran a factory +or other enterprise, was an indigenous factor in that period, even +although the money or inventions by which he was able to do this, were +often obtained by fraud. Every needed qualification must be made for the +time and the environment, and there should be neither haste in +indiscriminately condemning nor in judging by the standards or maturity +of later generations.</p> + +<p>Yet, viewing society as a whole and measuring the results by the +standards and ideas then prevailing, it was undoubtedly true that those +who did the world's real services were the lowly, despoiled and much +discriminated-against mass of mankind. Their very poverty was a crime, +for after they were plundered and expropriated, either by the ruling +classes of their own country or of the United States, the laws regarded +them as semi-criminals, or, at best, as excrescences to whom short +shrift was to be given. They made the clothes, the shoes, hats, shirts, +underwear, tools, and all the other necessities that mankind required; +they tilled the ground and produced its food. Curiously enough, those +who did these indispensable things were condemned by the encompassing +system to live in the poorest and meanest habitations and in the most +precarious uncertainty. When sick, disabled or superannuated they were +cast aside by the capitalist class as so much discarded material<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> to eke +out a prolonged misery of existence, to be thrown in penal institutions +or to starve. Substantially everywhere in the United States, vagrancy +laws were in force which decreed that an able-bodied man out of work and +homeless must be adjudged a vagrant and imprisoned in the workhouse or +penetentiary. The very law-making institutions that gave to a privileged +few the right to expropriate the property of the many, drastically +plunged the many down still further after this process of spoliation, +like a man who is waylaid and robbed and then arrested and imprisoned +because he has been robbed.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the class which had the money, no matter how that +money was gotten, irrespective of how much fraud or sacrifice of life +attended its amassing, stood out with a luminous distinctness. It +arrogated to itself all that was superior, and it exacted, and was +invested with, a lordly deference. It lived in the finest mansions and +laved in luxuries. Surrounded with an indescribably pretentious air of +importance, it radiated tone, command and prestige.</p> + +<p>But, such was the destructive, intestinal character of competitive +warfare, that even this class was continually in the throes of +convulsive struggles. Each had to fight, not merely to get the wealth of +others, but to keep what he already possessed. If he could but frustrate +the attempts of competitors to take what he had, he was fortunate. As he +preyed upon the laborer, so did the rest of his class seek to prey upon +him. If he were less able, less cunning, or more scrupulous than they, +his ruination was certain. It was a system in which all methods were +gauged not by the best but by the worst. Thus it was that many +capitalists, at heart good men, kindly disposed and innately opposed to +duplicity and fraud, were compelled to adopt the methods of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> more +successful but thoroughly unprincipled competitors. And, indeed, +realizing the impregnating nature of example and environment, one cannot +but conclude that the tragedies of the capitalist class represented so +many victims of the competitive system, the same as those among the +wageworkers, although in a very different way. Yet in this bewildering +jumble of fortune-snatching, an extraordinary circumstance failed to +impress itself upon the class which took over to itself the claim to +superior intelligence and virtue. The workers, for the most part, +instinctively, morally and intellectually, knew that this system was +wrong, a horror and a nightmare. But even the capitalist victims of the +competitive struggle, which awarded supremacy to the knave and the +trickster, went to their doom praising it as the only civilized, +rational system and as unchangeable and even divinely ordained.</p> + +<h4>THE PREVAILING CORRUPTION.</h4> + +<p>If corruption was flagrant in the early decades of the nineteenth +century, it was triply so in the middle decades. This was the period of +all periods when common councils all over the country were being bribed +to give franchises for various public utility systems, and legislatures +and Congress for charters, land, money, and laws for a great number of +railroad and other projects. The numerous specific instances cannot be +adverted to here; they will be described more appropriately in +subsequent parts of this work. For the present, let this general and +sweeping observation suffice.</p> + +<p>The important point which here obtrudes itself is that in every case, +without an exception, the wealth amassed by fraud was used in turn to +put through more frauds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> and that the net accumulation of these +successive frauds is seen in the great private fortunes of to-day. We +have seen how the original Astor fortune was largely derived by the use +of both force and fraud among the Indians, and by the exercise of +cunning and corruption in the East. John Jacob Astor's immense wealth +descends mostly to William B. Astor. In turn, one of the third +generation, John Jacob Astor, Jr., representing his father, William B. +Astor, uses a portion of this wealth in becoming a large stockholder in +the New York Central Railroad, and in corrupting the New York +Legislature still further to give enormously valuable grants and special +laws with incalculably valuable exemptions to that railroad. John Jacob +Astor, Jr., never built a railroad in his life; he knew nothing about +railroads; but by virtue of the possession of large surplus wealth, +derived mainly from rents, he was enabled to buy enough of the stock to +make him rank as a large stockholder. And, then, he with the other +stockholders, bribed the Legislature for the passage of more laws which +enormously increased the value of their stock.</p> + +<p>It is altogether clear from the investigations and records of the time +that the New York Central Railroad was one of the most industrious +corrupters of legislatures in the country, although this is not saying +much in dealing with a period when every State Legislature, none +excepted, was making gifts of public property and of laws in return for +bribes, and when Congress, as was proved in official investigations, was +prodigal in doing likewise.<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></p> + +<p>In the fourteen years up to 1867, the New York Central Railroad +had spent upward of a half million dollars in buying laws at Albany and +in "protecting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> its stockholders against injurious legislation." As one +of the largest stockholders in the road John Jacob Astor, Jr., certainly +must have been one of the masked parties to this continuous saturnalia +of corruption. But the corruption, bad as it was, that took place before +1867, was rather insignificant compared to the eruption in the years +1868 and 1869. And here is to be noted a significant episode which fully +reveals how the capitalist class is ever willing to turn over the +managing of its property to men of its own class who have proved +themselves masters of the art either of corrupting public bodies, or of +making that property yield still greater profits.</p> + +<h4>BRIBERY AND BUSINESS.</h4> + +<p>In control of the New York and Harlem Railroad, Cornelius Vanderbilt had +showed what a remarkably successful magnate he was in deluging +legislatures and common councils with bribe money and in getting corrupt +gifts of franchises and laws worth many hundreds of millions of dollars. +For a while the New York Central fought him; it bribed where he bribed; +when he intimidated, it intimidated. But Vanderbilt was, by far, the +abler of the two contending forces. Finally the stockholders decided +that he was the man to run their system; and on Nov. 12, 1867, John +Jacob Astor, Jr., Edward Cunard, John Steward and others, representing +more than thirteen million dollars of stock, turned the New York Central +over to Vanderbilt's management on the ground, as their letter set +forth, that the change would result in larger dividends to the +stockholders and (this bit of cant was gratuitously thrown in) "greatly +promote the interests of the public." In closing, they wrote to +Vanderbilt of "your great and acknowledged abilities."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> No sooner had +Vanderbilt been put in control than these abilities were preëminently +displayed by such an amazing reign of corruption and exaction, that even +a public cynically habituated to bribery and arbitrary methods, was +profoundly stirred.<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p> + +<p>It was in these identical years that the Astors, the Goelets, the +Rhinelanders and many other landholders and merchants were getting more +water grants by collusion with the various corrupt city administrations. +On June 14, 1850, William B. Astor gets a grant of land under water for +the block between Twelfth and Thirteenth streets, on the Hudson River, +at the ridiculous price of $13 per running foot.<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> William E. Dodge +likewise gets a grant on the Hudson River. Public opinion severely +condemned this practical giving away of city property, and a special +committee of the Board of Councilmen was moved to report on May 15, +1854, that "the practice of selling city property, except where it is in +evidence that it cannot be put to public use, is an error in finance +that has prevailed too frequently; indeed the experience of about eleven +years has demonstrated that sales of property usually take place about +the time it is likely to be needed for public uses, or on the eve of a +rise in value. Every pier, bulkhead and slip should have continued to be +the property of the city...."<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a></p> + +<h4>WATER GRANTS FROM TWEED.</h4> + +<p>But when the Tweed "ring" came into complete power, with its unbridled +policy of accommodating anyone who could pay bribes enough, the +landowners and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> merchants rushed to get water grants among other special +privileges. On Dec. 27, 1865, William C. Rhinelander was presented with +a grant of land under water from Ninety-first to Ninety-fourth street, +East River.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> On March 21, 1867, Peter Goelet obtained from the +Sinking Fund Commissioners a grant of land under water on the East River +in front of land owned by him between Eighty-first street and +Eighty-second street. The price asked was the insignificant one of $75 a +running foot.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> The officials who made this grant were the +Controller, Richard B. Connolly, and the Street Commissioner, George W. +McLean, both of whom were arch accomplices of William M. Tweed and were +deeply involved in the gigantic thefts of the Tweed ring. The same band +of officials gave to Mrs. Laura A. Delano, a daughter of William B. +Astor, a grant from Fifty-fifth to Fifty-seventh street, Hudson River, +at $200 per running foot, and on May 21, 1867, a grant to John Jacob +Astor, Jr., of lands under water between Forty-ninth and Fifty-first +streets, Hudson River, for the trivial sum of $75 per running foot. Many +other grants were given at the same time. The public, used as it was to +corrupt government, could not stomach this granting of valuable city +property for virtually nothing. The severe criticism which resulted +caused the city officials to bend before the storm, especially as they +did not care to imperil their other much greater thefts for the sake of +these minor ones. Many of the grants were never finally issued; and +after the Tweed "ring" was expelled from power, the Commissioners of the +Sinking Fund on Feb. 28, 1882, were compelled by public agitation to +rescind most of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> them.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> The grant issued to Rhinelander in 1865, +however, was one of those which was never rescinded.</p> + +<p>During its control of the city administration from 1868 to 1871 alone, +the Tweed "ring" stole directly from the city and county of New York a +sum estimated from $45,000,000 to $200,000,000. Henry F. Taintor, the +auditor employed by Andrew H. Green to investigate Controller Connolly's +books, testified before the special Aldermanic Committee in 1877, that +he had estimated the frauds during those three and a half years at from +$45,000,000 to $50,000,000.<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> The committee, however, evidently +thought that the thefts amounted to $60,000,000; for it asked Tweed +during the investigation whether they did not approximate that sum, to +which question he gave no definite reply. But Mr. Taintor's estimate, as +he himself admitted, was far from complete even for the three and a half +years. Matthew J. O'Rourke, who was responsible for the disclosures, and +who made a remarkably careful study of the "ring's" operations, gave it +as his opinion that from 1869 to 1871 the "ring" stole about $75,000,000 +and that he thought the total stealings from about 1865 to 1871, +counting vast issues of fraudulent bonds, amounted to $200,000,000.</p> + +<h4>PROFITING FROM GIGANTIC THEFTS.</h4> + +<p>Every intelligent person knew in 1871 that Tweed, Connolly and their +associates were colossal thieves. Yet in that year a committee of New +York's leading and richest citizens, composed of John Jacob Astor, Jr.,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, E. D. Brown, George K. Sistare and +Edward Schell, were induced to make an examination of the controller's +books and hand in a most eulogistic report, commending Connolly for his +honesty and his faithfulness to duty. Why did they do this? Because +obviously they were in underhand alliance with those political bandits, +and received from them special privileges and exemptions amounting in +value to hundreds of millions of dollars. We have seen how Connolly made +gifts of the city's property to this class of leading citizens. +Moreover, a corrupt administration was precisely what the rich wanted, +for they could very conveniently make arrangements with it to evade +personal property taxation, have the assessments on their real estate +reduced to an inconsiderable sum, and secure public franchises and +rights of all kinds.</p> + +<p>There cannot be the slightest doubt that the rich, as a class, were +eager to have the Tweed régime continue. They might pose as fine +moralists and profess to instruct the poor in religion and politics, but +this attitude was a fraud; they deliberately instigated, supported, and +benefited by, all of the great strokes of thievery that Tweed and +Connolly put through. Thus to mention one of many instances, the +foremost financial and business men of the day were associated as +directors with Tweed in the Viaduct Railroad. This was a project to +build a railroad on or above the ground <i>on any New York City street</i>. +One provision of the bill granting this unprecedentedly comprehensive +franchise compelled the city to take $5,000,000 of stock; another +exempted the company property from taxes or assessments. Other +subsidiary bills allowed for the benefit of the railroad the widening +and grading of streets which meant a "job" costing from $50,000,000 to +$60,000,000.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span><a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> This bill was passed by the Legislature and signed by +Tweed's puppet Governor Hoffman; and only the exposure of the Tweed +régime a few months later prevented the complete consummation of this +almost unparalleled steal.</p> + +<p>Considering the fact that the richest and most influential and +respectable men were direct allies of the Tweed clique, it was not +surprising that men such as John Jacob Astor, Jr., Moses Taylor, Edward +Schell and company were willing enough to sign a testimonial certifying +to Controller Connolly's honesty. The Tweed "ring" supposed that a +testimonial signed by these men would make a great impression upon the +public. Yet, stripping away the halo which society threw about them +simply because they had wealth, these rich citizens themselves were to +be placed in even a lower category than Tweed, on the principle that the +greater the pretension, the worst in its effect upon society is the +criminal act. The Astors cheated the city out of enormous sums in real +estate and personal property taxation; Moses Taylor likewise did so, as +was clearly brought out by a Senate Investigating Committee in 1890; +Roberts had been implicated in great swindles during the Civil War; and +as for Edward Schell, he, by collusion with corrupt officials, compelled +the city to pay exorbitant sums for real estate owned by him and which +the city needed for public purposes. And further it should be pointed +out that Tweed, Connolly and Sweeny were but vulgar political thieves +who retained only a small part of their thefts. Tweed died in prison +quite poor; even the very extensive area of real estate that he bought +with stolen money vanished, one part of it going in lieu of counsel fees +to one of his lawyers, Elihu Root, United States Secretary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> of State +under Roosevelt.<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> Connolly fled abroad with $6,000,000 of loot and +died there, while Sweeny settled with the city for an insignificant sum. +The men who really profited directly or indirectly by the gigantic +thefts of money and the franchise, tax-exemption, and other measures put +through the legislature or common council were men of wealth in the +background, who thereby immensely increased their riches and whose +descendants now possess towering fortunes and bear names of the highest +"respectability."<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p> + +<p>The original money of the landholders came from trade; and then by a +combination of cunning, bribery, and a moiety of what was considered +legitimate investment, they became the owners of immense tracts of the +most valuable city land. The rentals from these were so great that +continuously more and more surplus wealth was heaped up. This surplus +wealth, in slight part, went to bribe representative bodies for special +laws giving them a variety of exclusive property, and another part was +used in buying stock in various enterprises the history of which reeked +with corruption.</p> + +<p>From being mere landholders whose possessions were confined mainly to +city land, they became part owners of railroad, telegraph, express and +other lines reaching throughout the country. So did their holdings and +wealth-producing interests expand by a cumulative and ever-widening +process. The prisons were perennially filled with convicts, nearly all +of whom had committed some crime against property, and for so doing were +put in chains behind heavy bars, guarded by rifles and great stone +walls. But the men who robbed the community of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> its land and its +railroads (most of which latter were built with <i>public</i> land and money) +and who defrauded it in a thousand ways, were, if not morally +exculpated, at least not molested, and were permitted to retain their +plunder, which, to them, was the all-important thing. This plunder, in +turn, became the basis for the foundation of an aristocracy which in +time built palaces, invented impressive pedigrees and crests and +coats-of-arms, intermarried with European titles, and either owned or +influenced newspapers and journals which taught the public how it should +think and how it should act. It is one thing to commit crimes against +property, and a vastly different thing to commit crimes <i>in behalf</i> of +property. Such is the edict of a system inspired by the sway of +property.</p> + +<h4>RENTALS FROM DISEASE AND DEATH.</h4> + +<p>But the sources of the large rentals that flowed into the exchequers of +the landlords—what were they? Where did these rents, the volume of +which was so great that the surplus part of them went into other forms +of investments, come from? Who paid them and how did the tenants of +these mammoth landlords live?</p> + +<p>A considerable portion came from business buildings and private +residences on much of the very land which New York City once owned and +which was corruptly squirmed out of municipal ownership. For the large +rentals which they were forced to pay, the business men recouped +themselves by marking up the prices of all necessities. Another, and a +very preponderate part, came from tenement houses. Many of these were +also built on land filched from the city. And such habitations! Never +before was anything seen like them. The reports<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> of the Metropolitan +Board of Health for 1866, 1867 and succeeding years revealed the fact +that miles upon miles of city streets were covered with densely +populated tenements, where human beings were packed in vile rooms, many +of which were dark and unventilated and which were pestilential with +disease and overflowed with deaths. In its first report, following its +organization, the Metropolitan Board of Health pointed out:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The first, and at all times the most prolific cause of disease, +was found to be the very insalubrious condition of most of the +tenement houses in the cities of New York and Brooklyn. These +houses are generally built without any reference to the health and +comfort of the occupants, but simply with a view to economy and +profit to the owner. They are almost invariably overcrowded, and +ill-ventilated to such a degree as to render the air within them +constantly impure and offensive.</p></div> + +<p>Here follows a mass of nauseating details which for the sake of not +overshocking the reader we shall omit. The report continued:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The halls and stairways are usually filthy and dark, and the walls +and banisters foul and damp, while the floors were not +infrequently used ... [for purposes of nature] ... for lack of +other provisions. The dwelling rooms are usually very inadequate +in size for the accommodation of their occupants, and many of the +sleeping rooms are simply closets, without light or ventilation +save by means of a single door.... Such is the character of a vast +number of tenement houses, especially in the lower part of the +city and along the eastern and western border. Disease especially +in the form of fevers of a typhoid character are constantly +present in these dwellings and every now and then become an +epidemic.<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></p></div> + +<p>"Some of the tenements," added the report, "are owned by persons of the +highest character, but they fail to appreciate the responsibility +resting on them." This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> sentence makes it clear that landlords could +own, and enormously profit from, pig-sty human habitations which killed +off a large number of the unfortunate tenants, and yet these landlords +could retain, in nowise diminished, the lustre of being men "of the +highest character." Fully one-third of the deaths in New York and +Brooklyn resulted from zymotic diseases contracted in these tenements, +yet not even a whisper was heard, not the remotest suggestion that the +men of wealth who thus deliberately profited from disease and death, +were criminally culpable, although faint and timorous opinions were +advanced that they might be morally responsible.</p> + +<h4>HUMANITY OF NO CONSEQUENCE.</h4> + +<p>Human life was nothing; the supremacy of the property idea dominated all +thought and all laws, not because mankind was callous to suffering, +wretchedness and legalized murder, but because thought and law +represented what the propertied interests demanded. If the proletarian +white population had been legal slaves, as the negroes in the South had +been, much consideration would have been bestowed upon their gullets and +domiciles, for then they would have been property; and who ever knew the +owner of property to destroy the article which represented money? But +being "free" men and women and children, the proletarians were simply so +many bundles of flesh whose sickness and death meant pecuniary loss to +no property-holder. Therefore casualities to them were a matter of no +great concern to a society that was taught to venerate the sacredness of +property as embodied in brick and stone walls, clothes, machines, and +furniture, which same, if inert, had the all-important virile quality of +having a cash value, which the worker had not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + +<p>But these landlords "of the highest character" not only owned, and +regularly collected rents from, tenement houses which filled the +cemeteries, but they also resorted to the profitable business of leasing +certain tenements to middlemen who guaranteed them by lease a definite +and never-failing annual rental. Once having done this, the landlords +did not care what the middlemen did—how much rent they exacted, or in +what condition they allowed the tenements. "The middlemen," further +reported the Metropolitan Board of Heath,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>are frequently of the most heartless and unscrupulous character +and make large profits by sub-letting. They leave no space +unoccupied: they rent sheds, basements and even cellars to +families and lodgers; they divide rooms by partitions, and then +place a whole family in a single room, to be used for living, +cooking, and sleeping purposes. In the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, +Tenth, and Fourteenth Wards may be found large, old fashioned +dwellings originally constructed for one family, subdivided and +sublet to such an extent that even the former sub-cellars are +occupied by two or more families. There is a cellar population of +not less than 20,000 in New York City.</p></div> + +<p>Here, again, shines forth with blinding brightness that superior +morality of the propertied classes. There is no record of a single +landlord who refused to pocket the great gains from the ownership of +tenement houses. Great, in fact, excessive gains they were, for the +landowning class considered tenements "magnificent investments" (how +edifying a phrase!) and all except one held on to them. That one was +William Waldorf Astor of the present generation, who, we are told, "sold +a million dollars worth of unpromising tenement house property in +1890."<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> What fantasy of action was it that caused William Waldorf +Astor to so depart from the accepted formulas of his class as to give up +these "magnificent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> investments?" Was it an abhorrence of tenements, or +a growing fastidiousness as to the methods? It is to be observed that up +to that time he and his family had tenaciously kept the revenues from +their tenements; evidently then, the source of the money was not a +troubling factor. And in selling those tenements he must have known that +his profits on the transaction would be charged by the buyers against +the future tenants and that even more overcrowding would result. What, +then, was the reason?</p> + +<p>About the year 1887 there developed an agitation in New York City +against the horrible conditions in tenement houses, and laws were +popularly demanded which would put a stop to them, or at least bring +some mitigation. The whole landlord class virulently combated this +agitation and these proposed laws. What happened next? Significantly +enough a municipal committee was appointed by the mayor to make an +inquiry into tenement conditions; and this committee was composed of +property owners. William Waldorf Astor was a conspicuous member of the +committee. The mockery of a man whose family owned miles of tenements +being chosen for a committee, the province of which was to find ways of +improving tenement conditions, was not lost on the public, and shouts of +derision went up. The working population was skeptical, and with reason, +of the good faith of this committee. Every act, beginning with the mild +and ineffective one of 1867, designed to remedy the appalling conditions +in tenement houses, had been stubbornly opposed by the landlords; and +even after these puerile measures had finally been passed, the landlords +had resisted their enforcement. Whether it was because of the bitter +criticisms levelled at him, or because he saw that it would be a good +time to dispose of his tenements as a money-making matter before further +laws were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> passed, is not clearly known. At any rate William Waldorf +Astor sold large batches of tenements.</p> + +<h4>AN EXALTED CAPITALIST.</h4> + +<p>To return, however, to William B. Astor. He was the owner, it was +reckoned in 1875, of more than seven hundred buildings and houses, not +to mention the many tracts of unimproved land that he held. His income +from these properties and from his many varied lines of investments was +stupendous. Every one knew that he, along with other landlords, derived +great revenues from indescribably malodorous tenements, unfit for human +habitation. Yet little can be discerned in the organs of public opinion, +or in the sermons or speeches of the day, which showed other than the +greatest deference for him and his kind. He was looked up to as a +foremost and highly exalted capitalist; no church disdained his +gifts;<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> far from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> it, these were eagerly solicited, and accepted +gratefully, and even with servility. None questioned the sources of his +wealth, certainly not one of those of his own class, all of whom more or +less used the same means and who extolled them as proper, both +traditionally and legally, and as in accordance with the "natural laws" +of society. No condemnation was visited on Astor or his fellow-landlords +for profiting from such ghastly harvests of disease and death. When +William B. Astor died in 1875, at the age of eighty-three, in his sombre +brownstone mansion at Thirty-fifth street and Fifth avenue, his funeral +was an event among the local aristocracy; the newspapers published the +most extravagant panegyrics and the estimated $100,000,000 which he left +was held up to all the country as an illuminating and imperishable +example of the fortune that thrift, enterprise, perseverance, and +ability would bring.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_VII" id="CHAPTER_II_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE CLIMAX OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE</h3> + +<p>The impressive fortune that William B. Astor left was mainly bequeathed +in about equal parts to his sons John Jacob II. and William. These +scions, by inheritance from various family sources, intermarriage with +other rich families, or both, were already rich. Furthermore, having the +backing of their father's immense riches, they had enjoyed singularly +exceptional opportunities for amassing wealth on their own account.</p> + +<p>In 1853 William Astor had married one of the Schermerhorn family. The +Schermerhorns were powerful New York City landholders; and if not quite +on the same pinnacle in point of wealth as the Astors, were at any rate +very rich. The immensely valuable areas of land then held by the +Schermerhorns, and still in their possession, were largely obtained by +precisely the same means that the Astors, Goelets, Rhinelanders and +other conspicuous land families had used.</p> + +<h4>INTERRELATED WEALTH.</h4> + +<p>The settled policy, from the start, of the rich men, and very greatly of +rich women, was to marry within their class. The result obviously was to +increase and centralize still greater wealth in the circumscribed +ownership of a few families. In estimating, therefore, the collective +wealth of the Astors, as in fact of nearly all of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> great fortunes, +the measure should not be merely the possessions of one family, but +should embrace the combined wealth of interrelated rich families.</p> + +<p>The wedding of William Astor (as was that of his son John Jacob Astor +thirty-eight years later to a daughter of one of the richest landholding +families in Philadelphia) was an event of the day if one judges by the +commotion excited among what was represented as the superior class, and +the amount of attention given by the newspapers. In reality, viewing +them in their proper perspective, these marriages of the rich were +infinitesimal affairs, which would scarcely deserve a mention, were it +not for the effect that they had in centralizing wealth and for the +clear picture that they give of the ideas of the times. Posterity, which +is the true arbiter in distinguishing between the enduring and the +evanescent, the important and the trivial, rightly cares nothing for +essentially petty matters which once were held of the highest +importance. Edgar Allan Poe, wearing his life out in extreme poverty, +William Lloyd Garrison, thundering against chattel slavery from a Boston +garret, Robert Dale Owen spending his years in altruistic +endeavors—these men were contemporaries of the Astors of the second +generation. Yet a marriage among the very rich was invested by the +self-styled creators and dispensers of public opinion with far more +importance than the giving out of the world of the most splendid +products of genius or the enunciation of principles of the profoundest +significance to humanity. Yet why slur the practices of past generations +when we to-day are confronted by the same perversions? In the month of +February, 1908, for instance, several millions of men in the United +States were out of work; in destitution, because something or other +stood between them and their getting work; and consequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> they and +their wives and children had to face starvation. This condition might +have been enough to shock even the most callous mind, certainly enough +to have impressed the community. But what happened? The superficial +historian of the future, who depends upon the newspapers and who gauges +his facts accordingly, will conclude that there was little or no misery +or abject want; that the people were interested in petty happenings of +no ultimate value whatsoever; that an Oriental dance and pantomime given +in New York by "society" women, led by Mrs. Waldorf Astor, where a rich +young woman reaped astonishment and admiration by coiling a live boa +constrictor around her neck, was one of the great events of the day, +because the newspapers devoted two columns to it, whereas scarcely any +mention was made of armies of men being out of work.</p> + +<h4>MONEY AND HUMANITY.</h4> + +<p>As it was in 1908 so was it in the decades when the capitalists of one +kind or another were first piling up wealth; they were the weighty class +of the day; their slightest doings were chronicled, and their flimsiest +sayings were construed oracularly as those of public opinion. Numberless +people sickened and died in the industrial strife and in miserable +living quarters; ubiquitous capitalism was a battle-field strewn with +countless corpses; but none of the professed expositors of morality, +religion or politics gave heed to the wounded or the dead, or to the +conditions which produced these hideous and perpetual slaughters of men, +women and children. But to the victors, no matter what their methods +were, or how much desolation and death they left in their path, the +richest material rewards were awarded; wealth, luxury,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> station and +power; and the Law, the majestic, exalted Law, upheld these victors in +their possessions by force of courts, police, sheriffs, and by rifles +loaded with bullets if necessary.</p> + +<p>Thus, to recapitulate, the Astors debauched, swindled and murdered the +Indians; they defrauded the city of land and of taxes; they assisted in +corrupting legislatures; they profited from the ownership of blocks of +death-laden tenement houses; they certified to thieving administrations. +Once having wrested into their possession the results of all of these +and more fraudulent methods in the form of millions of dollars in +property, what was their strongest ally? The Law. Yes, the Law, +theoretically so impartial and so reverently indued with awe—and with +force. From fraud and force the Astor fortune came, and by force, in the +shape of law, it was fortified in their control. If a starving man had +gone into any one of the Astor houses and stolen even as much as a +silver spoon, the Law would have come to the rescue of outraged property +by sentencing him to prison. Or if, in case of a riot, the Astor +property was damaged, the Law also would have stepped in and compelled +the county to idemnify. This Law, this extraordinary code of print which +governs us, has been and is nothing more or less, it is evident, than so +many statutes to guarantee the retention of the proceeds of fraud and +theft, if the piracy were committed in a sufficiently large and +impressive way. The indisputable proof is that every single fortune +which has been obtained by fraud, is still privately held and is greater +than ever; the Law zealously and jealously guards it. So has the Law +practically worked; and if the thing is to be judged by its practical +results, then the Law has been an instigator of every form of crime, and +a bulwark of that which it instigated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> Seeing that this is so, it is +not so hard to understand that puzzling problem of why so large a +portion of the community has resolved itself into a committee of the +whole, and while nominally and solemnly professing the accustomed and +expected respect for Law, deprecates it, as it is constituted, and often +makes no concealment of contempt.</p> + +<h4>LAW THE STRONGEST ASSET.</h4> + +<p>In penetrating into the origin and growth of the great fortunes, this +vital fact is constantly forced upon the investigator: that Law has been +the most valuable asset possessed by the capitalist class. Without it, +this class would have been as helpless as a babe. What would the +medieval baron have been without armed force? But note how sinuously +conditions have changed. The capitalist class, far shrewder than the +feudalistic rulers, dispenses with personally equipped armed force. It +becomes superfluous. All that is necessary to do is to make the laws, +and so guide things that the officials who enforce the laws are +responsive to the interests of the propertied classes. Back of the laws +are police forces and sheriffs and militia all kept at the expense of +city, county and State—at public expense. Clearly, then, having control +of the laws and of the officials, the propertied classes have the full +benefit of armed forces the expense of which, however, they do not have +to defray. It has unfolded itself as a vast improvement over the crude +feudal system.</p> + +<p>In complete control of the laws, the great propertied classes have been +able either to profit by the enforcement, or by the violation, of them. +This is nowhere more strikingly shown than in the growth of the Astor +fortune, although all of the other great fortunes reveal the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> same, or +nearly identical, factors. With the millions made by a career of crime +the original Astors buy land; they get more land by fraud; the Law +throws its shield about the property so obtained. They cheat the city +out of enormous sums in taxation; the Law does not molest them. On the +contrary it allows them to build palaces and to keep on absorbing up +more forms of property. In 1875 William Astor builds a railroad in +Florida; and as a gift of appreciation, so it is told, the Florida +Legislature presents him with 80,000 acres of land. It is wholly +probable, if the underlying circumstances were known, that it would be +found that an influence more material than a simple burst of gratitude +prompted this gift. Where did the money come from with which this +railroad was built? And what was the source of other immense funds which +were invested in railroads, banks, industrial enterprises, in buying +more land and in mortgages—in many forms of ownership?</p> + +<p>The unsophisticated acceptor of current sophistries or the apologist +might reply that all this money came from legitimate business +transactions, the natural increase in the value of land, and thus on. +But waiving these superficial explanations and defenses, which really +mean nothing more than a forced justification, it is plain that the true +sources of these revenues were of a vastly different nature. The +millions in rents which flowed in to the Astor's treasury every year +came literally from the sweat, labor, misery and murder of a host of +men, women, and children who were never chronicled, and who went to +their death in eternal obscurity.</p> + +<h4>THE BASIS OF WEALTH'S STRUCTURE.</h4> + +<p>It was they who finally had to bear the cost of exorbitant rents; it was +their work, the products which they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> created, which were the bases of +the whole structure. And in speaking of murder, it is not deliberate, +premeditated murder which is meant, in the sense covered by statute, but +that much more insidious kind ensuing from grinding exploitation; in +herding human beings into habitations unfit even for animals which need +air and sunshine, and then in stubbornly resisting any attempt to +improve living conditions in these houses. In this respect, it cannot be +too strongly pointed out, the Astors were in nowise different from the +general run of landlords. Is it not murder when, compelled by want, +people are forced to fester in squalid, germ-filled tenements, where the +sunlight never enters and where disease finds a prolific breeding-place? +Untold thousands went to their deaths in these unspeakable places. Yet, +so far as the Law was concerned, the rents collected by the Astors, as +well as by other landlords, were honestly made. The whole institution of +Law saw nothing out of the way in these conditions, and very +significantly so, because, to repeat over and over again, Law did not +represent the ethics or ideals of advanced humanity; it exactly +reflected, as a pool reflects the sky, the demands and self-interest of +the growing propertied classes. And if here and there a law was passed +(which did not often happen) contrary to the expressed opposition of +property, it was either so emasculated as to be harmless or it was not +enforced.</p> + +<p>The direct sacrifice of human life, however, was merely one substratum +of the Astor fortune. It is very likely, if the truth were fully known, +that the stupendous sums in total that the Astors cheated in taxation, +would have been more than enough to have constructed a whole group of +railroads, or to have bought up whole sections of the outlying parts of +the city, or to have built dozens<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> of palaces. Incessantly they derived +immense rentals from their constantly expanding estate, and just as +persistently they perjured themselves, and defrauded the city, State and +Nation of taxes. It was not often that the facts were disclosed; +obviously the city or State officials, with whom the rich acted in +collusion, tried their best to conceal them.</p> + +<h4>GREAT THEFTS OF TAXES.</h4> + +<p>Occasionally, however, some fragments of facts were brought out by a +legislative investigating committee. Thus, in 1890, a State Senate +Committee, in probing into the affairs of the tax department, touched +upon disclosures which dimly revealed the magnitude of these annual +thefts, but which in nowise astonished any well-informed person, because +every one knew that these frauds existed. Questioned closely by William +M. Ivins, counsel for the committee, Michael Coleman, president of the +Board of Assessments and Taxes, admitted that vast stretches of real +estate owned by the Astors were assessed at half or less than half of +their real value.<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> Then followed this exchange, in which the +particular "Mr. Astor" referred to was not made clear:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Q.: You have just said that Mr. Astor never sold?</p> + +<p>A.: Once in a while he sells, yes.</p> + +<p>Q.: But the rule is that he does not sell?</p> + +<p>A.: Well, hardly ever; he has sold, of course.</p> + +<p>Q.: Isn't it almost a saying in this community that the Astors buy +and never sell?</p> + +<p>A.: They are not looked upon as people who dispose of real estate +after they once get possession of it.</p> + +<p>Q.: Have you the power to exact from them a statement of their +rent rolls?</p> + +<p>A.: No.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<p>Q.: Don't you think that ... if you are going to levy a tax +properly and fully ... you ought to be vested with that power to +learn what the returns and revenues of that property are?</p> + +<p>A.: No, sir; it's none of our business.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p></div> + +<p>This fraudulent evasion of taxation was anything but confined to the +Astor family. It was practiced by the entire large propertied interests, +not only in swindling New York City of taxes on real estate, but also +those on personal property. Coleman admitted that while the total +valuation of the personal property of all the corporations in New York +was assessed at $1,650,000,000, they were allowed to swear it down to +$294,000,000.</p> + +<p>Here we see again at work that fertile agency which has assisted in +impoverishing the masses. Rentals are exacted from them, which represent +on the average the fourth part of their wages. These rentals are based +upon the full assessment of the houses that they live in. In turn, the +landlords defraud the city of one-half of this assessment. In order to +make up for this continuous deprivation of taxes, the city proceeds time +and time again to increase taxes and put out interest-bearing bond +issues. These increased taxes, as in the case of all other taxes, fall +upon the workers and the results are seen in constantly rising rents and +in higher prices for all necessities.</p> + +<h4>LICENSED PIRACY RAMPANT.</h4> + +<p>Was any criminal action ever instituted against these rich defrauders? +None of which there is any record.</p> + +<p>Not a publicist, editor, preacher was there who did not know either +generally or specifically of these great frauds in taxation. Some of +them might protest in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> half-hearted, insincere or meaningless way. But +the propertied classes did not mind wordy criticism so long as it was +not backed by political action. In other words, they could afford to +tolerate, even be amused by, gusty denunciation if neither the laws were +changed, nor the particular enforcement or non-enforcement which they +demanded. The essential thing with them was to continue conditions by +which they could keep on defrauding.</p> + +<p>Virtually all that was considered best in society—the men and women who +lived in the finest mansions, who patronized art and the opera, who set +themselves up as paramount in breeding, manners, taste and fashions—all +of these were either parties to this continuous process of fraud or +benefited by it. The same is true of this class to-day; for the frauds +in taxation are of greater magnitude than ever before. It was not +astonishing, therefore, when John Jacob Astor II died in 1890, and +William Astor in 1892, that enconiums should be lavished upon their +careers. In all the accounts that appeared of them, not a word was there +of the real facts; of the corrupt grasping of city land; of the +debauching of legislatures and the manipulation of railroads; of their +blocks of tenements in which disease and death had reaped so rich a +harvest, or of their gigantic frauds in cheating the city of taxes. Not +a word of all of these.</p> + +<p>Without an exception the various biographies were fulsomely laudatory. +This excessive praise might have defeated the purpose of the authors +were it not that it was the fashion of the times to depict and accept +the multimillionaires as marvels of ability, almost superhuman. This was +the stuff fed out to the people; it was not to be wondered at that a +period came when the popular mind reacted and sought the opposite +extreme in which it laved in the most violent denunciations of the very +men whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> it had long been taught to revere. That period, too, passed to +be succeeded by another in which a more correct judgment will be formed +of the magnates, and in which they will appear not as exceptional +criminals, but as products of their times and environment, and in their +true relation to both of these factors.</p> + +<p>The fortune left by John Jacob Astor II in 1890 amounted to about +$150,000,000. The bulk of this descended to his son William Waldorf +Astor. The $75,000,000 fortune left by William Astor in 1892 was +bequeathed to his son John Jacob Astor. These cousins to-day hold the +greatest part of the collective Astor fortune.</p> + +<p>Having reached the present generation, we shall not attempt to enter +into a detailed narrative of their multifarious interests, embracing +land, railroads, industries, insurance and a vast variety of other forms +of wealth. The purpose of this work is to point out the circumstances +underlying the origin and growth of the great private fortunes; in the +case of the Astors this has been done sufficiently, perhaps overdone, +although many facts have been intentionally left out of these chapters +which might very properly have been included. But there are a few +remaining facts without which the story would not be complete, and +lacking which it might lose some significance.</p> + +<h4>THE ASTOR FORTUNE DOUBLES.</h4> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 389px;"> +<img src="images/ill_006.jpg" width="389" height="500" alt="WILLIAM WALDORF ASTOR. Now a British Subject, Self-Expatriated. He Derives an Enormous Income from His American Estate." title="" /> +<span class="caption">WILLIAM WALDORF ASTOR.<br />Now a British Subject, Self-Expatriated. He Derives an Enormous Income from His American Estate.</span> +</div> + +<p>We have seen how at William B. Astor's death in 1876 the Astor fortune +amounted to at least $100,000,000, probably much more. Within sixteen +years, by 1892, it had more than doubled in the hands of his two sons. +How was it possible to have added the extraordinary sum of $125,000,000 +in less than a decade and a half?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Individual ability did not +accomplish it; it is ludicrous to say that it could have done so. The +methods by which much of this increase was gathered in have already been +set forth. A large part came from the rise in the value of land, which +value arose not from the slightest act of the Astors, but from the +growth of the population and the labor of the whole body of workers. +This value was created by the producers, but far from owning or even +sharing in it, they were compelled to pay heavier and heavier tribute in +the form of rent for the very values which they had created. Had the +Astors or other landlords gone into a perpetual trance these values +would have been created just the same. Then, not content with +appropriating values which others created, the landlord class defrauded +the city of even the fractional part of these values, in the form of +taxation.</p> + +<p>Up to the present generation the Astors had never set themselves out as +"reformers" in politics. They had plundered right and left, but withal +had made no great pretenses. The fortune held by the Astors, so the +facts indubitably show, represents a succession of piracies and +exploitation. Very curious, therefore, it is to note that the Astors of +the present generation have avowed themselves most solicitous reformers +and have been members of pretentious, self-constituted committees +composed of the "best citizens," the object of which has been to purge +New York City of Tammany corruption. Leaving aside the Astors, and +considering the attitude of the propertied class as a whole, this posing +of the so-called better element as reformers has been, and is, one of +the most singular characteristics of American politics, and its most +colossal sham. Although continuously, with rare intermissions, the +landholders and the railroad and industrial magnates have been either +corrupting public officials or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> availing themselves of the benefits of +corrupt politics, many of them, not in New York alone, but in every +American city, have been, at the same time, metamorphosing themselves +into reformers. Not reformers, of course, in the true, high sense of the +word, but as ingenious counterfeits. With the most ardent professions of +civic purity and of horror at the prevailing corruption they have come +forward on occasions, clothed in a fine and pompous garb of +righteousness.</p> + +<h4>THE QUALITY OF "REFORMERS."</h4> + +<p>The very men who cheated cities, states and nation out of enormous sums +in taxation; who bribed, through their retainers, legislatures, common +councils and executive and administrative officials; who corruptly put +judges on the bench; who made Government simply an auxiliary to their +designs; who exacted heavy tribute from the people in a thousand ways; +who forced their employees to work for precarious wages and who bitterly +fought every movement for the betterment of the working classes—these +were the men who have made up these so-called "reform" committees, +precisely as to-day they constitute them.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>If there had been the slightest serious attempt to interfere with their +vested privileges, corruptly obtained and corruptly enhanced, and with +the vast amount of increment and graft that these privileges bought +them, they would have instantly raised the cry of revolutionary +confiscation. But they were very willing to put an end to the petty +graft which the politicians collected from saloons, brothels, peddlers, +and the small merchants, and thereby present themselves as respectable +and public-spirited citizens, appalled at the existing corruption. The +newspapers supported them in this attitude, and occasionally a +sufficient number of the voters would sustain their appeals and elect +candidates that they presented. The only real difference was that under +an openly corrupt machine they had to pay in bribes for franchises, laws +and immunity from laws, while under the "reform" administrations, which +represented, and toadied to, them, they often obtained all these and +more without the expenditure of a cent. It has often been much more +economical for them to have "reform" in power; and it is a well known +truism that the business-class reform administrations which are +popularly assumed to be honest, will go to greater lengths in selling +out the rights of the people than the most corrupt political machine, +for the reason that their administrations are not generally suspected of +corruption and therefore are not closely watched. Moreover, corruption +by bribes is not always the most effective kind. There is a much more +sinister form. It is that which flows from conscious class use of a +responsive government for insidious ends. Practically all of the +American "reform" movements have come within this scope.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<p>This is no place for a dissertation on these pseudo reform movements; it +is a subject deserving a special treatment by itself. But it is well to +advert to them briefly here since it is necessary to give constant +insights into the methods of the propertied class. Whether corruption or +"reform" administrations were in power the cheating of municipality and +State in taxation has gone on with equal vigor.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p> + +<h4>A VAST ANNUAL INCOME.</h4> + +<p>The collective Astor fortune, as we have said, amounts to $450,000,000. +This, however, is merely an estimate based largely upon their real +estate possessions. No one but the Astors themselves know what are their +holdings in bonds and stocks of every description. It is safe to venture +the opinion that their fortune far exceeds $450,000,000. Their surplus +wealth piles up so fast that a large part of it is incessantly being +invested in buying more land. Originally owning land in the lower part +of Manhattan, they then bought land in Yorkville, then added to their +possessions in Harlem, and later in the Bronx, in which part of New York +City they now own immense areas. Their estate is growing larger and +larger all the time.</p> + +<p>In rents in New York City alone it is computed that the Astors collect +twenty-five or thirty million dollars a year. The "Astor Estates" are +managed by a central office, the agent in charge of which is said to get +a salary of $50,000 a year. All the business details are attended to +entirely by this agent and his force of subordinates. Of these annual +rents a part is distributed among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> various members of the Astor +family according to the degree of their interest; the remainder is used +to buy more land.</p> + +<p>The Astor mansions rank among the most pretentious in the United States +and in Europe. The New York City residence long occupied by Mrs. William +Astor at Fifth avenue and Sixty-fifth street is one of extraordinary +luxury and grandeur. Adjoining and connected with it is the equally +sumptuous mansion of John Jacob Astor. In these residences, or rather +palaces, splendor is piled upon splendor. In Mrs. William Astor's +spacious ball-room and picture gallery, balls have been given, each +costing, it is said, $100,000. In cream and gold the picture gallery +spreads; the walls are profuse with costly paintings, and at one end is +a gallery in wrought iron where musicians give out melody on festive +occasions. The dining rooms of these houses are of an immensity. +Embellished in old oak incrusted with gold, their walls are covered with +antique tapestries set in huge oak framework with margins thick with +gold. Upon the diners a luxurious ceiling looks down, a blaze of color +upon black oak set off by masses of gold borders. Directly above the +center of the table are painted garlands of flowers and clusters of +fruit. In the hub of this representation is Mrs. Astor's monogram in +letters of gold. From the massive hall, with its reproductions of +paintings of Marie Antoinette and other old French court characters, its +statuary, costly vases and draperies, a wide marble stairway curves +gracefully upstairs. To dwell upon all of the luxurious aspects of these +residences would compel an extended series of details. In both of the +residences every room is a thing of magnificence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<h4>PROXIMITY OF PALACES AND POVERTY.</h4> + +<p>From these palaces it is but a step, as it were, to gaunt neighborhoods +where great parts of the population are crowded in the most inhuman way +into wretched tenement houses. It is an undeniable fact that more than +fifty blocks on Manhattan Island—each of which blocks is not much +larger than the space covered by the Astor mansions—have each a teeming +population of from 3,000 to 4,000 persons. In each of several blocks +6,000 persons are congested. In 1855, when conditions were thought bad +enough, 417,476 inhabitants were crowded into the section south of +Fourteenth street; but in 1907 this district contained fully 750,000 +population. Forty years ago the lower sections only of Manhattan were +overcrowded, but now the density of congestion has spread to all parts +of Manhattan, and to parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn. On an area of two +hundred acres in certain parts of New York City not less than 200,000 +people exist. It is not uncommon to find eighteen men, women, and +children, driven to it by necessity, sleeping in three small, +suffocating rooms.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill_007.jpg" width="500" height="335" alt="THE ASTOR MANSIONS IN NEW YORK CITY. Occupied by the Late Mrs. William Astor and by John Jacob Astor." title="" /> +<span class="caption">THE ASTOR MANSIONS IN NEW YORK CITY.<br />Occupied by the Late Mrs. William Astor and by John Jacob Astor.</span> +</div> + +<p>But the New York City residences of the Astors are only a mere portion +of their many palaces. They have impressive mansions, costing great +sums, at Newport. At Ferncliffe-on-the-Hudson John Jacob Astor has an +estate of two thousand acres. This country palace, built in chaste +Italian architecture, is fitted with every convenience and luxury. John +Jacob Astor's cousin, William Waldorf, some years since expatriated +himself from his native country and became a British subject. He bought +the Cliveden estate at Taplow, Bucks, England, the old seat of the Duke +of Westminster, the richest landlord in England. Thenceforth William +Waldorf<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> scorned his native land, and has never even taken the trouble +to look at the property in New York which yields him so vast a revenue. +This absentee landlord, for whom it is estimated not less than 100,000 +men, women and children directly toil, in the form of paying him rent, +has surrounded himself in England with a lofty feudal exclusiveness. +Sweeping aside the privilege that the general public had long enjoyed of +access to the Cliveden grounds, he issued strict orders forbidding +trespassing, and along the roads he built high walls surmounted with +broken glass. His son and heir, Waldorf Astor, has avowed that he also +will remain a British subject. William Waldorf Astor, it should be said, +is somewhat of a creator of public opinion; he owns a newspaper and a +magazine in London.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>The origin and successive development of the Astor fortune have been +laid bare in these chapters; not wholly so, by any means, for a mass of +additional facts have been left out. Where certain fundamental facts are +sufficient to give a clear idea of a presentation, it is not necessary +to pile on too much of an accumulation. And yet, such has been the +continued emphasis of property-smitten writers upon the thrift, honesty, +ability and sagacity of the men who built up the great fortunes, that +the impression generally prevails that the Astor fortune is preëminently +one of those amassed by legitimate means. These chapters should dispel +this illusion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_VIII" id="CHAPTER_II_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>OTHER LAND FORTUNES CONSIDERED</h3> + +<p>The founding and aggrandizement of other great private fortunes from +land were accompanied by methods closely resembling, or identical with, +those that the Astors employed.</p> + +<p>Next to the Astors' estate the Goelet landed possessions are perhaps the +largest urban estates in the United States in value. The landed property +of the Goelet family on Manhattan Island alone is estimated at fully +$200,000,000.</p> + +<h4>THE GOELET FORTUNE.</h4> + +<p>The founder of the Goelet fortune was Peter Goelet, an ironmonger during +and succeeding the Revolution. His grandfather, Jacobus Goelet, was, as +a boy and young man, brought up by Frederick Phillips, with whose career +as a promoter and backer of pirates and piracies, and as a briber of +royal officials under British rule, we have dealt in previous chapters. +Of Peter Goelet's business methods and personality no account is extant. +But as to his methods in obtaining land, there exists little obscurity. +In the course of this work it has already been shown in specific detail +how Peter Goelet in conjunction with John Jacob Astor, the Rhinelander +brothers, the Schermerhorns, the Lorillards and other founders of +multimillionaire dynasties, fraudulently secured great tracts of land, +during the early and middle parts of the last century, in either what +was then, or what is now, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> the heart of New York City. It is entirely +needless to iterate the narrative of how the city officials corruptly +gave over to these men land and water grants before that time +municipally owned—grants now having a present incalculable value.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a></p> + +<p>As was the case with John Jacob Astor, the fortune of the Goelets was +derived from a mixture of commerce, banking and ownership of land. +Profits from trade went toward buying more land, and in providing part +of corrupt funds with which the Legislature of New York was bribed into +granting banking charters, exemptions and other special laws. These +various factors were intertwined; the profits from one line of property +were used in buying up other forms and thus on, reversely and +comminglingly. Peter had two sons; Peter P., and Robert R. Goelet. These +two sons, with an eye for the advantageous, married daughters of Thomas +Buchanan, a rich Scotch merchant of New York City, and for a time a +director of the United States Bank. The result was that when their +father died, they not only inherited a large business and a very +considerable stretch of real estate, but, by means of their money and +marriage, were powerful dignitaries in the directing of some of the +richest and most despotic banks. Peter P. Goelet was for several years +one of the directors of the Bank of New York, and both brothers +benefited by the corrupt control of the United States Bank, and were +principals among the founders of the Chemical Bank.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>These brothers had set out with an iron determination to build up the +largest fortune they could, and they allowed no obstacles to hinder +them. When fraud was necessary they, like the bulk of their class, +unhesitatingly used it. In getting their charter for the notorious +Chemical Bank, they bribed members of the Legislature with the same +phlegmatic serenity that they would put through an ordinary business +transaction. This bank, as we have brought out previously, was chartered +after a sufficient number of members of the Legislature had been bribed +with $50,000 in stock and a large sum of money. Yet now that this bank +is one of the richest and most powerful institutions in the United +States, and especially as the criminal nature of its origin is unknown +except to the historic delver, the Goelets mention the connection of +their ancestors with it as a matter of great and just pride. In a +voluminous biography giving the genealogies of the rich families of New +York—material which was supplied and perhaps written by the families +themselves—this boast occurs in the chapter devoted to the Goelets: +"They were also numbered among the founders of that famous New York +financial institution, the Chemical Bank."<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> Thus do the crimes of +one generation become transformed into the glories of another! The stock +of the Chemical Bank, quoted at a fabulous sum, so to speak, is still +held by a small, compact group in which the Goelets are conspicuous.</p> + +<p>From the frauds of this bank the Goelets reaped large profits which +systematically were invested in New York City real estate. And +progressively their rentals from this land increased. Their policy was +much the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> as that of the Astors—constantly increasing their land +possessions. This they could easily do for two reasons. One was that +almost consecutively they, along with other landholders, corrupted city +governments to give them successive grants, and the other was their +enormous surplus revenue which kept piling up.</p> + +<h4>ONCE A FARM; NOW OF VAST VALUE.</h4> + +<p>When William B. Astor inherited in 1846 the greater part of his father's +fortune, the Goelet brothers had attained what was then the exalted rank +of being millionaires, although their fortune was only a fraction of +that of Astor. The great impetus to the sudden increase of their fortune +came in the period 1850-1870, through a tract of land which they owned +in what had formerly been the outskirts of the city. This land was once +a farm and extended from about what is now Union Square to Forty-seventh +street and Fifth avenue. It embraced a long section of Broadway—a +section now covered with huge hotels, business buildings, stores and +theaters. It also includes blocks upon blocks filled with residences and +aristocratic mansions. At first the fringe of New York City, then part +of its suburbs, this tract lay in a region which from 1850 on began to +take on great values, and which was in great demand for the homes of the +rich. By 1879 it was a central part of the city and brought high +rentals. The same combination of economic influences and pressure which +so vastly increased the value of the Astors' land, operated to turn this +quondam farm into city lots worth enormous sums. As population increased +and the downtown sections were converted into business sections, the +fashionables shifted their quarters from time to time, always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> pushing +uptown, until the Goelet lands became a long sweep of ostentatious +mansions.</p> + +<p>In imitation of the Astors the Goelets steadily adhered, as they have +since, to the policy of seldom or never selling any of their land. On +the other hand, they bought constantly. On one occasion they bought +eighty lots in the block from Fifth to Sixth avenues, Forty-second to +Forty-third streets. The price they paid was $600 a lot. These lots have +a present aggregate value of perhaps $15,000,000 or more, although they +are assessed at much less.</p> + +<h4>MISERS WITH MILLIONS.</h4> + +<p>The second generation of the Goelets—counting from the founder of the +fortune—were incorrigibly parsimonious. They reduced miserliness to a +supreme art. Likewise the third generation. Of Peter Goelet, a grandson +of the original Peter, many stories were current illustrating his +close-fistedness. His passion for economy was carried to such an +abnormal stage that he refused even to engage a tailor to mend his +garments.<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> He was unmarried, and generally attended to his own +wants. On several occasions he was found in his office at the Chemical +Bank industriously absorbed in sewing his coat. For stationery he used +blank backs of letters and envelopes which he carefully and +systematically saved and put away. His house at Nineteenth street, +corner of Broadway, was a curiosity shop. In the basement he had a +forge, and there were tools of all kinds over which he labored, while +upstairs he had a law library of 10,000 volumes, for it was a fixed, +cynical determination<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> of his never to pay a lawyer for advice that he +could himself get for the reading.</p> + +<p>Yet this miser, who denied himself many of the ordinary comforts and +conveniences of life, and who would argue and haggle for hours over a +trivial sum, allowed himself one expensive indulgence—expensive for +him, at least. He was a lover of fancy fowls and of animals. Storks, +pheasants and peacocks could be seen in the grounds about his house, and +also numbers of guinea pigs. In his stable he kept a cow to supply him +with fresh milk; he often milked it himself.</p> + +<p>This eccentric was very melancholy and, apart from his queer collection +of pets, cared for nothing except land and houses. Chancing in upon him +one could see him intently pouring over a list of his properties. He +never tired of doing this, and was petulantly impatient when houses +enough were not added to his inventory.</p> + +<p>He died in 1879 aged seventy-nine years; and within a few months, his +brother Robert, who was as much of an eccentric and miser in his way, +passed away in his seventieth year.</p> + +<h4>THE THIRD GENERATION.</h4> + +<p>The fortunes of the brothers descended to Robert's two sons, Robert, +born in 1841, and Ogden, born in 1846. These wielders of a fortune so +great that they could not keep track of it, so fast did it grow, +abandoned somewhat the rigid parsimony of the previous generations. They +allowed themselves a glittering effusion of luxuries which were +popularly considered extravagances but which were in nowise so, inasmuch +as the cost of them did not represent a tithe of merely the interest on +the principal. In that day, although but thirty years since, when none +but the dazzlingly rich could afford to keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> a sumptuous steam yacht in +commission the year round, Robert Goelet had a costly yacht, 300 feet +long, equipped with all the splendors and comforts which up to that time +had been devised for ocean craft. Between them, he and his brother Ogden +possessed a fortune of at least $150,000,000. The basic structure of +this was New York City land, but a considerable part was in railroad +stocks and bonds, and miscellaneous aggregations of other securities to +the purchase of which the surplus revenue had gone. Thus, like the +Astors and other rich landholders, partly by investments made in trade, +and largely by fraud, the Goelets finally became not only great +landlords but sharers in the centralized ownership of the country's +transportation systems and industries.</p> + +<p>When Ogden Goelet died he left a fortune of at least $80,000,000, +reckoning all of the complex forms of his property, and his brother, +Robert, dying in 1899, left a fortune of about the same amount. Two +children survived each of the brothers. Then was witnessed that +characteristic so symptomatic of the American money aristocracy. A +surfeit of money brings power, but it does not carry with it a +recognized position among a titled aristocracy. The next step is +marriage with title. The titled descendants of the predatory barons of +the feudal ages having, generation after generation, squandered and +mortgaged the estates gotten centuries ago by force and robbery, stand +in need of funds. On the other hand, the feminine possessors of American +millions, aided and abetted doubtless by the men of the family, who +generally crave a "blooded" connection, lust for the superior social +status insured by a title. The arrangement becomes easy. In marrying the +Duke of Roxburghe in 1903, May Goelet, the daughter of Ogden, was but +following the example set by a large number of other American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> women of +multimillionaire families. It is an indulgence which, however great the +superficial consequential money cost may be, is, in reality, +inexpensive. As fast as millions are dissipated they are far more than +replaced in these private coffers by the collective labor of the +American people through the tributary media of rent, interest and +profit. In the last ten years the value of the Goelet land holdings has +enormously increased, until now it is almost too conservative an +estimate to place the collective fortune at $200,000,000.</p> + +<p>This large fortune, as is that of the Astors and of other extensive +landlords, is not, as has been pointed out, purely one of land +possessions. Far from it. The invariable rule, it might be said, has +been to utilize the surplus revenues in the form of rents, in buying up +controlling power in a great number and variety of corporations. The +Astors are directors in a large array of corporations, and likewise +virtually all of the other big landlords. The rent-racked people of the +City of New York, where rents are higher proportionately than in any +other city, have sweated and labored and fiercely struggled, as have the +people of other cities, only to deliver up a great share of their +earnings to the lords of the soil, merely for a foothold. In turn these +rents have incessantly gone toward buying up railroads, factories, +utility plants and always more and more land.</p> + +<h4>WHERE SURPLUS REVENUE HAS GONE.</h4> + +<p>But the singular continuity does not end here. Land acquired by +political or commercial fraud has been made the lever for the commission +of other frauds. The railroads now controlled by a few men, among whom +the large landowners are conspicuous, were surveyed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> built to a +great extent by public funds, not private money. As time passes a +gradual transformation takes place. Little by little, scarcely known to +the people, laws are altered; the States and the Government, +representing the interests of the vested class, surrender the people's +rights, often even the empty forms of those rights, and great railroad +systems pass into the hands of a small cabal of multimillionaires.</p> + +<p>To give one of many instances: The Illinois Central Railroad, passing +through an industrial and rich farming country, is one of the most +profitable railroads in the United States. This railroad was built in +the proportion of twelve parts to one by public funds, raised by +taxation of the people of that State, and by prodigal gifts of public +land grants. The balance represents the investments of private +individuals. The cost of the road as reported by the company in 1873 was +$48,331 a mile. Of this amount all that private individuals contributed +was $4,930 a mile above their receipts; these latter were sums which the +private owners gathered in from selling the land given to them by the +State, amounting to $35,211 per mile, and the sums that they pocketed +from stock waterings amounting to $8,189 a mile. "The unsold land +grant," says Professor Frank Parsons, "amounted to 344,368 acres, worth +probably over $5,000,000, so that those to whom the securities of the +company were issued, had obtained the road at a bonus of nearly +$2,000,000 above all they paid in."<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p> + +<p>By this manipulation, private individuals not only got this immensely +valuable railroad for practically nothing, but they received, or rather +the laws (which they caused to be made) awarded them, a present of +nearly four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> millions for their dexterity in plundering the railroad +from the people. What set of men do we find now in control of this +railroad, doing with it as they please? Although the State of Illinois +formally retains a nominal say in its management, yet it is really owned +and ruled by eight men, among whom are John Jacob Astor, and Robert +Walton Goelet, associated with E. H. Harriman, Cornelius Vanderbilt and +four others. John Jacob Astor is one of the directors of the Western +Union Telegraph monopoly, with its annual receipts of $29,000,000 and +its net profits of $8,000,000 yearly; and as for the many other +corporations in which he and his family, the Goelets and the other +commanding landlords hold stock, they would, if enumerated, make a +formidable list.</p> + +<p>And while on this phase, we should not overlook another salient fact +which thrusts itself out for notice. We have seen how John Jacob Astor +of the third generation very eagerly in 1867 invited Cornelius +Vanderbilt to take over the management of the New York Central Railroad, +after Vanderbilt had proved himself not less an able executive than an +indefatigable and effective briber and corrupter. So long as Vanderbilt +produced the profits, Astor and his fellow-directors did not care what +means he used, however criminal in law and whatever their turpitude in +morals. John Jacob Astor of the fourth generation repeats this +performance in aligning himself, as does Goelet, with that master-hand +Harriman, against whom the most specific charges of colossal looting +have been brought.<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> But it would be both idle and prejudicial in the +highest degree to single out for condemnation a brace of capitalists for +following out a line of action<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> so strikingly characteristic of the +entire capitalist class—a class which, in the pursuit of profits, +dismisses nicety of ethics and morals, and which ordains its own laws.</p> + +<h4>THE RHINELANDERS.</h4> + +<p>The wealth of the Rhinelander family is commonly placed at about +$100,000,000. But this, there is excellent reason to believe, is an +absurdly low approximation. Nearly a century and a half ago William and +Frederick Rhinelander kept a bakeshop on William street, New York City, +and during the Revolution operated a sugar factory. They also built +ships and did a large commission business. It is usually set forth, in +the plenitude of eulogistic biographies, that their thrift and ability +were the foundation of the family's immense fortune. Little research is +necessary to shatter this error. That they conducted their business in +the accepted methods of the day and exercised great astuteness and +frugality, is true enough, but so did a host of other merchants whose +descendants are even now living in poverty. Some other explanation must +be found to account for the phenomenal increase of the original small +fortune and its unshaken retention.</p> + +<p>This explanation is found partly in the fraudulent means by which, +decade after decade, they secured land and water grants from venal city +administrations, and in the singularly dubious arrangement by which they +obtained an extremely large landed property, now having a value of tens +upon tens of millions, from Trinity Church. Since the full and itemized +details of these transactions have been elaborated upon in previous +chapters, it is hardly necessary to repeat them. It will be recalled +that, as important personages in Tammany Hall,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> the dominant political +party in New York City, the Rhinelanders used the powers of city +government to get grant after grant for virtually nothing. From Trinity +Church they got a ninety-nine year lease of a large tract in what is now +the very hub of the business section of New York City—which tract they +subsequently bought in fee simple. Another large tract of New York City +real estate came into their possession through the marriage of William +C. Rhinelander, of the third generation, to a daughter of John Rutgers. +This Rutgers was a lineal descendant of Anthony Rutgers, who, in 1731, +obtained from the royal Governor Cosby the gift of what was then called +the "Fresh Water Pond and Swamp"—a stretch of seventy acres of little +value at the time, but which is now covered with busy streets and large +commercial and office buildings. What the circumstances were that +attended this grant are not now known. The grant consisted of what are +now many blocks along Broadway north of Lispenard street. It is not +merely business sections which the Rhinelander family owns, however; +they derive stupendous rentals from a vast number of tenement houses.</p> + +<p>The Rhinelanders, also, employ their great surplus revenues in +constantly buying more land. With true aristocratic aspirations, they +have not been satisfied with mere plebeian American mansions, gorgeous +palaces though they be; they set out to find a European palace with +warranted royal associations, and found one in the famous castle of +Schonberg, on the Rhine, near Oberwesel, which they bought and where +they have ensconced themselves. How great the wealth of this family is +may be judged from the fact that one of the Rhinelanders—William—left +an estate valued at $50,000,000 at his death in December, 1907.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<h4>THE SCHERMERHORNS.</h4> + +<p>The factors entering into the building up of the Schermerhorn fortune +were almost identical with those of the Astor, the Goelet and the +Rhinelander fortunes. The founder, Peter Schermerhorn, was a ship +chandler during the Revolution. Parts of his land and other possessions +he bought with the profits from his business; other portions, as has +been brought out, he obtained from corrupt city administrations. His two +sons continued the business of ship chandlers; one of them—"Peter the +Younger"—was especially active in extending his real estate +possessions, both by corrupt favors of the city officials and by +purchase. One tract of land, extending from Third avenue to the East +River and from Sixty-fourth to Seventy-fifth street, which he secured in +the early part of the nineteenth century, became worth a colossal +fortune in itself. It is now covered with stores, buildings and densely +populated tenement houses. "Peter the Younger" quickly gravitated into +the profitable and fashionable business of the day—the banking +business, with its succession of frauds, many of which have been +described in the preceding chapters. He was a director of the Bank of +New York from 1814 until his death in 1852.</p> + +<p>It seems quite superfluous to enlarge further upon the origin of the +great landed fortunes of New York City; the typical examples given +doubtless serve as expositions of how, in various and similar ways, +others were acquired. We shall advert to some of the great fortunes in +the West based wholly or largely upon city real estate.</p> + +<p>While the Astors, the Goelets, the Rhinelanders and others, or rather +the entire number of inhabitants, were transmuting their land into vast +and increasing wealth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> expressed in terms of hundreds of millions in +money, Nicholas Longworth was aggrandizing himself likewise in +Cincinnati.</p> + +<h4>HOW LONGWORTH BEGAN.</h4> + +<p>Longworth had been born in Newark, N. J., in 1782, and at the age of +twenty-one had migrated to Cincinnati, then a mere outpost, with a +population of eight hundred sundry adventurers. There he studied law and +was admitted to practice. The story of how Longworth became a landowner +is given by Houghton as follows: His first client was a man accused of +horse stealing. In those frontier days, a horse represented one of the +most valuable forms of property; and, as under a system wherein human +life was inconsequential compared to the preservation of property, the +penalty for stealing a horse was usually death. No term of reproach was +more invested with cutting contempt and cruel hatred than that of a +horse thief. The case looked black. But Longworth somehow contrived to +get the accused off with acquittal. The man—so the story further +runs—had no money to pay Longworth's fee and no property except two +second-hand copper stills. These also were high in the appraisement of +property values, for they could be used to make whisky, and whisky could +be in turn used to debauch the Indian tribes and swindle them of furs +and land. These stills Longworth took and traded them off to Joel +Williams, a tavern-keeper who was setting up a distillery. In exchange, +Longworth received thirty-three acres of what was then considered +unpromising land in the town.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> From time to time he bought more land +with the money made in law; this land<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> lay on what were then the +outskirts of the place. Some of the lots cost him but ten dollars each.</p> + +<p>As immigration swarmed West and Cincinnati grew, his land consequently +took on enhanced value. By 1830 the population was 24,831; twenty years +later it had reached 118,761, and in 1860, 171,293 inhabitants. For a +Western city this was a very considerable population for the period. The +growth of the city kept on increasingly. His land lay in the very center +of the expanding city, in the busiest part of the business section and +in the best portion of the residential districts. Indeed, so rapidly did +its value grow soon after he got it, that it was no longer necessary for +him to practice law or in any wise crook to others. In 1819 he gave up +law, and thenceforth gave his entire attention to managing his property. +An extensive vineyard, which he laid out in Ohio, added to his wealth. +Here he cultivated the Catawba grape and produced about 150,000 bottles +a year.</p> + +<p>All available accounts agree in describing him as merciless. He +foreclosed mortgages with pitiless promptitude, and his adroit knowledge +of the law, approaching if not reaching, that of an unscrupulous +pettifogger, enabled him to get the upper hand in every transaction. His +personal habits were considered repulsive by the conventional and +fastidious. "He was dry and caustic in his remarks," says Houghton, "and +very rarely spared the object of his satire. He was plain and careless +in his dress, looking more a beggar than a millionaire."</p> + +<h4>HIS VAGARIES—SO CALLED.</h4> + +<p>There were certain other conventional respects in which he was woefully +deficient, and he had certain singularities which severely taxed the +comprehension of routine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> minds. None who had the appearance of +respectable charity seekers could get anything else from him than +contemptuous rebuffs. For respectability in any form he had no use; he +scouted and scoffed at it and pulverized it with biting and grinding +sarcasm. But once any man or woman passed over the line of +respectability into the besmeared realm of sheer disrepute, and that +person would find Longworth not only accessible but genuinely +sympathetic. The drunkard, the thief, the prostitute, the veriest wrecks +of humanity could always tell their stories to him and get relief. This +was his grim way of striking back at a commercial society whose lies and +shams and hypocrisies he hated; he knew them all; he had practiced them +himself. There is good reason to believe that alongside of his one +personality, that of a rapacious miser, there lived another personality, +that of a philosopher.</p> + +<p>Certainly he was a very unique type of millionaire, much akin to Stephen +Girard. He had a clear notion (for he was endowed with a highly +analytical and penetrating mind) that in giving a few coins to the +abased and the wretched he was merely returning in infinitesimal +proportion what the prevailing system, of which he was so conspicuous an +exemplar, took from the whole people for the benefit of a few; and that +this system was unceasingly turning out more and more wretches.</p> + +<p>Long after Longworth had become a multimillionaire he took a savage, +perhaps a malicious, delight in doing things which shocked all current +conceptions of how a millionaire should act. To understand the intense +scandal caused by what were considered his vagaries, it is only +necessary to bear in mind the ultra-lofty position of a multimillionaire +at a period when a man worth $250,000 was thought very rich. There were +only a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> millionaires in the United States, and still fewer +multimillionaires. Longworth ranked next to John Jacob Astor. On one +occasion a beggar called at Longworth's office and pointed eloquently at +his gaping shoes. Longworth kicked off one of his own untied shoes and +told the beggar to try it on. It fitted. Its mate followed. Then after +the beggar left, Longworth sent a boy to the nearest shoe store, with +instructions to get a pair of shoes, but in no circumstances to pay more +than a dollar and a half.</p> + +<p>This remarkable man lived to the age of eighty-one; when he died in 1863 +in a splendid mansion which he had built in the heart of his vineyard, +his estate was valued at $15,000,000. He was the largest landowner in +Cincinnati, and one of the largest in the cities of the United States. +The value of the land that he bequeathed has increased continuously; in +the hands of his various descendants to-day it is many times more +valuable than the huge fortune which he left. Cincinnati, with its +population of 325,902,<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> pays incessant tribute in the form of a vast +rent roll to the scions of the man whose main occupation was to hold on +to the land he had got for almost nothing. Unlike the founder of the +fortune the present Longworth generation never strays from the set +formulas of respectability; it has intermarried with other rich +families: and Nicholas, a namesake and grandson of the original, and a +representative in Congress, married in circumstances of great and lavish +pomp a daughter of President Roosevelt, thus linking a large fortune, +based upon vested interests, with the ruling executive of the day and +strategically combining wealth with direct political power.</p> + +<p>The same process of reaping gigantic fortunes from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> land went on in +every large city. In Chicago, with its phenomenally speedy growth of +population and its vast array of workers, immense fortunes were amassed +within an astonishingly short period. Here the growth of large private +fortunes was marked by much greater celerity than in the East, although +these fortunes are not as large as those based upon land in the Eastern +cities.</p> + +<h4>MARSHALL FIELD AND LEITER.</h4> + +<p>The largest landowners that developed in Chicago were Marshall Field and +Levi Z. Leiter. In 1895 the Illinois Labor Bureau, in that year +happening to be under the direction of able and conscientious officials, +made a painstaking investigation of land values in Chicago. It was +estimated that the 266 acres of land, constituting what was owned by +individuals and private corporations in one section alone—the South +Side,—were worth $319,000,000. This estimate was made at a time when +the country was slowly recovering, as the set phrase goes, from the +panic of 1892-94, and when land values were not in a state of inflation +or rise. The amount of $319,000,000 was calculated as being solely the +value of the land, not counting improvements, which were valued at as +much more. The principal landowner in this one section, not to mention +other sections of that immense city, was Marshall Field, with +$11,000,000 worth of land; the next was Leiter, who owned in that +section land valued at $10,500,000.<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> It appeared from this report +that eighteen persons owned $65,000,000 of this $319,000,000 worth of +land, and that eighty-eight persons owned $136,000,000 worth—or +one-half of the entire business center of Chicago. Doubling the sums +credited to Field<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> and Leiter (that is to say, adding the value of the +improvements to the value of the land), this brought Field's real estate +in that one section to a value of $22,000,000, and Leiter's to nearly +the same. This estimate was confirmed to a surprising degree by the +inventory of Field's executors reported to the court early in 1907. The +executors of Field's will placed the value of his real estate in Chicago +at $30,000,000. This estimate did not include $8,000,000 worth of land +which the executors reported that he owned in New York City, nor the +millions of dollars of his land possessions elsewhere.</p> + +<h4>FIELD'S MANY POSSESSIONS.</h4> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 391px;"> +<img src="images/ill_008.jpg" width="391" height="500" alt="MARSHALL FIELD." title="" /> +<span class="caption">MARSHALL FIELD.</span> +</div> + +<p>Field left a fortune of about $100,000,000 (as estimated by the +executors) which he bequeathed principally to two grandsons, both of +which heirs were in boyhood. The factors constituting this fortune are +various. At least $55,000,000 of it was represented at the time that the +executors made their inventory, by a multitude of bonds and stocks in a +wide range of diverse industrial, transportation, utility and mining +corporations. The variety of Field's possessions and his numerous forms +of ownership were such that we shall have pertinent occasion to deal +more relevantly with his career in subsequent parts of this work.</p> + +<p>The careers of Field, Leiter and several other Chicago multimillionaires +ran in somewhat parallel grooves. Field was the son of a farmer. He was +born in Conway, Mass., in 1835. When twenty-one he went to Chicago and +worked in a wholesale dry goods house. In 1860 he was made a partner. +During the Civil War this firm, as did the entire commercial world, +proceeded to hold up the nation for exorbitant prices in its contracts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +at a time of distress. The Government and the public were forced to pay +the highest sums for the poorest material. It was established that +Government officials were in collusion with the contractors. This +extortion formed one of the saddest and most sordid chapters of the +Civil War (as it does of all wars,) but conventional history is silent +on the subject, and one is compelled to look elsewhere for the facts of +how the commercial houses imposed at high prices shoddy material and +semi-putrid food upon the very army and navy that fought for their +interests.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> In the words of one of Field's laudatory biographers, +"the firm coined money"—a phrase which for the volumes of significant +meaning embodied in it, is an epitome of the whole profit system.</p> + +<p>Some of the personnel of the firm changed several times: in 1865 Field, +Leiter and Potter Palmer (who had also become a multimillionaire) +associated under the firm name of Field, Leiter & Palmer. The great fire +of 1871 destroyed the firm's buildings, but they were replaced. +Subsequently the firm became Field, Leiter & Co., and, finally in 1887, +Marshall Field & Co.<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> The firm conducted both a wholesale and retail +business on what is called in commercial slang "a cash basis:" that is, +it sold goods on immediate payment and not on credit. The volume of its +business rose to enormous proportions. In 1884 it reached an aggregate +of $30,000,000 a year; in 1901 it was estimated at fully $50,000,000 a +year.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_IX" id="CHAPTER_II_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE FIELD FORTUNE IN EXTENSO</h3> + +<p>In close similarity to the start of the Astors and many other founders +of great land fortunes, commerce was the original means by which +Marshall Field obtained the money which he invested in land. +Consecutively came a ramification of other revenue-producing properties. +Once in motion, the process worked in the same admixed, interconnected +way as it did in the amassing of contemporary large fortunes. It may be +literally compared to hundreds of golden streams flowing from as many +sources to one central point. From land, business, railroads, street +railways, public utility and industrial corporations—from these and +many other channels, prodigious profits kept, and still keep, pouring in +ceaselessly. In turn, these formed ever newer and widening distributing +radii of investments. The process, by its own resistless volition, +became one of continuous compound progression.</p> + +<h3>LAND FOR ALMOST NOTHING.</h3> + +<p>Long before the business of the firm of Marshall Field & Co. had +reached the annual total of $50,000,000, Field, Leiter and their +associates had begun buying land in Chicago. Little capital was +needed for the purpose: The material growth of Chicago explains +sufficiently how a few dollars put in land fifty or sixty years ago +became in time an automatically-increasing fund of millions. A century +or so ago the log cabin of John Kinzie was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> only habitation on a +site now occupied by a swarming, conglomerate, rushing population of +1,700,000.<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> Where the prairie land once stretched in solitude, a +huge, roaring, choking city now stands, black with factories, the +habitat of nearly two millions of human beings, living in a whirlpool of +excitement and tumult, presenting extremes of wealth and poverty, the +many existing in dire straits, the few rolling in sovereign luxury. A +saying prevails in Chicago that the city now holds more millionaires +than it did voters in 1840.</p> + +<p>Land, in the infancy of the city, was cheap; few settlers there were, +and the future could not be foreseen. In 1830 one-quarter of an acre +could be bought for $20; a few bits of silver, or any currency +whatsoever, would secure to the buyer a deed carrying with it a title +forever, with a perpetual right of exclusive ownership and a perpetual +hold upon all succeeding generations. The more population grew, the +greater the value their labor gave the land; and the keener their need, +the more difficult it became for them to get land.</p> + +<p>Within ten years—by about the beginning of the year 1840—the price of +a quarter of an acre in the center of the city had risen to $1,500. A +decade later the established value was $17,500, and in 1860, $28,000. +Chicago was growing with great rapidity; a network of railroads +converged there; mammoth factories, mills, grain elevators, packing +houses:—a vast variety of manufacturing and mercantile concerns set up +in business, and brought thither swarms of workingmen and their +families, led on by the need of food and the prospects of work. The +greater the influx of workers, the more augmented became the value of +land. Inevitably the greatest congestion of living resulted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>By 1870 the price of a quarter of an acre in the heart of the city +bounded to $120,000, and by 1880, to $130,000.</p> + +<h3>IT BECOMES WORTH MILLIONS.</h3> + +<p>During the next decade—a decade full of bitter distress to the working +population of the United States, and marked by widespread suffering—the +price shot up to $900,000. By 1894—a panic year, in which millions of +men were out of work and in a state of appalling destitution—a quarter +of an acre reached the gigantic value of $1,250,000.<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> At this +identical time large numbers of the working class, which had so largely +created this value, were begging vainly for work, and were being evicted +by the tens of thousands in Chicago because they could not pay rent for +their miserable, cramped habitations.</p> + +<p>By exchanging a few hundred, or a few thousand dollars, in Chicago's +extreme youth, for a scrap of paper called a deed, the buyer of this +land found himself after the lapse of years, a millionaire. It did not +matter where or how he obtained the purchase money: whether he swindled, +or stole, or inherited it, or made it honestly;—so long as it was not +counterfeit, the law was observed. After he got the land he was under no +necessity of doing anything more than hold on to it, which same he could +do equally well, whether in Chicago or buried in the depths of +Kamschatka. If he chose, he could get chronically drunk; he could +gamble, or drone in laziness; he could do anything but work. +Nevertheless, the land and all its values which others created, were his +forever, to enjoy and dispose of as suited his individual pleasure.</p> + +<p>This was, and is still, the system. Thoroughly riveted in law, it was +regarded as a rational, beneficent and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> everlasting fixture of civilized +life—by the beneficiaries. And as these latter happened to be, by +virtue of their possessions, among the real rulers of government, their +conceptions and interests were embodied in law, thought and custom as +the edict of civilization. The whole concurrent institutions of society, +which were but the echo of property interests, pronounced the system +wise and just, and, as a reigning force, do still so proclaim it. In +such a state there was nothing abnormal in any man monopolizing land and +exclusively appropriating its revenues. On the contrary, it was +considered a superior stroke of business, a splendid example of +astuteness. Marshall Field was looked upon as a very sagacious business +man.</p> + +<h3>FIELD'S REAL ESTATE TRACTS.</h3> + +<p>Field bought much land when it was of comparatively inconsequential +value, and held on to it with a tenacious grip. In the last years of his +life, his revenues from his real estate were uninterruptedly enormous.</p> + +<p>"Downtown real estate in Chicago," wrote "a popular writer" in a +typically effusive biographical account of Field, published in 1901, "is +about as valuable, foot for foot, as that in the best locations in New +York City. From $8,000 to $15,000 a front foot are not uncommon figures +for property north of Congress street, in the Chicago business district. +Marshall Field owns not less than twenty choice sites and buildings in +this section; not including those used for his drygoods business. In the +vicinity of the Chicago University buildings he owns square block after +block of valuable land. Yet farther south he owns hundreds of acres of +land in the Calumet region—land invaluable for manufacturing +purposes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> + +<p>This extension and centralization of land ownership were accompanied by +precisely the same results as were witnessed in other cities, although +these results were the sequence of the whole social and industrial +system, and not solely of any one phase. Poverty grew in exact +proportion to the growth of large fortunes; the one presupposed, and was +built upon, the existence of the other. Chicago became full of slums and +fetid, overcrowded districts; and if the density and congestion of +population are not as great as in New York, Boston and Cincinnati, it is +only because of more favorable geographical conditions.</p> + +<p>Field's fortune was heaped up in about the last twenty years of his +life. The celerity of its progress arose from the prolific variety and +nature of his possessions. To form even an approximate idea of how fast +wealth came in to him, it is necessary to picture millions of men, women +and children toiling day after day, year in and year out, getting a +little less than two parts of the value of what they produced, while +almost nine portions either went to him entirely or in part. But this +was not all. Add to these millions of workers the rest of the population +of the United States who had to buy from, or in some other way pay +tribute to, the many corporations in which Field held stock, and you get +some adequate conception of the innumerable influxions of gold which +poured into Field's coffers every minute, every second of the day, +whether he were awake or asleep; whether sick or well, whether traveling +or sitting stock still.</p> + +<h3>HIS INCOME: $500 TO $700 AN HOUR.</h3> + +<p>This one man had the legal power of taking over to himself, as his +inalienable property, his to enjoy, hoard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> squander, bury, or throw in +the ocean, if his fancy so dictated, the revenue produced by the labor +of millions of beings as human as he, with the same born capacity for +eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping and dying. Many of his workers had +a better digestive apparatus which had to put up with inferior food, +and, at times, no food at all. He could eat no more than three meals a +day, but his daily income was enough to have afforded him ten thousand +sumptuous daily meals, with exquisite "trimmings," while periods came +when those who drudged for him were fortunate to have any meals at all. +Few of his workers received as much as $2 a day; Field's income was +estimated to be at the rate of about $500 to $700 an hour.</p> + +<p>First—and of prime importance—was his wholesale and retail drygoods +business. This was, and is, a line of business in which frantic +competition survived long after the manufacturing field had passed over +into concentrated trust control. To keep apace with competitors and make +high profits, it was imperative not only to resort to shifts, expedients +and policies followed by competitors, but to improve upon, and surpass, +those methods if possible. Field at all times proved that it was +possible. No competing firm would pay a certain rate of wages but what +Field instantly outgeneraled it by cutting his workers' wages to a point +enabling him to make his goods as cheap or cheaper.</p> + +<h3>HIS EMPLOYEES' WRETCHED WAGES.</h3> + +<p>In his wholesale and retail stores he employed not less than ten +thousand men, women and children. He compelled them to work for wages +which, in a large number of cases, were inadequate even for a bare +subsistence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> Ninety-five per cent. received $12 a week or less. The +female sewing-machine operators who bent over their tasks the long day, +making the clothes sold in the Field stores, were paid the miserable +wages of $6.75 a week. Makers of socks and stockings were paid from +$4.57 to $4.75 a week. The working hours consisted variously of from +fifty-nine to fifty-nine and a half a week. Field also manufactured his +own furniture as well as many other articles. Furniture workers were +paid: Machine workers, $11.02, and upholsterers $12.47 a week. All of +Field's wage workers were paid by the hour; should they fall sick, or +work become slack, their pay was proportionately reduced.</p> + +<p>The wretchedness in which many of these workers lived, and in which they +still live (for the same conditions obtain), was pitiful in the extreme. +Even in a small town where rent is not so high, these paltry wages would +have been insufficient for an existence of partial decency. But in +Chicago, with its forbidding rents, the increasing cost of all +necessaries, and all of the other expenses incident to life in a large +city, their wages were notoriously scanty.</p> + +<p>Large numbers of them were driven to herding in foul tenements or evil +dwellings, the inducements of which was the rent, a little lighter than +could be had elsewhere. Every cent economized meant much. If an +investigator (as often happened) had observed them, and had followed +them to their wretched homes after their day's work, he would have +noted, or learned of, these conditions: Their food was circumscribed and +coarse—the very cheapest forms of meat, and usually stale bread. Butter +was a superfluous luxury. The morning meal was made up of a chunk of +bread washed down with "coffee"—adulterated stuff with just a faint +odor of real coffee. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> noon, bread and an onion, or a bit of herring, +or a slice of cheap cheese composed their dinner, with perhaps a dash of +dessert in the shape of sweetened substance, artificially colored, sold +as "cake." For supper, cheap pork, or a soup bone, garnished +occasionally in the season by stale vegetables, and accompanied by a +concoction resembling tea. Few of these workers ever had more than one +suit of clothes, or more than one dress. They could not afford +amusements, and were too fatigued to read or converse. At night bunches +of them bunked together—sometimes eight or ten in a single room; by +this arrangement the rent of each was proportionately reduced.</p> + +<p>It is now we come to a sinister result of these methods of exploiting +the wage-working girls and women. The subject is one that cannot be +approached with other than considerable hesitancy, not because the facts +are untrue, but because its statistical nature has not been officially +investigated. Nevertheless, the facts are known; stern, inflexible +facts. For true historical accuracy, as well as for purposes of +humanity, they must be given; that delicacy would be false, misleading +and palliative which would refrain from tearing away the veil and from +exposing the putridity beneath.</p> + +<p>Field was repeatedly charged with employing his workers at such +desperately low wages as to drive large numbers of girls and women, by +the terrifying force of poverty, into the alternative of prostitution. +How large the number has been, or precisely what the economic or +psychologic factors have been, we have no means of knowing. It is worth +noting that many official investigations, futile though their results, +have probed into many other phases of capitalist fraud. But the +department stores over the country have been a singular exception.</p> + +<p>Why this partiality? Because the public is never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> allowed to get +agitated over the methods and practices of the department stores. Hence +the politicians are neither forced, for the sake of appearance, to +investigate, nor can they make political capital from a thing over which +the people are not aroused. Not a line of the horrors taking place in +the large department stores is ever reported in the newspapers, not a +mention of the treatment of girls and women, not a word of the +injunctions frequently obtained restraining these stores from continuing +to sell this or that brand of spurious goods in imitation of those of +some complaining capitalist, or of the seizures by Health Boards of +adulterated drugs or foods.</p> + +<p>Wherefore this silence? Because, unsophisticated reader, these same +department stores are the largest and steadiest advertisers. The +newspapers, which solemnly set themselves up as moral, ethical, and +political instructors to the public, sell all the space desired to +advertise goods many of which are fraudulent in nature or weight. Not a +line objectionable to these department stores ever gets into newspaper +print; on the contrary, the owners of these stores, by the bludgeon of +their immense advertising, have the power, within certain limitations, +of virtually acting as censors. The newspapers, whatever their +pretensions, make no attempt to antagonize the powers from whom so large +a portion of their revenue comes. It is a standing rule in newspaper +offices in the cities, that not a specific mention of any unfavorable or +discreditable matter occurring in department stores, or affecting the +interests of the proprietors of those stores, is allowed to get into +print. Thus it is that the general public are studiously kept in +ignorance of the abominations incessantly going on in the large +department stores.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + +<h3>OUTCASTS RATHER THAN SLAVES.</h3> + +<p>Notwithstanding this community of silence, in some respects akin to a +huge compounded system of blackmail, it is generally known that +department stores are often breeding stations of prostitution by reason +of two factors—extremely low wages and environment. There can be no +disputing the fact that these two working together, and perhaps +superinduced by other compelling influences, do bring about a condition +the upshot of which is prostitution. Such supine reports as those of the +Consumers' League, an organization of well-disposed dilletantes, and of +superficial purposes, give no insight into the real estate of affairs. +In his rather sensational and vitriolic raking of Chicago, W. T. Stead +strongly deals with the effects of department store conditions in +filling the ranks of prostitutes. He quotes Dora Claflin, the +proprietress of a brothel, as saying that such houses as hers obtained +their inmates from the stores, those in particular where hours were long +and the pay small.<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a></p> + +<p>Mockery of mockeries that in this era of civilization, so-called, a +system should prevail that yields far greater returns from selling the +body than from honest industry!</p> + +<p>It has been estimated that the number of young women who receive $2,500 +in one year by the sale of their persons is larger than the number of +women of all ages,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> in all businesses and professions, who make a +similar sum by work of mind or hand.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> But one of the most +significant recognitions of the responsibility of department stores for +the prevalence of prostitution, was the act of a member of the Illinois +legislature, a few years ago, in introducing a resolution (which failed +to pass) to investigate the department stores of Chicago on the ground +that conditions in them led to a shocking state of immorality. The +statement has been repeatedly made that nearly one-half of the outcast +girls and women of Chicago have come from the department stores.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p><p>It was not only by these methods that the firm of Marshall Field & Co. +was so phenomenally successful in making money. In the background were +other methods which belong to a different category. Whatever Field's +practices—and they were venal and unscrupulous to a great degree, as +will be shown—he was an astute organizer. He understood how to +manipulate and use other men, and how to centralize business, and cut +out the waste and junket of mercantile operations. In the evolutionary +scheme of business he played his important part and a very necessary +part it was, for which he must be given full credit. His methods, base +as they were, were in no respect different from those of the rest of the +commercial world, as a whole. The only difference was that he was more +conspicuous and more successful.</p> + +<h3>CENTERING ALL PROFITS IN HIMSELF.</h3> + +<p>At a time when all business was run on the chaotic and desultory lines +characteristic of the purely competitive age, he had the foresight and +shrewdness to perceive that the storekeeper who depended upon the jobber +and the manufacturer for his goods was largely at the mercy of those +elements. Even if he were not, there were two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> sets of profits between +him and the making of the goods—the jobber's profits and the +manufacturer's.</p> + +<p>Years before this vital fact was impressed upon the minds of the +floundering retailers, Field understood, and acted upon, it. He became +his own manufacturer and jobber. Thus he was complacently able to supply +his department store with many goods at cost, and pocket the profits +that otherwise would have gone to jobber and manufacturer. In, however, +the very act of making three sets of profits, while many other stores +made only one set, Field paid his employees at the retail store rate; +that is to say, he paid no more in wages than the store which had to buy +often from the jobber, who in turn, purchased from the manufacturer. +With this salient fact in mind, one begins to get a clear insight into +some of the reasons why Field made such enormous profits, and an +understanding of the consequent contrast of his firm doing a business of +$50,000,000 a year while thousands of his employees had to work for a +wretched pittance. He could have afforded to have paid them many times +more than they were getting and still would have made large profits. But +this would have been an imbecilic violation of that established canon of +business: Pay your employees as little as you can, and sell your goods +for the highest price you can get.</p> + +<p>Field was one of the biggest dry goods manufacturers in the world. He +owned, says a writer, scores of enormous factories in England, Ireland +and Scotland. "The provinces of France," this eulogist goes on, "are +dotted with his mills. The clatter of the Marshall Field looms is heard +in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and Russia. Nor is the Orient +neglected by this master of fabrics. Plodding Chinese and the skilled +Japs are numbered by the thousands on the payroll of the Chicago +merchant and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> manufacturer. On the other side of the equator are vast +woolen mills in Australia, and the chain extends to South America, with +factories in Brazil and in other of our neighboring republics."</p> + +<p>In all of these factories the labor of men, women and children was +harshly exploited; in nearly all of them the workers were in an +unorganized state, and therefore deprived of every vestige of +self-protection. Boys and girls of tenderest age were mercilessly ground +into dollars; their young life's blood dyed deep the fabrics which +brought Field riches. In this dehumanizing business Field was only doing +what the entire commercial aristocracy the world over was doing.</p> + +<p>How extraordinarily profitable the business of Marshall Field & Co. was +(and is), may be seen in the fact that its shares (it became an +incorporated stock company) were worth $1,000 each. At his death +Marshall Field owned 3,400 of these shares, which the executors of his +estate valued at $3,400,000. That the exploitation of labor, the sale of +sweatshop and adulterated goods, and many other forms of oppression or +fraud were a consecutive and integral part of his business methods is +undeniable. But other factors, distinctly under the ban of the law, +afford an additional explanation of how he was able to undersell petty +competitors, situated even at a distance. What all of these factors were +is not a matter of public knowledge. At least one of them came to light +when, on December 4, 1907, D. R. Anthony, a representative in Congress +from Kansas, supplied evidence to Postmaster-General Meyer that the +house of Marshall Field & Co. had enjoyed, and still had, the privilege +of secret discriminatory express rates in the shipment of goods. This +charge, if sustained, was a clear violation of the law; but these +violations by the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> propertied interests were common, and entailed, +at the worst, no other penalty than a nominal fine.</p> + +<p>From such sources came the money with which he became a large +landowner. Also, from the sources enumerated, came the money with +which he and his associates debauched politics, and bribed common +councils and legislatures to present them with public franchises +for street and elevated railways, gas, telephone and electric light +projects—franchises intrinsically worth incalculable sums.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> With +the money squeezed out of his legions of poverty-stricken employees and +out of his rent-racked tenants he became an industrial monarch. The +inventory of his estates filed in court by his executors revealed that +he owned stocks and bonds in about one hundred and fifty corporations. +This itemized list showed that he owned many millions of bonds and +stocks in railroads with the construction and operation of which he had +nothing to do. The history of practically all of them reeks with thefts +of public and private money; corruption of common councils, of +legislatures, Congress and of administrative officials; land grabbing, +fraud, illegal transactions, violence, and oppression not only of their +immediate workers, but of the entire population.<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> He owned—to give +a few instances—$1,500,000 of Baltimore and Ohio stock; $600,000 of +Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe; $1,860,000 of Chicago and Northwestern, +and tens of millions more of the stock or bonds of about fifteen other +railroads.</p> + +<p>He also owned an immense assortment of the stocks of a large number of +trusts. The affairs of these trusts have been shown in court, at some +time or other, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> overflowing with fraud, the most glaring oppressions, +and violations of law. He had $450,000 in stock of the Corn Products +Company (the Glucose Trust); $370,000 of the stock of the notorious +Harvester Trust, which charges the farmer $75 for a machine that perhaps +costs $16 in all to make and market, and which holds a great part of the +farming population bound hand and foot; $350,000 of Biscuit Trust stock; +$200,000 of American Tin Can Company (Tin Can Trust) stock; and large +amounts of stock in other trusts. All of these stocks and bonds Field +owned outright; he made it a rule never to buy a share of stock on +margin or for speculative purposes. All told, he owned more than +$55,000,000 in stocks and bonds.</p> + +<p>A very considerable part of these were securities of Chicago surface and +elevated railway, gas, electric light and telephone companies. In the +corruption attending the securing of the franchises of these +corporations he was a direct principal. The narrative of this part of +his fortune, however, more pertinently belongs to subsequent chapters of +this work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_X" id="CHAPTER_II_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>FURTHER VISTAS OF THE FIELD FORTUNE</h3> + +<p>But if only to give at the outset a translucent example of Field's +method's in the management of industrial corporations, it is well to +advert here to the operations of one of his many properties—the Pullman +Company, otherwise called the "Palace Car Trust." This is a necessary +part of the exposition in order to bring out more of the methods by +which Field was enabled to fling together his vast fortune.</p> + +<p>The artificial creation of the law called the corporation was so devised +that it was comparatively easy for the men who controlled it to evade +personal, moral, and often legal, responsibility for their acts. +Governed as the corporation was by a body of directors, those acts +became collective and not individual; if one of the directors were +assailed he could plausibly take refuge in the claim that he was merely +one of a number of controllers; that he could not be held specifically +responsible. Thus the culpability was shifted, until it rested on the +corporation, which was a bloodless thing, not a person.</p> + +<h4>FIELD'S PULLMAN WORKS.</h4> + +<p>In the case of the Pullman Co., however, much of the moral +responsibility could be directly placed upon Field, inasmuch as he, +although under cover, was virtually the dictator of that corporation. +According to the inventory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> of the executors of his will, he owned 8,000 +shares of Pullman stock, valued at $800,000. It was asserted (in 1901) +that Field was the largest owner of Pullman stock. "In the popular +mind," wrote a puffer, probably inspired by Field himself, "George M. +Pullman has ever been deemed the dominant factor in that vast and +profitable enterprise." This belief was declared an error, and the +writer went on: "Field is, and for years has been, in almost absolute +control. Pullman was little more than a figurehead. Such men as Robert +T. Lincoln, the president of the company, and Norman B. Ream are but +representatives of Marshall Field, whose name has never been identified +with the property he so largely owns and controls." That fulsome writer, +with the usual inaccuracies and turgid exaggerations of "popular +writers," omitted to say that although Field was long the controlling +figure in the management of the Pullman works, yet other powerful +American multimillionaires, such as the Vanderbilts, had also become +large stockholders.</p> + +<p>The Pullman Company, Moody states, employed in 1904, in all departments +of its various factories at different places, nearly 20,000 employees, +and controlled 85 per cent of the entire industry.<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> As at least a +part of the methods of the company have been the subject of official +investigation, certain facts are available.</p> + +<p>To give a brief survey, the Pullman Company was organized in 1867 to +build sleeping cars of a feasible type officially patented by Pullman. +In 1880 it bought five hundred acres of land near Chicago. Upon three +hundred of these it built its plant, and proceeded, with much show and +advertisement of benevolence, to build what is called a model town for +the benefit of its workers. Brick tenements, churches, a library, and +athletic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> grounds were the main features, with sundry miscellaneous +accessories. This project was heralded far and wide as a notable +achievement, a conspicuous example of the growing altruism of business.</p> + +<h3>THE NATURE OF A MODEL TOWN.</h3> + +<p>Time soon revealed the inner nature of the enterprise. The "model town," +as was the case with imitative towns, proved to be a cunning device with +two barbs. It militated to hold the workers to their jobs in a state of +quasi serfdom, and it gave the company additional avenues of exploiting +its workers beyond the ordinary and usual limits of wages and profits. +In reality, it was one of the forerunners of an incoming feudalistic +sway, without the advantages to the wage worker that the lowly possessed +under medieval feudalism. It was also an apparent polished improvement, +but nothing more, over the processes at the coal mines in Pennsylvania, +Illinois and other States where the miners were paid the most meager +wages, and were compelled to return those wages to the coal companies +and bear an incubus of debt besides, by being forced to buy all of their +goods and merchandise at company stores at extortionate rates. But where +the coal companies did the thing boldly and crudely, the Pullman Company +surrounded the exploitation with deceptive embellishments.</p> + +<p>The mechanism, although indirect, was simple. While, for instance, the +cost of gas to the Pullman Company was only thirty-three cents a +thousand feet, every worker living in the town of Pullman had to pay at +the rate of $2.25 a thousand feet. If he desired to retain his job he +could not avoid payment; the company owned the exclusive supply of gas +and was the exclusive landlord.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> The company had him in a clamp from +which he could not well escape. The workers were housed in ugly little +pens, called cottages, built in tight rows, each having five rooms and +"conveniences." For each of these cottages $18 rent a month was charged. +The city of Chicago, the officials of which were but the mannikins or +hirelings of the industrial magnates, generously supplied the Pullman +Company with water at four cents a thousand gallons. For this same water +the company charged its employees ten cents a thousand gallons, or about +seventy-one cents a month. By this plan the company, in addition, +obtained its water supply for practically nothing. Even for having +shutters on the houses the workers were taxed fifty cents a month. These +are some specimens of the company's many devious instrumentalities for +enchaining and plundering its thousands of workers.</p> + +<p>In the panic year of 1893 the Pullman Company reduced wages one-fourth, +yet the cost of rent, water, gas—of nearly all other fundamental +necessities—remained the same. As the average yearly pay of at least +4,497 of the company's wage workers was little more than $600—or, to be +exact, $613.86—this reduction, in a large number of cases, was +equivalent to forcing these workers to yield up their labors for +substantially nothing. Numerous witnesses testified before the special +commission appointed later by President Cleveland, that at times their +bi-weekly checks ran variously from four cents to one dollar. The +company could not produce evidence to disprove this. These sums +represented the company's indebtedness to them for their labor, after +the company had deducted rent and other charges. Such manifold robberies +aroused the bitterest resentment among the company's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> employees, since +especially it was a matter of authentic knowledge, disclosed by the +company's own reports, that the Pullman factories were making enormous +profits. At this time, the Pullman workers were $70,000 in arrears to +the company for rent alone.</p> + +<h3>THE PULLMAN EMPLOYEES STRIKE.</h3> + +<p>Finally plucking up courage—for it required a high degree of moral +bravery to subject themselves and their families to the further want +inevitably ensuing from a strike—the workers of the Pullman Company +demanded a restoration of the old scale of wages. An arrogant refusal +led to the declaration of a strike on May 11, 1894. This strike, and the +greater strike following, were termed by Carroll D. Wright, for a time +United States Commissioner of Labor, as "probably the most expensive and +far-reaching labor controversy which can properly be classed among the +historic controversies of this generation."<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> The American Railway +Union, composed of the various grades of workers on a large number of +railroads, declared a general sympathetic strike under the delegated +leadership of Eugene V. Debs.</p> + +<p>The strike would perhaps have been successful had it not been that the +entire powers of the National Government, and those of most of the +States affected, were used roughshod to crush this mighty labor +uprising. The whole newspaper press, with rare exceptions, spread the +most glaring falsehoods about the strike and its management. Debs was +personally and venomously assailed in vituperation that has had little +equal. To put the strikers in the attitude of sowing violence, the +railroad corporations deliberately instigated the burning or +destruction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> of their own cars (they were cheap, worn-out freight cars), +and everywhere had thugs and roughs as its emissaries to preach, and +provoke, violence.<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> The object was threefold: to throw the onus upon +the strikers of being a lawless body; to give the newspapers an +opportunity of inveighing with terrific effect against the strikers, and +to call upon the Government for armed troops to shoot down, overawe, or +in other ways thwart, the strikers.</p> + +<p>Government was, in reality, directed by the railroad and other +corporations. United States judges, at the behest of the railroad +companies (which had caused them to be appointed to the Bench), issued +extraordinary, unprecedented injunctions against the strikers. These +injunctions even prevented the strikers from persuading fellow employees +to quit work. So utterly lacking any basis in law had these injunctions +that the Federal Commission reported: "It is seriously questioned, and +with much force, whether the courts have jurisdiction to enjoin citizens +from 'persuading' each other in industrial matters of common interest." +But the injunctions were enforced. Debs and his comrades were convicted +of contempt of court and, without jury trial, imprisoned at a critical +juncture of the strike. And what was their offense? Nothing more than +seeking to induce other workers to take up the cause of their striking +fellow-workers. The judges constituted themselves as prosecuting +attorney, judge and jury. Never had such high-handed judicial usurpation +been witnessed. As a concluding stroke, President Cleveland ordered a +detachment of the United States army to Chicago. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> pretexts were that +the strikers were interfering with interstate commerce and with the +carrying of mails.</p> + +<h3>VAST PROFITS AND LOW WAGES.</h3> + +<p>That the company's profits were great at the identical time the workers +were curtailed to a starvation basis, there can be no doubt. The general +indignation and agitation caused by the summary proceedings during the +strike, compelled President Cleveland to appoint a commission to +investigate. Cleveland was a mediocre politician who, by a series of +fortuitous circumstances, had risen from ward politics to the +Presidency. After using the concentrated power of the Federal Government +to break the strike, he then decided to "investigate" its merits. It was +the shift and ruse of a typical politician.</p> + +<p>The Special Commission, while not selected of men who could in the +remotest degree be accused of partiality toward the workers, brought out +a volume of significant facts, and handed in a report marked by +considerable and unexpected fairness. The report showed that the Pullman +Company's capital had been increased from $1,000,000 in 1867 to +$36,000,000 in 1894. "Its prosperity," the Commission reported, "has +enabled the company for over twenty years to pay two per cent. quarterly +dividends." But this eight per cent. annual dividend was not all. In +certain years the dividends had ranged from nine and one half, to +twelve, per cent. In addition, the Commission further reported, the +company had laid by a reserve fund in the form of a surplus of +$25,000,000 of profits which had not been divided. For the year ending +July 31, 1893, the declared dividends were $2,520,000; the wages +$7,223,719.51. During the next year, when wages were cut one-fourth, the +stockholders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> divided an even greater amount in profits: $2,880,000. +Wages went to 4,471,701.39.<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a></p> + +<p>If Field's revenue was so proportionately large from this one +property—the Pullman works—it is evident that his total revenue from +the large array of properties which he owned, or in which he held bonds +or stock, was very great.</p> + +<p>It is probable that in the latter years of his life his annual net +income was, at the very least, $5,000,000. This is an extremely +conservative estimate. More likely it reached $10,000,000 a year. +Computing the sum upon which the average of his workers had to live (to +make a very liberal allowance) at $800 a year, this sum of $5,000,000 +flowing in to him every year, without in the slightest trenching upon +his principal, was equal to the entire amount that 6,250 of his +employees earned by the skill of their brains and hands, and upon which +they had to support themselves and their families.</p> + +<p>Here, then, was one individual who appropriated to his use as much as +six thousand; men and more who laboriously performed service to the +community. For that $5,000,000 a year Field had nothing to do in return +except to worry over the personal or business uses to which his surplus +revenues should be put; like a true industrial monarch he relieved +himself of superfluous cares by hiring the ability to supervise and +manage his properties for him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<p>Such an avalanche of riches tumbled in upon him that, perforce, like the +Astors, the Goelets and other multimillionaires, he was put constantly +to the terrible extremity of seeking new fields for investment. +Luxuriously live, as he did, it would have required a superior inventive +capacity to have dissipated his full income. But, judging his life by +that of some other multimillionaires, he lived modestly. Of medium +height and spare figure, he was of rather unobtrusive appearance. In his +last years his hair and mustache were white. His eyes were gray and +cold; his expression one of determination and blandly assertive +selfishness. His eulogists, however, have glowingly portrayed him as +"generous, philanthropic and public-spirited."</p> + +<h4>"A MODEL OF BUSINESS INTEGRITY."</h4> + +<p>In fact, it was a point descanted upon with extraordinary emphasis +during Field's lifetime and following his demise that, (to use the stock +phrase which with wearying ceaselessness went the rounds of the press), +he was "a business man of the best type." From this exceptional +commentary it can be seen what was the current and rooted opinion of the +character of business men in general. Field's rigorous exploitation of +his tens of thousands of workers in his stores, in his Pullman +factories, and elsewhere, was not a hermetically sealed secret; but this +exploitation, no matter to what extremes to which it was carried, was an +ordinary routine of prevailing business methods.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + +<p>Of the virtual enslavement of the worker; of the robbing him of what he +produced; of the drastic laws enforced against him; of the debasement of +men, women and children—of all of these facts the organs of public +expression, the politicians and the clergy, with few exceptions, said +nothing.</p> + +<p>Everywhere, except in obscure quarters of despised workingmen's +meetings, or in the writings or speeches of a few intellectual +protestors, the dictum was proclaimed and instilled that conditions were +just and good. In a thousand disingenuous ways, backed by nimble +sophistry, the whole ruling class, with its clouds of retainers, turned +out either an increasing flood of praise of these conditions, or masses +of misinforming matter which tended to reconcile or blind the victim to +his pitiful drudgery. The masters of industry, who reaped fabulous +riches from such a system, were covered with slavish adulation, and were +represented in flowery, grandiloquent phrases as indispensable men, +without whom the industrial system of the country could not be carried +on. Nay, even more: while being plundered and ever anew plundered of the +fruits of their labor, the workers were told, (as they are increasingly +being told), that they should honor the magnates and be thankful to them +for providing work.</p> + +<h4>HE STEALS MILLIONS IN TAXES.</h4> + +<p>Marshall Field, as we have said, was heralded far and wide as an +unusually honest business man, the implication being that every cent of +his fortune was made fairly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> and squarely. Those fawners to wealth, and +they were many, who persisted in acclaiming his business methods as +proper and honorable, were grievously at a loss for an explanation when +his will was probated, and it was found that even under the existing +laws, favorable as they were to wealth, he had been nothing more than a +common perjurer and a cheat. It was too true, alas! This man "of strict +probity" had to be catalogued with the rest of his class.</p> + +<p>For many years he had insisted on paying taxes on personal property on a +valuation of not more than $2,500,000; and the pious old shopkeeper had +repeatedly threatened, in case the board of assessors should raise his +assessment, that he would forthwith bundle off his domicile from +Chicago, and reside in a place where assessors refrain from too much +curiosity as to one's belongings. But lo! when the schedule of his +property was filed in court, it was disclosed that for many years he had +owned at least $17,500,000 of taxable personal property subject to the +laws of the State of Illinois. Thus was another idol cruelly shattered; +for the aforesaid fawners had never tired of exulting elaborately upon +the theme of Field's success, and how it was due to his absolute +integrity and pure, undented character.</p> + +<p>At another time the facts of his thefts of taxes might have been +suppressed or toned down. But at this particular juncture Chicago +happened to have a certain corporation counsel who, while mildly +infected with conventional views, was not a truckler to wealth. Suit was +brought in behalf of the city for recovery of $1,730,000 back taxes. So +clear was the case that the trustees of Field's estate decided to +compromise. On March 2, 1908, they delivered to John R. Thompson, +treasurer of Cook County, a check for one million dollars. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> the +compound interest for the whole series of years during which Field +cheated in taxation were added to the $1,730,000, it would probably be +found that the total amount of his frauds had reached fully three +million dollars.</p> + +<p>The chorus of astonishment that ascended when these facts were divulged +was an edifying display. He who did not know that the entire propertied +class made a regular profession of perjury and fraud in order to cheat +the public treasury out of taxes, was either deliciously innocent or +singularly uninformed. Year after year a host of municipal and State +officials throughout the United States issued reports showing this +widespread condition. Yet aside from their verbose complainings, which +served political purpose in giving an air of official vigilance, the +authorities did nothing.</p> + +<h4>PERJURY AND CHEATING COMMON.</h4> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the evasion of taxes by the Pullman Company had +been a public scandal for many years. John P. Altgeld, Governor of +Illinois in 1893-95, frequently referred to it in his speeches and +public papers. Field, then, not only personally cheated the public +treasury out of millions, but also the corporations which he controlled +did likewise. The propertied class everywhere did the same. The +unusually thorough report of the Illinois Labor Bureau of 1894 +demonstrated how the most valuable land and buildings in Chicago were +assessed at the merest fraction of their true value—the costliest +commercial buildings at about one-tenth, and the richest residences at +about one-fourteenth, of their actual value. As for personal property it +contributed a negligible amount in taxes.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> + +<p>The reports of the tax committee of the Boston Executive Business +Association in 1891 estimated that two billion dollars of property in +Boston escaped taxation, and that the public treasury was cheated out of +about $17,000,000 in taxes every year. As for New York City, we have +seen how the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Goelets—the whole aggregate +of the propertied class—systematically defrauded in taxes for many +decades. It is estimated that in New York City, at present, not less +than five billion dollars of property, real and personal, entirely +escapes taxation. This estimate is a conservative one.</p> + +<p>Spahr, after an exhaustive investigation in the United States concluded +more than a decade ago that, "the wealthy class pay less than one-tenth +of the indirect taxes, the well-to-do less than one-quarter, and the +relatively poorer classes more than two-thirds."<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> What Spahr omitted +was this highly important qualification: When the rich do pay. Tenants +of the property owners must pay their rent on time or suffer eviction, +but the capitalists are allowed to take their own leisurely time in +paying such portion of their taxes as remains after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> the bulk of the tax +list has been perjured away. Thus in a report he made public on February +28, 1908, Controller Metz, of New York City, pointed out that the huge +amount of $102,834,227, was due the city in uncollected taxes, much of +which amount ran several decades back. Of this sum $29,816,513 was owed +on real estate, on which the taxes were a direct lien.</p> + +<p>The beauties of law as made and enforced by the property interests, are +herein illustriously exemplified. A poor tenant can be instantly +dispossessed, whether sick or in destitution, for non-payment of rent; +the landowner is allowed by officials who represent, and defer to him +and his class, to owe large amounts in taxes for long periods, and not a +move is taken to dispossess him.</p> + +<p>And now by the most natural gradation, we come to those much bepraised +acts of our multimillionaires—the seignorial donating of millions to +"charitable" or "public-spirited" purposes.</p> + +<p>Like the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Rhinelanders and a galaxy of +others, Field diffused large sums; he, like them, was overwhelmed with +panegyrics. Millions Field gave toward the founding and sustaining of +the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago, and to the University of Chicago. +It may be parenthetically added that, (to repeat), he owned, adjacent to +this latter institution, many blocks of land the increased value of +which, after the establishment of the University, more than recouped him +for his gifts. This might have been either accidental or it might have +been cold calculation; judging from Field's consistent methods, it was +probably not chance.</p> + +<p>So composite, however, is the human character, so crossed and seamed by +conflicting influences, that at no time is it easy to draw any absolute +line between motives.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Merely because he exploited his employees +mercilessly, and cheated the public treasury out of millions of dollars, +it does not necessarily follow that Field was utterly deficient in +redeeming traits. As business is conducted, it is well known that many +successful men (financially), who practice the most cruel and oppressive +methods, are, outside the realm of strict business transactions, +expansively generous and kind. In business they are beasts of prey, +because under the private property system, competition, whether between +small or large concerns, is reduced to a cutthroat struggle, and those +who are in the contest must abide by its desperate rules. They must let +no sympathy or tenderness interpose in their business dealings, else +they are lost.</p> + +<p>But without entering into a further philosophical disquisition, this +fact must be noted: The amounts that Field gave for "philanthropy" were +about identical with the sums out of which he defrauded Chicago in the +one item of taxes alone. Probed into, it is seen that a great part of +the sums that multimillionaires have given, represent but a tithe of the +sums cheated by them in taxes. William C. Schermerhorn donates $300,000 +to Columbia University; the aggregate amount that he defrauded in taxes +was much more. Thus do our magnates supply themselves with present and +posthumous fame gratuitously. Not to consider the far greater and +incalculably more comprehensive question of their appropriating the +resources of the country and the labor of hundreds of millions of +people,<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> and centering attention upon this one concrete instance of +frauds in taxes, the situation presented is an incongruous one. Money +belonging to the public treasury they retain by fraud; this money, +apparently a part of their "honestly acquired"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> fortune, is given in +some form of philanthropy; and then by some curious oversetting of even +conventional standards, they reap blessings and glory for giving what +are really stolen funds.</p> + +<p>"Those who enjoy his confidence," wrote an effervescent eulogist of +Field, "predict that the bulk of his vast fortune will be devoted to +purposes of public utility." But this prediction did not materialize.</p> + +<h4>$140,000,000 TO TWO BOYS.</h4> + +<p>Field's fortune, conservatively estimated at $100,000,000, yet, in fact, +reaching about $140,000,000, was largely bequeathed to his two +grandsons, Marshall Field III., and Henry Field. Marshall Field, as did +many other multimillionaires of his period, welded his fortune into a +compact and vested institution. It ceased to be a personal attribute, +and became a thing, an inert mass of money, a corporate entity. This he +did by creating, by the terms of his will, a trust of his fortune for +the two boys. The provisions of the will set forth that $72,000,000 was +to set aside in trust for Marshall III., until the year 1954. At the +expiration of that period it, together with its accumulation, was to be +turned over to him. To the other grandson, Henry, $48,000,000 was +bequeathed under the same conditions.</p> + +<p>These sums are not in money, although at all times Field had a snug sum +of cash stowed away; when he died he had about $4,500,000 in banks. The +fortune that he left was principally in the form of real estate and +bonds and stocks. These constituted a far more effective cumulative +agency than money. They were, and are, inexorable mortgages on the labor +of millions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> of workers, men, women and children, of all occupations. By +this simple screed, called a will, embodying one man's capricious +indulgence, these boys, utterly incompetent even to grasp the magnitude +of the fortune owned by them, and incapable of exercising the +glimmerings of management, were given legal, binding power over a mass +of people for generations. Patterson says that in the Field stores and +Pullman factories fifty thousand people work for these boys.<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a> But +these are the direct employees; as we have seen, Field owned bonds and +stock in more than one hundred and fifty industrial, railroad, mining +and other corporations. The workers of all these toil for the Field +boys.</p> + +<p>They delve in mines, and risk accident, disease and death, or suffer an +abjectly lingering life of impoverishment. Thousands of coal miners are +killed every year, and many thousands more are injured, in order that +two boys and others of their class may draw huge profits.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> More than +10,000 persons are killed, and 97,000 injured, every year on the +railroads, so that the income enjoyed by these lads and others shall not +diminish. Nearly all of these casualties are due to economizing in +expense, working employees to an extreme fatiguing limit, and refusing +to provide proper safety appliances. Millions more workers drudge in +rolling mills, railroad shops and factories; they wear out their lives +on farms, in packing houses and stores. For what? Why, foolish +questioner, for the rudiments of an existence; do you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> not know that +the world's dispossessed must pay heavily for the privilege of living? +As these lads hold, either wholly or partly, the titles to all this +inherited property; in plain words, to a formidable part of the +machinery of business, the millions of workers must sweat and bend the +back, and pile up a ceaseless flow of riches for them.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/ill_009.jpg" width="500" height="339" alt="MARSHAL FIELD III. and HENRY FIELD. The Boys Who Inherited $140,000,000." title="" /> +<span class="caption">MARSHAL FIELD III. and HENRY FIELD.<br />The Boys Who Inherited $140,000,000.</span> +</div> + +<p>Marshall Field III., still in knickerbockers, receives $60,000 a week; +his brother Henry, $40,000 a week. The sum in both cases automatically +increases as the interest on the principal compounds. What do many of +the workers who supply this revenue get? Patterson gives this authentic +list of wages:</p> + +<p>Pullman Company blacksmiths, $16.43 a week; boiler-makers, $17; +carpenters, $12.38; machinists, $16.65; painters, $13.60, and laborers, +$9.90 a week. As for the lower wages paid to the workers in the Field +stores, we have already given them. And apart from the exploitation of +employees, every person in Chicago who rides on the street or elevated +railroads, and who uses gas, electricity or telephones, must pay direct +tribute to these lads. How decayed monarchial establishments are in +these days! Kings mostly must depend upon Parliaments for their civil +lists of expenditure; but Capitalism does not have to ask leave of +anybody; it appropriates what it wants.</p> + +<p>This is the status of the Field fortune now. Let the Field striplings +bless their destiny that they live in no medieval age, when each baron +had to defend his possessions by his strong right arm successfully, or +be compelled to relinquish. This age is one when Little Lord Fauntleroys +can own armies of profit producers, without being distracted from their +toys. Whatever defense is needed is supplied by society, with its +governments and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> its judges, its superserviceable band of lawyers, and +its armed forces. Two delicate children are upheld in enormous +possessions and vast power, while millions of fellow beings are suffered +to remain in destitution.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>END OF VOL. I.</h2> + +<p class="center">(The index for Volumes I, II, and III will be found in Vol. III.)</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> O'Callaghan's "History of New Netherlands," 1:112-120.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of +New York, 1:89-100.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> O'Callaghan, 1:124. Although it was said that Kiliaen van +Rensselaer visited America, it seems to be established that he never +did. He governed his estate as an absentee landgrave, through agents. He +was the most powerful of all of the patroons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Ibid., 125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Colonial Documents, 1:41. The primary object of this +company was a monopoly of the Indian trade, not colonization. The +"princely" manors were a combination fort and trading house, surrounded +by moat and stockade.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Colonial Documents, 1:86.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> "Annals of Albany," iii:287. The power of the patroons over +their tenants, or serfs, was almost unlimited. No "man or woman, son or +daughter, man servant or maid servant" could leave a patroon's service +during the time that they had agreed to remain, except by his written +consent, no matter what abuses or breaches of contract were committed by +the patroon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> "Burghers and Freemen of New York":29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> "Land Nationalization,":122-125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Colonial Documents, vii:654-655.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Colonial Documents, iv:673-674.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> "A Short History of the English Colonies in America":402.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Yet, this fortune seeker, who had incurred the contempt of +every noble English mind, is described by one of the class of +power-worshipping historians as follows: "Fame and wealth, so often the +idols of <i>Superior Intellect</i>, were the prominent objects of this +aspiring man."—Williamson's "History of Maine," 1:305.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The Public Domain: Its History, etc.:38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth:66, 84, etc. Their +claim to inherit proprietary rights was bought at the time of the +Revolutionary War by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for £130,000 +sterling or about $580,000.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Colonial Documents, iv:463.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Ibid.:535.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Ibid.:39.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Colonial Documents, iv:528. One of Bellomont's chief +complaints was that the landgraves monopolized the timber supply. He +recommended the passage of a law vesting in the King the right to all +trees such as were fit for masts of ships or for other use in building +ships of war.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> "Colonial New York," 1:285-286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> According to Reynolds's "Albany Chronicles," Livingston +was in collusion with Captain Kidd, the sea pirate. Reynolds also tells +that Livingston loaned money at ten per cent.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Wright's "Industrial Evolution in the United States"; see +also his article "Wages" in Johnson's Encyclopædia. The New York +Colonial Documents relate that in 1699 in the three provinces of +Bellomont's jurisdiction, "the laboring man received three shillings a +day, which was considered dear," iv:588.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Colonial Documents, iv:533-554.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Frederick and his son Adolphus. Frederick was the employer +of the pirate, Captain Samuel Burgess of New York, who at first was sent +out by Phillips to Madagascar to trade with the pirates and who then +turned pirate himself. From the first voyage Phillips and Burgess +cleared together £5,000, the proceeds of trade and slaves. The second +voyage yielded £10,000 and three hundred slaves. Burgess married a +relative of Phillips and continued piracy, but was caught and imprisoned +in Newgate. Phillips spent great sums of money to save him and +succeeded. Burgess resumed piracy and met death from poisoning in Africa +while engaged in carrying off slaves.—"The Lives and Bloody Exploits of +the Most Noted Pirates":177-183. This work was a serious study of the +different sea pirates.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Colonial Docs, iv:533-534. On November 27, 1700, Bellomont +wrote to the Lords of the Treasury: "I can supply the King and all his +dominions with naval stores (except flax and hemp) from this province +and New Hampshire, but then your Lordships and the rest of the Ministers +must break through Coll. Fletcher's most corrupt grants of all the lands +and woods of this province which I think is the most impudent villainy I +ever heard or read of any man," iv:780.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> This is the inventory given in "Abstracts of Wills," +1:323.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> "Journal and Letters," 1767-1774.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Sparks' "Life of Washington," Appendix, ix:557-559.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Bigelow's "Life of Franklin," iii:470.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> "Colonial New York," 1:232.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> "Lives of the Loyalists,":18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> "Abstracts of Wills," ii:444-445.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Ibid., 1:323-324.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> "Abstracts of Wills," 1:108.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> "An Historical Account of Massachusetts Currency." See +also Colonial Documents, iii:242, and the Records of New Amsterdam. See +the chapters on the Astor fortune in Part II for full details of the +methods in debauching and swindling the Indians in trading operations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Thus Captain Bellamy's speech in 1717 to Captain Baer of +Boston, whose sloop he had just sunk and rifled: "I am sorry that they +[his crew] won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any +one a mischief when it is not for my advantage; damn the sloop, we must +sink her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking +puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which +rich men have made for their own security—for the cowardly whelps have +not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery. But +damn ye altogether; damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and ye who +serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They villify us, the +scoundrels do, when there is only this difference: they rob the poor +under cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under protection +of our own courage. Had you better not make one of us than sneak after +these villains for employment." Baer refused and was put ashore.—"The +Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates":129-130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> "A Commercial Sketch of Boston," Hunt's Merchant's +Magazine, 1839, 1:125.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Colonial Documents, iv:790.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Ibid., 678.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> "Hunt's Merchant's Magazine," 11:516-517.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Allen's "Biographical Dictionary," Edition of 1857:791.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants":382.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Allen's "Biographical Dictionary," Edit. of 1857:227.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Stryker's "American Register" for 1849:241.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> "The American Almanac" for 1850:324.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> "An Economic and Social History of New England," 11:825.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants":139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Life of Eli Whitney, "Our Great Benefactors":567.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> "The Astor Fortune," McClure's Magazine, April, 1905.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Innumerable were the sermons and addresses poured forth, +all to the same end. To cite one: The Rev. Daniel Sharp of the Third +Baptist Meeting House, Boston, delivered a sermon in 1828 on "The +Tendency of Evil Speaking Against Rulers." It was considered so powerful +an argument in favor of obedience that it was printed in pamphlet form +(Beals, Homer & Co., Printers), and was widely distributed to press and +public.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Various writers assert that twenty dollars was the average +minimum. In many places, however, the great majority of debts were for +less than ten dollars. Thus, for the year ending November 26, 1831, +nearly one thousand citizens had been imprisoned for debt in Baltimore. +Of this number more than half owed less than ten dollars, and of the +whole number, only thirty-four individually had debts exceeding one +hundred dollars.—Reports of Committees, First Session, Twenty-fourth +Congress, Vol. II, Report No. 732:3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> In his series of published articles, "The History of the +Prosecution of Bankrupt Frauds," the author has brought out +comprehensive facts on this point.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> The eminent merchants who sat on this committee had their +own conclusive opinion of what produced poverty. In commenting on the +growth of paupers they ascribed pauperism to seven sources. (1) +Ignorance, (2) Intemperance, (3) Pawnbrokers, (4) Lotteries, (5) +Charitable Institutions, (6) Houses of Ill-Fame, (7) Gambling. +</p><p> +No documents more wonderfully illustrate the bourgeois type of +temperament and reasoning than their reports. The people of the city +were ignorant because 15,000 of the 25,000 families did not attend +church. Pawnbrokers were an incentive to theft, cunning and lack of +honest industry, etc., etc. Thus their explanations ran. In referring to +mechanics and paupers, the committee described them as "the middling and +inferior classes." Is it any wonder that the working class justly views +"charitable" societies, and the spirit behind them, with intense +suspicion and deep execration?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Documents of the Board of Assistant Aldermen of New York +City, 1831-32, Doc. No. 45:1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> House Executive Document, No. 13, Twenty-fifth Congress, +Third Session; also, House Report, No. 313.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Report for 1821 of the "Society for the Prevention of +Pauperism."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> "New York Gazette and General Advertiser", Aug. 5, 1797. +The rewards offered for the apprehension of fugitive apprentices varied. +An advertisement in the same newspaper, issue of July 3, 1797, held out +an offer of five dollars reward for an indented German boy who had +"absconded." The fear was expressed that he would attempt to board some +ship, and all persons were notified not to harbor or conceal him as they +would be "proceeded against as the law directs". That old apprentice law +has never been repealed in New York State.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> The Government reports bear out Barrett's statements, +although in saying this it must be with qualifications. The shippers +engaged in the East India and China trade were more favored, it seems, +than other classes of shippers, which discrimination engendered much +antagonism. "Why," wrote the Mercantile Society of New York to the House +Committee on Manufactures in 1821, "should the merchant engaged in the +East India trade, who is the overgrown capitalist, have the extended +credit of twelve months in his duties, the amount of which on one cargo +furnishes nearly a sufficient capital for completing another voyage, +before his bonds are payable?" The Mercantile Society recommended that +credits on duties be reduced to three and six months on merchandise +imported from all quarters of the globe.—Reports of Committees, Second +Session, Sixteenth Congress, 1820-21, Vol. I, Document No. 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:31-33. Barrett was a +great admirer of Astor. He inscribed Vol. iii, published in 1864, to +Astor's memory.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> The movement to abolish imprisonment for debt was a +protracted one lasting more than a quarter of a century, and was +acrimoniously opposed by the propertied classes, as a whole. By 1836, +however, many State legislatures had been induced to repeal or modify +the provisions of the various debtors' imprisonment acts. In response to +a recommendation by President Andrew Jackson that the practise be +abolished in the District of Columbia, a House Select Committee reported +on January 17, 1832, that "the system originated in cupidity. It is a +confirmation of power in the few against the many; the Patrician against +the Plebeian." On May 31, 1836, the House Committee for the District of +Columbia, in reporting on the debtors' imprisonment acts, said: "They +are disgraceful evidences of the ingenious subtlety by which they were +woven into the legal system we adopted from England, and were obviously +intended to increase and confirm the power of a wealthy aristocracy by +rendering poverty a crime, and subjecting the liberty of the poor to the +capricious will of the rich."—Reports of Committees, Second Session, +Twenty-second Congress, 1832-33, Report No. 5, and Reports of +Committees, First Session, Twenty-fourth Congress, 1836, Report No. 732, +ii:2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> "Kings of Fortune":16—The pretentious title and sub-title +of this work, written thirty odd years ago by Walter R. Houghton, A.M., +gives an idea of the fantastic exaltation indulged in of the careers of +men of great wealth. Hearken to the full title: "Kings of Fortune—or +the Triumphs and Achievements of Noble, Self-made men.—Whose brilliant +careers have honored their calling, blessed humanity, and whose lives +furnish instruction for the young, entertainment for the old and +valuable lessons for the aspirants of fortune." Could any fulsome +effusion possibly surpass this?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> "Mr. Girard's bank was a financial success from the +beginning. A few months after it opened for business its capital was +increased to one million three hundred thousand dollars. One of the +incidents which helped, at the outstart, to inspire the public with +confidence in the stability of the new institution was the fact that the +trustees who liquidated the affairs of the old Bank of the United States +opened an account in Girard's Bank, and deposited in its vaults some +millions of dollars in specie belonging to the old bank."—"The History +of the Girard National Bank of Philadelphia," by Josiah Granville Leach, +LL.B., 1902. This eulogistic work contains only the scantiest details of +Girard's career.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> The First Session of the Twenty-second Congress, 1831, iv, +containing reports from Nos. 460 to 463.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Ibid. +</p><p> +An investigating committee appointed by the Pennsylvania Legislature in +1840, reported that during a series of years the Bank of the United +States (or United States Bank, as it was more often referred to) had +corruptly expended $130,000 in Pennsylvania for a re-charter.—Pa. House +Journal, 1842, Vol. II, Appendix, 172-531.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> In providing for the establishment of Girard College, +Girard stated in his will: "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, +missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or +exercise any station or duty whatsoever in the said college; nor shall +any such person be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor within the +premises appropriated to the purposes of said college."—The Will of the +Late Stephen Girard, Esq., 1848:22-23. +</p><p> +An attempt was made by his relatives in France to break his will, one of +the grounds being that the provisions of his will were in conflict with +the Christian religion which was a part of the common law of +Pennsylvania. The attempt failed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> For example, an address by Edward Everett, at the Odeon, +before the Mercantile Library Association in Boston, September 13, 1838: +"Few persons, I believe, enjoyed less personal popularity in the +community in which he lived and to which he bequeathed his personal +fortune.... A citizen and a patriot he lived in his modest dwelling and +plain garb; appropriating to his last personal wants the smallest +pittance from his princely income; living to the last in the dark and +narrow street in which he made his fortune; and when he died bequeathed +it for the education of orphan children. For the public I do not believe +he could have done better," etc., etc.—Hunt's "Merchant's Magazine," +1830, 1:35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> "The Public Charities of Philadelphia."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> In 1847 and 1849 the Anti-Renters demonstrated a voting +strength in New York State of about 5,000. Livingston's title to his +estate being called into question, a suit was brought. The court +decision favored him. The Livingstons, it may be again remarked, were +long powerful in politics, and had had their members on the +bench.—"Life of Silas Wright," 179-226; "Last Leaves of American +History":16-18, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> The debates in this convention showed that the feudal +conditions described in this chapter prevailed down to 1846.—New York +Constitution; Debates in Convention, 1846; 1052-1056. This is an extract +from the official convention report: "Mr. Jordan [a delegate] said that +it was from such things that relief was asked: which although the moral +sense of the community will not admit to be enforced, are still actually +in existence."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Of a total of $39,544,333,000, representing wealth in real +estate and improvements, the census of 1890 attributed $13,905,274,364 +to the North Atlantic Division and a trifle more than $15,000,000,000 to +the North Central Division.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> The Forum (Magazine), November, 1889.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:287.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> The extent of its operations and the rapid slaughter of +fur animals may be gathered by a record of one year's work. In 1793 this +company enriched itself by 106,000 beaver skins, 2,100 bear skins, 1,500 +fox skins, 400 kit fox, 16,000 muskrat, 32,000 martin, 1,800 mink, 6,000 +lynx, 6,000 wolverine, 1,600 fisher, 100 raccoon, 1,200 dressed deer, +700 elk, 550 buffalo robes, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Astor was accused by a Government agent of betraying the +American cause at the outbreak of this war. In addition to the American +Fur Company, Astor had other fur companies, one of which was the +Southwest Company. Under date of June 18, 1818, Matthew Irwin, U. S. +factor or agent at Green Bay, Wis., wrote to Thomas L. McKenney, U. S. +Superintendent of Indian Affairs: "It appears that the Government has +been under an impression [that] the Southwest Company, of which Mr. John +Jacob Astor is the head, is strictly an American company, and in +consequence, some privileges in relation to trade have been granted to +that company." Irwin went on to tell how Astor had obtained an order +from Gallatin, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, allowing him, Astor, to +land furs at Mackinac from the British post at St. Joseph's. Astor's +agent in this transaction was a British subject. "On his way to St. +Joseph's," Irwin continued, "he [Astor's British agent] communicated to +the British at Malden that war had been or would be declared. The +British made corresponding arrangements and landed on the Island of +Mackinac with regulars, Canadians and Indians before the commanding +officer there had notice that war would be declared. The same course was +about to be pursued at Detroit, before the arrival of troops with Gen. +Hull, who, having been on the march there, frustrated it." Irwin +declared that Astor's purpose was to save his furs from capture by the +British, and concluded: "Mr. Astor's agent brought the furs to Mackinac +<i>in company with the British troops</i>, and the whole transaction is well +known at Mackinac and Detroit."—U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, +Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:50-51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Document No. 90, U. S. Senate, First Session, 22nd +Congress, ii:30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Document No. 58, U. S. Senate Docs. First Session, 19th +Congress:7-8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Ibid. That the debauching of the Indians was long +continuing was fully evidenced by the numerous communications sent in by +Government representatives. The following is an extract from a letter +written on October 6, 1821, by the U. S. Indian Agent at Green Bay to +the Superintendent of Indian Affairs (or Indian Trade): "Mr. Kinzie, son +to the sub Indian Agent at Chicago, <i>and agent for the American Fur +Company</i>, has been detected in selling large quantities of whisky to the +Indians at and near Milwaukee of Lake Michigan."—Senate Docs., First +Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Doc. No. 58:10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Of this fact there can be no doubt. Writing on February +27, 1822, to Senator Henry Johnson, chairman of the U. S. Senate +Committee on Indian Affairs, Superintendent McKenney said: ".... The +Indians, it is admitted, are good judges of the articles in which they +deal, and, generally when they are permitted to be sober, they can +detect attempts to practise fraud upon them. The traders knowing this +(however, few of the Indians are permitted to trade without a previous +preparation in the way of liquor,) would not be so apt to demand +exorbitant prices.... This may be illustrated by the fact, as reported +to this office by Matthew Irwin, that previous to the establishment of +the Green Bay factory [agency] as much as one dollar and fifty cents had +been demanded by the traders of the Indians, and received, for a brass +thimble, and eighteen dollars for one pound of tobacco!"—U. S. Senate +Docs., First Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Document +No. 60:40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Document No. 90, U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, 22nd +Congress, ii:23-24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Ibid:54.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> For a white 3 point blanket which cost $4.00 they were +charged $10; for a beaver trap costing $2.50, the charge was $8; for a +rifle costing $11 they had to pay $30; a brass kettle which Astor could +buy at 48 cents a pound, he charged the Indians $30 for; powder cost him +20 cents a pound; he sold it for $4 a pound; he bought tobacco for 10 +cents a pound and sold it at the rate of five small twists for $6, etc., +etc., etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Document No. 90:72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Many of the tribes, the Government reports show, not only +yielded up to Astor's company the whole of their furs, but were deeply +in debt to the company. In 1829 the Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes owed +Farnham & Davenport, agents for the American Fur Company among those +tribes, $40,000; by 1831 the debts had risen to $50,000 or $60,000. The +Pawnees owed fully as much, and the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Sioux and +other tribes were heavily in debt.—Doc. No. 90:72.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Forsyth admits that in practically all of these murders +the whites were to blame.—Doc. No. 90:76.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Doc. No. 90.—This is but a partial list. The full list of +the murdered whites the Government was unable to get.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Document No. 90:77.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Some of the original ledgers of the American Fur Company +were put on exhibition at Anderson's auction rooms in New York city in +March, 1909. One entry showed that $35,000 had been paid to Lewis Cass +for services not stated. Doubtless, Astor had the best of reasons for +not explaining that payment; Cass was, or had been, the Governor of +Michigan Territory, and he became the identical Secretary of War to whom +so many complaints of the crimes of Astor's American Fur Company were +made. +</p><p> +The author personally inspected these ledgers. The following are some +extracts from a news account in the New York "Times," issue of March 7, +1909, of the exhibition of the ledgers: +</p><p> +"They cover the business of the Northern Department from 1817 to 1835, +and consist of six folio volumes of about 1,000 pages each, in two stout +traveling cases, fitted with compartments, lock and key. It is said that +these books were missing for nearly seventy-five years, and recently +escaped destruction by the merest accident. +</p><p> +"The first entry is April 1, 1817. There are two columns, one for +British and the other for American money. An entry, May 3, 1817, shows +that Lewis Cass, then Governor of Michigan Territory and afterward +Democratic candidate for the Presidency against Gen. Zachary Taylor, the +successful Whig candidate, took about $35,000 of the Astor money from +Montreal to Detroit, in consideration of something which is not set +down."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Doc. No. 13, State Papers, Second Session, 18th Congress, +Vol. ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> "Stole on a monstrous scale." The land frauds, by which +many of the Southern planters obtained estates in Louisiana, Mississippi +and other States were a national scandal. Benjamin F. Linton, United +States Attorney for Western Louisiana, reported to President Andrew +Jackson on August 27, 1835, that in seizing possession of Government +land in that region "the most shameful frauds, impositions and perjuries +had been committed in Louisiana." Sent to investigate, V. M. Garesche, +an agent of the Government Land Office, complained that he could get no +one to testify. "Is it surprising," he wrote to the Secretary of the +Treasury, "when you consider that those engaged in this business belong +to every class of society from the member of the Legislature (if I am +informed correctly) down to the quarter quarter-section settler!" Up to +that time the Government held title to immense tracts of land in the +South and had thrown it open to settlers. Few of these were able to get +it, however. Southern plantation men and Northern capitalists and +speculators obtained possession by fraud. "A large company," Garesche +reported, "was formed in New York for the purpose, and have an agent who +is continually scouring the country." The final report was a +whitewashing one; hence, none of the frauds was sent to jail.—Doc. No. +168, Twenty-fourth Congress, 2d Session, ii:4-25, also Doc. No. 213, +Ibid.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> "America," admits Houghton, "never presented a more +shameful spectacle than was exhibited when the courts of the +cotton-growing regions united with the piratical infringers of Whitney's +rights in robbing their greatest benefactor.... In spite of the +far-reaching benefits of his invention, he had not realized one dollar +above his expenses. He had given millions upon millions of dollars to +the cotton-growing states, he had opened the way for the establishment +of the vast cotton-spinning interests of his own country and Europe, and +yet, after fourteen years of hard labor, he was a poor man, the victim +of wealthy, powerful, and, in his case, a dishonest class."—"Kings of +Fortune":337. All other of Whitney's biographers relate likewise.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> See Senate Documents, First Session, 24th Congress, 1835, +Vol. vi, Doc. No. 425. A few extracts from the great mass of +correspondence will lucidly show the nature of the fraudulent methods. +Writing from Columbus, Georgia, on July 15, 1833, Col. John Milton +informed the War Department ... "Many of them [the Indians] are almost +starved, and suffer immensely for the things necessary to the support of +life, and are sinking in moral degradation. They have been much +corrupted by white men who live among them, who induce them to sell to +as many different individuals as they can, and then cheat them out of +the proceeds."... (p. 81.) Luther Blake wrote to the War Department from +Fort Mitchell, Alabama, on September 11, 1833 ... "Many, from motives of +speculation, have bought Indian reserves fraudulently in this way—take +their bonds for trifles, pay them ten or twenty dollars in something +they do not want, and take their receipts for five times the amount." +(p. 86). On February 1, 1834, J. H. Howard, of Pole-Cat Springs, Creek +Nation, sent a communication, by request, to President Jackson in which +he said, ... "From my own observation, I am induced to believe that a +number of reservations have been paid for at some nominal price, and the +principal consideration has been whisky and homespun" ... (p. 104). Gen. +J. W. A. Sandford, sent by President Jackson to the Creek country to +investigate the charges of fraud, wrote, on March 1, 1834, to the War +Department, ... "It is but very recently that the Indian has been +invested with an individual interest in land, and the great majority of +them appear neither to appreciate its possession, nor to economize the +money for which it is sold; the consequence is, that the white man +rarely suffers an opportunity to pass by without swindling him out of +both".... (p. 110). +</p><p> +The records show that the principal beneficiaries of these swindles were +some of the most conspicuous planters, mercantile firms and politicians +in the South. Frequently, they employed dummies in their operations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Reports of House Committees, Second Session, 26th +Congress, 1840-41, Report No. 1.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Ibid., 1 and 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Executive Documents, First Session, 23rd Congress, +1833-34, Doc. No. 132.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Senate Documents, First Session, 22nd Congress, 1831-33, +Vol. iii, Doc. No. 139.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> "No inventor," reported the United States Commissioner of +Patents in 1858, "probably has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, +so plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in +the parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase as 'pirates.' +The spoliation of their incessant guerilla upon his defenseless rights +have unquestionably amounted to millions."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Doc. No. 134, Twenty-fourth Congress, 2d Session, Vol. +ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Doc. 129, State Papers, 1819-21, Vol. ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> See Part I, Chapter II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> "Allowed itself." The various New York legislatures from +the end of the eighteenth century on were hotbeds of corruption. Time +after time members were bribed to pass bills granting charters for +corporations or other special privileges. (See the numerous specific +instances cited in the author's "History of Tammany Hall," and +subsequently in this work.) The Legislature of 1827 was notoriously +corrupt.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1815:216—Journal of +the [New York] Assembly, 1818:261; Journal of the Assembly, 1819. Also +"A Statement and Exposition of The Title of John Jacob Astor to the +Lands Purchased by him from the surviving children of Roger Morris and +Mary, his Wife"; New York, 1827.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> MSS. Minutes of the (New York City) Common Council, +xvi:239-40 and 405.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Ibid., xx: 355-356.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xiii: 118 and 185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xvii: 141-144. See +also Annual Report of Controller for 1849, Appendix A.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xviii: 411-414.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Doc. No. 33, Documents of the Board of Aldermen, +xxii:26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, 1832-33, iv: +416-418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Controller's Reports for 1831:7. Also Ibid. for 1841:28.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Hammond's "Political History of the State of New York," +1:129-130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Journal of the [New York] Senate and Assembly, 1803:351 +and 399.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Ibid., 1812:134.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Ibid., 1812:259-260. Frequently, in those days, the +giving of presents was a part of corrupt methods.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> "The members [of the Legislature] themselves sometimes +participated in the benefits growing out of charters created by their +own votes; ... if ten banks were chartered at one session, twenty must +be chartered the next, and thirty the next. The cormorants could never +be gorged. If at one session you bought off a pack of greedy lobby +agents ... they returned with increased numbers and more voracious +appetite."—Hammond, ii:447-448.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1824:1317-1350. See +also Chap. VIII, Part II of this work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> "Letter and Authentic Documentary Evidence in Relation to +the Trinity Church Property," etc., Albany, 1855. Hoffman, the best +authority on the subject, says in his work published forty-five years +ago: "Very extensive searches have proved unavailing to enable me to +trace the sources of the title to much of this upper portion of Trinity +Church property."—"State and Rights of the Corporation of New York," +ii:189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> In all of the official communications of Trinity Church +up to 1867 this lease is referred to as the "Burr or Astor Lease."—"The +Communication of the Rector, Church Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity +Church in the city of New York in reply to a resolution of the House, +passed March 4, 1854"; Document No. 130, Assembly Docs. 1854. Also +Document No. 45, Senate Docs. 1856. Upon returning from exile Burr tried +to break his lease to Astor, but the lease was so astutely drawn that +the courts decided in Astor's favor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> In his descriptive work on New York City of a half +century ago, Matthew Hale Smith, in "Sunshine and Shadow in New York" +(pp. 121-122), tells this story: "The Morley [Mortier] lease was to run +until 1867. Persons who took the leases supposed that they took them for +the full term of the Trinity lease. [John Jacob] Astor was too +far-sighted and too shrewd for that. Every lease expired in 1864, +leaving him [William B. Astor, the founder's heir] the reversion for +three years, putting him in possession of all the buildings, and all of +the improvements made on the lots, and giving him the right of renewal." +Smith's account is faulty. Most of the leases expired in 1866. The value +of the reversions was very large.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> Docs. No. 130 [New York] Assembly Docs., 1854:22-23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> Journal of the [New York] Senate, Forty-second Session, +1819:67-70.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> Doc. No. 108, [New York] Senate Documents, 1834, Vol. ii. +The committee stated that banks in the State outside of New York City, +after paying all expenses, divided 11 per cent. among the stockholders +in 1833 and had on hand as surplus capital 16 per cent. on their +capital. New York City banks paid larger dividends.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> People of the State of New York vs. Manhattan Co.—Doc. +No. 62, Documents of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, 1832-33, Vol. ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Doc. No. 68 [New York] Senate Docs., 1838, Vol. ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to +1856, xiii:426-427.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> In the course of this work, the word Government is +frequently used to signify not merely the functions of the National +Government, but those of the totality of Government, State and +municipal, not less than National.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> Doc. No. 49 [New York] Senate Docs., 1838, Vol. ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> "On the Penitentiary System in the United States," etc., +by G. De Beaumont and A. De Tocqueville, Appendix 17, Statistical Notes: +244-245.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> A complete error. Walling, for more than thirty years +Superintendent of Police of New York City, says in his "Memoirs" that he +never knew an instance of a rich murderer who was hanged or otherwise +executed. And have we all not noted likewise?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> "On the Penitentiary System," etc., 184-185.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Prison Association of New York, Annual Reports, 1844-46. +It is characteristic of the origin of all of these charity associations, +that many of the founders of this prison association were some of the +very men who had profited by bribery and theft. Horace Greeley was +actuated by pure humanitarian motives, but such incorporators as Prosper +Wetmore, Ulshoeffer, and others were, or had been, notorious in lobbying +by bribing bank charters through the New York Legislature.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> "The New Yorker," Feb. 17, 1838.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> "Reminiscences of John Jacob Astor," New York "Herald," +March 31, 1848.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Doc. No. 24, Proceedings of the [New York City] Board of +Assistant Aldermen, xxix. The Merchant's Bank, for instance, was +assessed in 1833 at $6,000; it had cost that sum twenty years before and +in 1833 was worth three times as much.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> Proceedings of the [New York City] Board of Assistant +Aldermen, xxix, Doc. No. 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> Many eminent lawyers, elected or appointed to high +official or judicial office, were financially interested in +corporations, and very often profited in dubious ways. The case of Roger +B. Taney, who, from 1836, was for many years, Chief Justice of the +Supreme Court of the United States, is a conspicuous example. After he +was appointed United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1833, the +United States Senate passed a resolution inquiring of him whether he +were not a stockholder in the Union Bank of Maryland, in which bank he +had ordered public funds deposited. He admitted that he was, but +asserted that he had obtained the stock before he had selected that bank +as a depository of public funds. (See Senate Docs., First Session, 23rd +Congress, Vol. iii, Doc. No. 238.) It was Taney, who as Chief Justice of +the Supreme Court of the United States, handed down the decision, in the +Dred Scott case, that negro slaves, under the United States +Constitution, were not eligible to citizenship and were without civil +rights.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> These frauds at the polls went on, not only in every +State but even in such newly-organized Territories as New Mexico. Many +facts were brought out by contestants before committees of Congress. +(See "Contested Elections," 1834 to 1865, Second Session, 38th Congress, +1864-65, Vol. v, Doc. No. 57.) In the case of Monroe vs. Jackson, in +1848, James Monroe claimed that his opponent was illegally elected by +the votes of convicts and other non-voters brought over from Blackwell's +Island. The majority of the House Elections Committee reported favoring +Monroe's being seated. Aldermanic documents tell likewise of the same +state of affairs in New York. (See the author's "History of Tammany +Hall.") Similar practices were common in Philadelphia, Baltimore and +other cities, and in country townships.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> "The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the +City of New York." By Moses Yale Beach.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> "Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of +Philadelphia." By a Member of the Philadelphia Bar, 1845. +</p><p> +The misconception which often exists even among those who profess the +deepest scholarship and the most certainty of opinion as to the +development of men of great wealth was instanced by a misstatement of +Dr. Felix Adler, leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. In +an address on "Anti-Democratic Tendencies in American Life" delivered +some years ago, Dr. Adler asserted: "Before the Civil War there were +three millionaires; now there are 4,000." The error of this assertion is +evident.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":80-81.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> Proceedings of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, xxix, +Doc. No. 24. This poverty was the consequence, not of any one phase of +the existing system, nor of the growth of any one fortune, but resulted +from the whole industrial system. The chief form of the exploitation of +the worker was that of his capacity as a producer; other forms completed +the process. A considerable number of the paupers were immigrants, who, +fleeing from exploitation at home, were kept in poverty in America, "the +land of boundless resources." The statement often made that there were +no tramps in the United States before the Civil War is wholly +incorrect.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> Matthew Hale Smith in "Sunshine and Shadow in New York," +186-187.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> See Part III of this work, "The Great Railroad +Fortunes".</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> See Part III, Chapters iv, v, vi, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Proceedings of the [New York City] Commissioners of the +Sinking Fund, 1844-1865:213.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> Doc. No. 46, Documents of the [New York City] Board of +Aldermen, xxi, Part II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Proceedings of the [New York City] Commissioners of the +Sinking Fund, 1844-1865:734.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Ibid:865.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Proceedings of the [New York City] Sinking Fund +Commission, 1882:2020-2023.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Documents of the [New York City] Board of Aldermen, 1877, +Part II. No. 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> New York Senate Journal, 1871:482-83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> See Exhibits Doc. No. 8, Documents of the [New York City] +Board of Aldermen, 1877.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> For a full account of the operations of the Tweed régime +see the author's "History of Tammany Hall."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health for 1866, +Appendix A:38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> "America's Successful Men of Affairs":36.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> "No church disdained his gifts." The morals and methods +of the church, as exemplified by Trinity Church, were, judged by +standards, much worse than those of Astor or of his fellow-landlords or +capitalists. These latter did not make a profession of hypocrisy, at any +rate. The condition of the tenements owned by Trinity Church was as +shocking as could be found anywhere in New York City. We subjoin the +testimony given by George C. Booth of the Society for the Improvement of +the Condition of the Poor before a Senate Investigating Committee in +1885: +</p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Senator Plunkett: Ask him if there is not a great deal of church +influence [in politics]. +</p><p> +The Witness: Yes, sir, there is Trinity Church. +</p><p> +Q.: Which is the good, and which is the bad? +</p><p> +A.: I think Trinity is the bad. +</p><p> +Q.: Do the Trinity people own a great deal of tenement property? +</p><p> +A.: Yes, sir. +</p><p> +Q.: Do they comply with the law as other people do? +</p><p> +A.: No, sir; that is accounted for in one way—the property is very old +and rickety, and perhaps even rotten, so that some allowance must be +made on that account.</p></div> + +<p>(Investigation of the Departments of the City of New York, by Special +Committee of the [New York] Senate, 1885, 1:193-194.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> See Testimony taken before the [New York] Senate +Committee on Cities, 1890, iii:2312, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Testimony taken before the [New York] Senate Committee on +Cities, 1890, iii: 2314-2315.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> As one of many illustrations of the ethics of the +propertied class, the appended newspaper dispatch from Newport, R. I., +on Jan. 2, 1903, brings out some significant facts: +</p><p> +"William C. Schermerhorn, whose death is announced in New York, and who +was a cousin of Mrs. William Astor, was one of Newport's pioneer summer +residents. He was one of New York's millionaires, and his Newport villa +is situated on Narragansett avenue near Cliffside, opposite the Pinard +cottages. +</p><p> +"Mr. Schermerhorn, with Mrs. Astor and ex-Commodore Gerry, of the New +York Yacht Club, in order to avoid the inheritance tax of New York, and +to take advantage of Newport's low tax-rate, obtained in January last +through their counsel, Colonel Samuel R. Honey, a decree declaring their +citizenship in Rhode Island. Since that time Mr. Schermerhorn's +residence has been in this state. In last year's tax-list he was +assessed for $150,000. +</p><p> +"Mr. Schermerhorn was a member of both the fashionable clubs on Bellevue +avenue, the Newport Casino and the Newport Reading-Room."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> For further details on this point see Chapter ix, Part +II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> Some of this land and these water grants and piers were +obtained by Peter Goelet during the corrupt administration of City +Controller Romaine. Goelet, it seems, was allowed to pay in +installments. Thus, an entry, on January 26, 1807, in the municipal +records, reads: "On receiving the report of the Street Commissioner, +Ordered that warrants issue to Messrs. Anderson and Allen for the three +installments due to them from Mr. Goelet for the Whitehall and Exchange +Piers."—MSS. Minutes of the [New York City] Common Council, 1807, +xvi:286.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> "Prominent Families of New York":231. Another notable +example of this glorifying was Nicholas Biddle, long president of the +United States Bank. Yet the court records show that, after a career of +bribery, he stole $400,000 of that bank's funds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> At this very time his wealth, judged by the standard of +the times, was prodigious. "His wealth is vast—not less than five or +six millions," wrote Barrett in 1862—"The Old Merchants of New York +City," 1:349.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> See Part III, "Great Fortunes From Railroads."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> "Kings of Fortune":172.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Census of 1900.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:104-253.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> In those parts of this work relating to great fortunes +from railroads and from industries, this phase of commercial life is +specifically dealt with. The enormities brazenly committed during the +Spanish-American War of 1898 are sufficiently remembered. Napoleon had +the same experience with French contractors, and the testimony of all +wars is to the same effect.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> So valuable was a partnership in this firm that a writer +says that Field paid Leiter "an unknown number of millions" when he +bought out Leiter's interest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> Census of 1900.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:370.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> See his work, "If Christ Came to Chicago." Much more +specific and reliable is the report of the U. S. Industrial Commission. +After giving the low wages paid to women in the different cities, it +says: "It is manifest from the figures given that the amount of earnings +in many cases is less than the actual cost of the necessities of life. +The existence of such a state of affairs must inevitably lead in many +cases to the adoption of a life of immorality and, in fact, there is no +doubt that the low rate of wages paid to women is one of the most +frequent causes of prostitution. The fact that the great mass of working +women maintain their virtue in spite of low wages and dangerous +environment is highly creditable to them."—Final Report of the +Industrial Commission, 1902, xix:927.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> See an article on this point by the Rev. F. M. Goodchild +in the "Arena" Magazine for March, 1896.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> In the course of inquiries among the Chicago religious +missions in 1909, the author was everywhere informed that the great +majority of native prostitutes were products of the department stores. +Some of the conditions in these department stores, and how their owners +have fought every effort to better these conditions, have been revealed +in many official reports. The appended description is from the Annual +Report of the Factory Inspectors of Illinois, 1903-04, pp. ix and x: +</p><p> +"In this regard, and worthy of mention, reference might be made to the +large dry goods houses and department stores located in Chicago and +other cities, in which places it has been customary to employ a great +number of children under the age of sixteen as messenger boys, bundle +wrappers, or as cash boys or cash girls, wagon boys, etc. In previous +years these children were required to come to work early in the morning +and remain until late at night, or as long as the establishment was open +for business, which frequently required the youngsters to remain +anywhere from 8:00 to 9:00 o'clock in the morning until 10:00 and 11:00 +p.m., their weak and immature bodies tired and worn out under the strain +of the customary holiday rush. In the putting a stop to this practice of +employing small children ten and thirteen hours per day, the department +found it necessary to institute frequent prosecutions. While our efforts +were successful, we met with serious opposition, and in some cases +almost continuous litigation, some 300 arrests being necessary to bring +about the desired results, which finally secured the eight hour day and +a good night's rest for the small army of toilers engaged in the candy +and paper box manufacturing establishments and department stores. +</p><p> +"In conducting these investigations and crusades the inspectors met with +some surprises in the way of unique excuses. In Chicago a manager of a +very representative first class department store, one of the largest of +its kind, gave as his reason for not obeying the law, that they had +never been interfered with before. Another, that the children preferred +to be in the store rather than at home. The unnaturalness of this latter +excuse can be readily realized by anyone who has stepped into a large +department store during the holiday season, when the clerks are tired +and cross and little consideration is shown to the cash boy or cash girl +who, because he or she may be tired or physically frail, might be a +little tardy in running an errand or wrapping a bundle. This character +of work for long hours is deleterious to a child, as are the employments +in many branches of the garment trade or other industries, which labor +is so openly condemned by those who have been interested in anti-child +labor movements."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> For detailed particulars see that part of this work +comprising "Great Fortunes from Public Franchises."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> The acts here summarized are narrated specifically in +Part III, "Great Fortunes from Railroads."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> "The Truth About the Trusts":266-267.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> "Industrial Evolution of the United States," 313.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> Parsons, "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":196. +Also, Report of Chicago Chief of Police for 1894. This was a customary +practice of railroad, industrial and mining capitalists. Further facts +are brought out in other parts of this work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> "Report on the Chicago Strike of June and July, 1894," by +the United States Strike Commissioners, 1895.—Throughout all subsequent +years, and at present, the Pullman Company has continued charging the +public exorbitant rates for the use of its cars. Numerous bills have +been introduced in various legislatures to compel the company to reduce +its rates. The company has squelched these measures. Its consistent +policy is well known of paying its porters and conductors such poor +wages that the 15,000,000 passengers who ride in Pullman cars every year +are virtually obliged to make up the deficiency by tips.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> Sweeping as this statement may impress the uninitiated, +it is entirely within the facts. As one of many indisputable +confirmations it is only necessary to refer to the extended debate over +child labor in the United States Senate on January 23, 28, and 29, 1907, +in which it was conclusively shown that more than half a million +children under fifteen years of age were employed in factories, mines +and sweatshops. It was also brought out how the owners of these +properties bitterly resisted the passage or enforcement of restrictive +laws.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> Eighth Biennial Report of the Illinois Bureau of Labor +Statistics, 1894. The report, made public in August, 1909, of the +Illinois Tax Reform League's investigation of the Chicago Board of +Review's assessments, showed that these frauds in evading taxation not +only continue, but on a much greater scale than ever before. The +Illinois Tax Reform League asserted, among other statements, that Edward +Morris, head of a large packing company, was not assessed on personal +property, whereas he owned $43,000,000 worth of securities, which the +League specified. The League called upon the Board of Review to assess +J. Ogden Armour, one of the chiefs of the Beef Trust, on $30,840,000 of +personal property. Armour was being yearly assessed on only $200,000 of +personal property. These are two of the many instances given in the +report in question. It is estimated (in 1909), that back taxes on at +least a billion dollars of assessable corporate capital stock, are due +the city from a multitude of individuals and corporations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> "The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United +States":143.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> "Hundreds of millions of people." Not only are the +85,000,000 people of the United States compelled to render tribute, but +the peoples of other countries all over the globe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> "Marshall Field's Will" by Joseph Medill Patterson. +Reprinted in pamphlet form from "Collier's Weekly."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> The number of men killed per 100,000 employed has +increased from 267 a year in 1895 to about 355 at present. (See report +of J. A. Holmes, chief of the technological branch of the United States +Geological Survey.) The chief reason for this slaughter is because it is +more profitable to hire cheap, inexperienced men, and not surround the +work with proper safeguards.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History of the Great American +Fortunes, Vol. I, by Myers Gustavus + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES *** + +***** This file should be named 30956-h.htm or 30956-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/9/5/30956/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I + Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times + +Author: Myers Gustavus + +Release Date: January 13, 2010 [EBook #30956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire + + + + + + + + +THE HISTORY OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + * * * * * + +THE HISTORY OF TAMMANY HALL + +HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC FRANCHISES IN NEW YORK CITY + + + + +HISTORY OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES + +BY +GUSTAVUS MYERS + +AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF TAMMANY HALL," "HISTORY OF +PUBLIC FRANCHISES IN NEW YORK CITY," ETC. + + * * * * * + +VOL. I. + + PART I: CONDITIONS IN SETTLEMENT AND COLONIAL TIMES + + PART II: THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES + + * * * * * + +CHICAGO +CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY +1910 + + +Copyright 1907, 1908 and 1909 +By GUSTAVUS MYERS + + + + +PREFACE + + +In writing this work my aim has been to give the exact facts as far as +the available material allows. Necessarily it is impossible, from the +very nature of the case, to obtain all the facts. It is obvious that in +both past and present times the chief beneficiaries of our social and +industrial system have found it to their interest to represent their +accumulations as the rewards of industry and ability, and have likewise +had the strongest motives for concealing the circumstances of all those +complex and devious methods which have been used in building up great +fortunes. In this they have been assisted by a society so constituted +that the means by which these great fortunes have been amassed have been +generally lauded as legitimate and exemplary. + +The possessors of towering fortunes have hitherto been described in two +ways. On the one hand, they have been held up as marvels of success, as +preeminent examples of thrift, enterprise and extraordinary ability. +More recently, however, the tendency in certain quarters has been +diametrically the opposite. This latter class of writers, intent upon +pandering to a supposed popular appetite for sensation, pile exposure +upon exposure, and hold up the objects of their diatribes as monsters of +commercial and political crime. Neither of these classes has sought to +establish definitely the relation of the great fortunes to the social +and industrial system which has propagated them. Consequently, these +superficial effusions and tirades--based upon a lack of understanding of +the propelling forces of society--have little value other than as +reflections of a certain aimless and disordered spirit of the times. +With all their volumes of print, they leave us in possession of a +scattered array of assertions, bearing some resemblance to facts, which, +however, fail to be facts inasmuch as they are either distorted to take +shape as fulsome eulogies or as wild, meaningless onslaughts. + +They give no explanation of the fundamental laws and movements of the +present system, which have resulted in these vast fortunes; nor is there +the least glimmering of a scientific interpretation of a succession of +states and tendencies from which these men of great wealth have emerged. +With an entire absence of comprehension, they portray our +multimillionaires as a phenomenal group whose sudden rise to their +sinister and overshadowing position is a matter of wonder and surprise. +They do not seem to realize for a moment--what is clear to every real +student of economics--that the great fortunes are the natural, logical +outcome of a system based upon factors the inevitable result of which is +the utter despoilment of the many for the benefit of a few. + +This being so, our plutocrats rank as nothing more or less than as so +many unavoidable creations of a set of processes which must imperatively +produce a certain set of results. These results we see in the +accelerated concentration of immense wealth running side by side with a +propertyless, expropriated and exploited multitude. + +The dominant point of these denunciatory emanations, however, is that +certain of our men of great fortune have acquired their possessions by +dishonest methods. These men are singled out as especial creatures of +infamy. Their doings and sayings furnish material for many pages of +assault. Here, again, an utter lack of knowledge and perspective is +observable. For, while it is true that the methods employed by these +very rich men have been, and are, fraudulent, it is also true that they +are but the more conspicuous types of a whole class which, in varying +degrees, has used precisely the same methods, and the collective +fortunes and power of which have been derived from identically the same +sources. + +In diagnosing an epidemic, it is not enough that we should be content +with the symptoms; wisdom and the protection of the community demand +that we should seek and eradicate the cause. Both wealth and poverty +spring from the same essential cause. Neither, then, should be +indiscriminately condemned as such; the all-important consideration is +to determine why they exist, and how such an absurd contrast can be +abolished. + +In taking up a series of types of great fortunes, as I have done in this +work, my object has not been the current one of portraying them either +as remarkable successes or as unspeakable criminals. My purpose is to +present a sufficient number of examples as indicative of the whole +character of the vested class and of the methods which have been +employed. And in doing this, neither prejudice nor declamation has +entered. Such a presentation, I believe, cannot fail to be useful for +many reasons. + +It will, in the first place, satisfy a spirit of inquiry. As time +passes, and the power of the propertied oligarchy becomes greater and +greater, more and more of a studied attempt is made to represent the +origin of that property as the product of honest toil and great public +service. Every searcher for truth is entitled to know whether this is +true or not. But what is much more important is for the people to know +what have been the cumulative effects of a system which subsists upon +the institutions of private property and wage-labor. If it possesses the +many virtues that it is said to possess, what are these virtues? If it +is a superior order of civilization, in what does this superiority +consist? + +This work will assist in explaining, for naturally a virtuous and +superior order ought to produce virtuous and superior men. The kind and +quality of methods and successful ruling men, which this particular +civilization forces to the front, are set forth in this exposition. +Still more important is the ascertainment of where these stupendous +fortunes came from, their particular origin and growth, and what +significance the concomitant methods and institutions have to the great +body of the people. + +I may add that in Part I no attempt has been made to present an +exhaustive account of conditions in Settlement and Colonial times. I +have merely given what I believe to be a sufficient resume of conditions +leading up to the later economic developments in the United States. + + GUSTAVUS MYERS. + September 1, 1909. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + PREFACE iii + + +PART I + + CONDITIONS IN COLONIAL AND SETTLEMENT TIMES + + CHAPTER + + I. THE GREAT PROPRIETARY ESTATES 11 + + II. THE SWAY OF THE LANDGRAVES 23 + + III. THE RISE OF THE TRADING CLASS 45 + + IV. THE SHIPPING FORTUNES 57 + + V. THE SHIPPERS AND THEIR TIMES 65 + + VI. GIRARD--THE RICHEST OF THE SHIPPERS 83 + + +PART II + + THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES + + I. THE ORIGIN OF HUGE CITY ESTATES 97 + + II. THE INCEPTION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 109 + + III. THE GROWTH OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 126 + + IV. THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 155 + + V. THE MOMENTUM OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 182 + + VI. THE PROPULSION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 202 + + VII. THE CLIMAX OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE 224 + + VIII. OTHER LAND FORTUNES CONSIDERED 242 + + IX. THE FIELD FORTUNE IN EXTENSO 262 + + X. FURTHER VISTAS OF THE FIELD FORTUNE 278 + + + + +PART I + + +CONDITIONS IN SETTLEMENT AND COLONIAL TIMES + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE GREAT PROPRIETARY ESTATES + + +The noted private fortunes of settlement and colonial times were derived +from the ownership of land and the gains of trading. Usually both had a +combined influence and were frequently attended by agriculture. +Throughout the colonies were scattered lords of the soil who held vast +territorial domains over which they exercised an arbitrary and, in some +portions of the colonies, a feudal sway. + +Nearly all the colonies were settled by chartered companies, organized +for purely commercial purposes and the success of which largely depended +upon the emigration which they were able to promote. These corporations +were vested with enormous powers and privileges which, in effect, +constituted them as sovereign rulers, although their charters were +subject to revision or amendment. The London Company, thrice chartered +to take over to itself the land and resources of Virginia and populate +its zone of rule, was endowed with sweeping rights and privileges which +made it an absolute monopoly. The impecunious noblemen or gentlemen who +transported themselves to Virginia to recoup their dissipated fortunes +or seek adventure, encountered no trouble in getting large grants of +land especially when after 1614 tobacco became a fashionable article in +England and took rank as a valuable commercial commodity. + +Over this colony now spread planters who hastened to avail themselves of +this new-found means of getting rich. Land and climate alike favored +them, but they were confronted with a scarcity of labor. The emergency +was promptly met by the buying of white servants in England to be resold +in Virginia to the highest bidder. This, however, was not sufficient, +and complaints poured over to the English government. As the demands of +commerce had to be sustained at any price, a system was at once put into +operation of gathering in as many of the poorer English class as could +be impressed upon some pretext, and shipping them over to be held as +bonded laborers. Penniless and lowly Englishmen, arrested and convicted +for any one of the multitude of offenses then provided for severely in +law, were transported as criminals or sold into the colonies as slaves +for a term of years. The English courts were busy grinding out human +material for the Virginia plantations; and, as the objects of commerce +were considered paramount, this process of disposing of what was +regarded as the scum element was adjudged necessary and justifiable. No +voice was raised in protest. + + +THE INTRODUCTION OF BLACK SLAVES. + +But, fast as the English courts might work, they did not supply laborers +enough. It was with exultation that in 1619 the plantation owners were +made acquainted with a new means of supplying themselves with adequate +workers. A Dutch ship arrived at Jamestown with a cargo of negroes from +Guinea. The blacks were promptly bought at good prices by the planters. +From this time forth the problem of labor was considered sufficiently +solved. As chattel slavery harmonized well with the necessities of +tobacco growing and gain, it was accepted as a just condition and was +continued by the planters, whose interests and standards were the +dominant factor. + +After 1620, when the London Company was dissolved by royal decree, and +the commerce of Virginia made free, the planters were the only factor. +Virginia, it was true, was made a royal province and put under deputy +rule, but the big planters contrived to get the laws and customs their +self-interest called for. There were only two classes--the rich +planters, with their gifts of land, their bond-servants and slaves and, +on the other hand, the poor whites. A middle class was entirely lacking. + +As the supreme staple of commerce and as currency itself, tobacco could +buy anything, human, as well as inert, material. The labor question had +been sufficiently vanquished, but not so the domestic. Wives were much +needed; the officials in London instantly hearkened, and in 1620 sent +over sixty young women who were auctioned off and bought at from one +hundred and twenty to one hundred and sixty pounds of tobacco each. +Tobacco then sold at three shillings a pound. Its cultivation was +assiduously carried on. The use of the land mainly for agricultural +purposes led to the foundation of numerous settlements along the shores, +bays, rivers, and creeks with which Virginia is interspersed and which +afforded accessibility to the sea ports. As the years wore on and the +means and laborers of the planters increased, their lands became more +extensive, so that it was not an unusual thing to find plantations of +fifty or sixty thousand acres. But neither in Virginia nor in Maryland, +under the almost regal powers of Lord Baltimore who had propriety rights +over the whole of his province, were such huge estates to be seen as +were being donated in the northern colonies, especially in New +Netherlands and in New England. + + +FEUDAL GRANTS IN THE NORTH. + +In its intense aim to settle New Netherlands and make use of its +resources, Holland, through the States General, offered extraordinary +inducements to promoters of colonization. The prospect of immense +estates, with feudal rights and privileges, was held out as the alluring +incentive. The bill of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629 made easy the +possibility of becoming a lord of the soil with comprehensive +possessions and powers. Any man who should succeed in planting a colony +of fifty "souls," each of whom was to be more than fifteen years old, +was to become at once a patroon with all the rights of lordship. He was +permitted to own sixteen miles along shore or on one side of a navigable +river. An alternative was given of the ownership of eight miles on one +side of a river and as far into the interior "as the situation of the +occupiers will permit." The title was vested in the patroon forever, and +he was presented with a monopoly of the resources of his domain except +furs and pelts. No patroon or other colonist was allowed to make woolen, +linen, cotton or cloth of any material under pain of banishment.[1] + +These restrictions were in the interest of the Dutch West India Company, +a commercial corporation which had well-nigh dictatorial powers. A +complete monopoly throughout the whole of its subject territory, it was +armed with sweeping powers, a formidable equipment, and had a great +prestige. It was somewhat of a cross between legalized piracy and a body +of adroit colonization promoters. Pillage and butchery were often its +auxiliaries, although in these respects it in nowise equalled its twin +corporation, the Dutch East India Company, whose exploitation of +Holland's Asiatic possessions was a long record of horrors. + + +THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. + +The policy of the Dutch West India Company was to offer generous prizes +for peopling the land while simultaneously forbidding competition with +any of the numerous products or commodities dealt in by itself. This had +much to do with determining the basic character of the conspicuous +fortunes of a century and two centuries later. It followed that when +native industries were forbidden or their output monopolized not only by +the Dutch West India Company in New Netherlands, but by other companies +elsewhere in the colonies, that ownership of land became the mainstay of +large private fortunes with agriculture as an accompanying factor. +Subsequently the effects of this continuous policy were more fully seen +when England by law after law paralyzed or closed up many forms of +colonial manufacture. The feudal character of Dutch colonization, as +carried on by the Dutch West India Company, necessarily created great +landed estates, the value of which arose not so much from agriculture, +as was the case in Virginia, Maryland and later the Carolinas and +Georgia, but from the natural resources of the land. The superb +primitive timber brought colossal profits in export, and there were +also very valuable fishery rights where an estate bounded a shore or +river. The pristine rivers were filled with great shoals of fish, to +which the river fishing of the present day cannot be compared. As +settlement increased, immigration pressed over, and more and more ships +carried cargo to and fro, these estates became consecutively more +valuable. + +To encourage colonization to its colonies still further, the States +General in 1635 passed a new decree. It repeated the feudal nature of +the rights granted and made strong additions. + +Did any aspiring adventurer seek to leap at a bound to the exalted +position of patroonship? The terms were easy. All that he had to do was +to found a colony of forty-eight adults and he had a liberal six years +in which to do it. For his efforts he was allowed even more extensive +grants of land than under the act of 1629. So complete were his powers +of proprietorship that no one could approach within seven or eight miles +of his jurisdiction without his express permission. His was really a +principality. Over its bays, rivers, and islands, had it any, as well as +over the mainland, he was given command forever. The dispensation of +justice was his exclusive right. He and he only was the court with +summary powers of "high, low and middle jurisdiction," which were +harshly or capriciously exercised. Not only did he impose sentence for +violation of laws, but he, himself, ordained those laws and they were +laws which were always framed to coincide with his interests and +personality. He had full authority to appoint officers and magistrates +and enact laws. And finally he had the power of policing his domain and +of making use of the titles and arms of his colonies. All these things +he could do "according to his will and pleasure." These absolute rights +were to descend to his heirs and assigns.[2] + + +OLD WORLD TRADERS BECOME FEUDAL LORDS. + +Thus, at the beginning of settlement times, the basis was laid in law +and custom of a landed aristocracy, or rather a group of intrenched +autocrats, along the banks of the Hudson, the shores of the ocean and +far inland. The theory then prevailed that the territory of the colonies +extended westward to the Pacific. + +From these patroons and their lineal or collateral descendants issued +many of the landed generations of families which, by reason of their +wealth and power, proved themselves powerful factors in the economic and +political history of the country. The sinister effects of this first +great grasping of the land long permeated the whole fabric of society +and were prominently seen before and after the Revolution, and +especially in the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century. +The results, in fact, are traceable to this very day, even though laws +and institutions are so greatly changed. Other colonies reflected the +constant changes of government, ruling party or policy of England, and +colonial companies chartered by England frequently forfeited their +charters. But conditions in New Netherlands remained stable under Dutch +rule, and the accumulation of great estates was intensified under +English rule. It was in New York that, at that period, the foremost +colonial estates and the predominant private fortunes were mostly held. + +The extent of some of those early estates was amazingly large. But they +were far from being acquired wholly by colonization methods. + +Many of the officers and directors of the Dutch West India Company were +Amsterdam merchants. Active, scheming, self-important men, they were +mighty in the money marts but were made use of, and looked down upon, by +the old Dutch aristocracy. Having amassed fortunes, these merchants +yearned to be the founders of great estates; to live as virtual princes +in the midst of wide possessions, even if these were still comparative +solitudes. This aspiration was mixed with the mercenary motive of +themselves owning the land from whence came the furs, pelts, timber and +the waters yielding the fishes. + +One of these directors was Kiliaen van Rensselaer, an Amsterdam pearl +merchant. In 1630 his agents bought for him from the Indians a tract of +land twenty-four miles long and forty-eight broad on the west bank of +the Hudson. It comprised, it was estimated, seven hundred thousand acres +and included what are now the counties of Albany, Rensselaer, a part of +Columbia County and a strip of what is at present Massachusetts. And +what was the price paid for this vast estate? As the deeds showed, the +munificent consideration of "certain quantities of duffels, axes, knives +and wampum,"[3] which is equal to saying that the pearl merchant got it +for almost nothing. Two other directors--Godyn and Bloemart--became +owners of great feudal estates. One of these tracts, in what is now New +Jersey, extended sixteen miles both in length and breadth, forming a +square of sixty-four miles.[4] + +So it was that these shrewd directors now combined a double advantage. +Their pride was satisfied with the absolute lordship of immense areas, +while the ownership of land gave them the manifold benefits and greater +profits of trading with the Indians at first hand. From a part of the +proceeds they later built manors which were contemplated as wonderful +and magnificent. Surrounded and served by their retainers, agents, +vassal tenants and slaves, they lived in princely and licentious style, +knowing no law in most matters except their unrestrained will. They +beheld themselves as ingenious and memorable founders of a potential +landed aristocracy whose possessions were more extended than that of +Europe. Wilderness much of it still was, but obviously the time was +coming when the population would be fairly abundant. The laws of entail +and primogeniture, then in full force, would operate to keep the estates +intact and gifted with inherent influence for generations. + +Along with their landed estates, these directors had a copious inflowing +revenue. The Dutch West India Company was in a thriving condition. By +the year 1629 it had more than one hundred full-rigged ships in +commission. Most of them were fitted out for war on the commerce of +other countries or on pirates. Fifteen thousand seamen and soldiers were +on its payroll; in that one year it used more than one hundred thousand +pounds of powder--significant of the grim quality of business done. It +had more than four hundred cannon and thousands of other destructive +weapons.[5] Anything conducive to profit, no matter if indiscriminate +murder, was accepted as legitimate and justifiable functions of trade, +and was imposed alike upon royalty, which shared in the proceeds, and +upon the people at large. The energetic trading class, concentrated in +the one effort of getting money, and having no scruples as to the means +in an age when ideals were low and vulgar, had already begun to make +public opinion in many countries, although this public opinion counted +for little among submissive peoples. It was the king and the governing +class, either or both, whose favor and declarations counted; and so long +as these profited by the devious extortions and villainies of trade the +methods were legitimatized, if not royally sanctified. + + +AN ARISTOCRACY SOLIDLY GROUNDED. + +A more potentially robust aristocracy than that which was forming in New +Netherlands could hardly be imagined. Resting upon gigantic gifts of +land, with feudal accompaniments, it held a monopoly, or nearly one, of +the land's resources. The old aristocracy of Holland grew jealous of the +power and pretensions of what it frowned upon as an upstart trading +clique and tried to curtail the rights and privileges of the patroons. +These latter contended that their absolute lordship was indisputable; to +put it in modern legal terminology that a contract could not be +impaired. They elaborated upon the argument that they had spent a "ton +of gold" (amounting to one hundred thousand guilders or forty thousand +dollars) upon their colonies.[6] They not only carried their point but +their power was confirmed and enlarged. + +Now was seen the spectacle of the middle-class men of the Old World, the +traders, more than imitating--far exceeding--the customs and pretensions +of the aristocracy of their own country which they had inveighed +against, and setting themselves up as the original and mighty landed +aristocracy of the new country. The patroons encased themselves in an +environment of pomp and awe. Like so many petty monarchs each had his +distinct flag and insignia; each fortified his domain with fortresses, +armed with cannon and manned by his paid soldiery. The colonists were +but humble dependants; they were his immediate subjects and were forced +to take the oath of fealty and allegiance to him.[7] + +In the old country the soil had long since passed into the hands of a +powerful few and was made the chief basis for the economic and political +enslavement of the people. To escape from this thralldom many of the +immigrants had endured hardships and privation to get here. They +expected that they could easily get land, the tillage of which would +insure them a measure of independence. Upon arriving they found vast +available parts of the country, especially the most desirable and +accessible portions bordering shores or rivers, preempted. An exacting +and tyrannous feudal government was in full control. Their only recourse +in many instances was to accept the best of unwelcome conditions and +become tenants of the great landed functionaries and workers for them. + + +THE ABASEMENT OF THE WORKERS. + +The patroons naturally encouraged immigration. Apart from the additional +values created by increased population, it meant a quantity of labor +which, in turn, would precipitate wages to the lowest possible scale. +At the same time, in order to stifle every aspiring quality in the +drudging laborer, and to keep in conformity with the spirit and custom +of the age which considered the worker a mere menial undeserving of any +rights, the whole force of the law was made use of to bring about sharp +discriminations. The laborer was purposely abased to the utmost and he +was made to feel in many ways his particular low place in the social +organization. + +Far above him, vested with enormous personal and legal powers, towered +the patroon, while he, the laborer, did not have the ordinary burgher +right, that of having a minor voice in public affairs. The burgher right +was made entirely dependent upon property, which was a facile method of +disfranchising the multitude of poor immigrants and of keeping them +down. Purchase was the one and only means of getting this right. To keep +it in as small and circumscribed class as possible the price was made +abnormally high. It was enacted in New Netherlands in 1659, for +instance, that immigrants coming with cargoes had to pay a thousand +guilders for the burgher right.[8] As the average laborer got two +shillings a day for his long hours of toil, often extending from sunrise +to sunset, he had little chance of ever getting this sum together. The +consequence was that the merchants became the burgher class; and all the +records of the time seem to prove conclusively that the merchants were +servile instruments of the patroons whose patronage and favor they +assiduously courted. This deliberately pursued policy of degrading and +despoiling the laboring class incited bitter hatreds and resentments, +the effects of which were permanent. + +[Illustration: JEREMIAS VAN RENSSLAERR. +One of the Patroons. +(From an Engraving.)] + +[Illustration: Signature] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] O'Callaghan's "History of New Netherlands," 1:112-120. + +[2] Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, +1:89-100. + +[3] O'Callaghan, 1:124. Although it was said that Kiliaen van Rensselaer +visited America, it seems to be established that he never did. He +governed his estate as an absentee landgrave, through agents. He was the +most powerful of all of the patroons. + +[4] Ibid., 125. + +[5] Colonial Documents, 1:41. The primary object of this company was a +monopoly of the Indian trade, not colonization. The "princely" manors +were a combination fort and trading house, surrounded by moat and +stockade. + +[6] Colonial Documents, 1:86. + +[7] "Annals of Albany," iii:287. The power of the patroons over their +tenants, or serfs, was almost unlimited. No "man or woman, son or +daughter, man servant or maid servant" could leave a patroon's service +during the time that they had agreed to remain, except by his written +consent, no matter what abuses or breaches of contract were committed by +the patroon. + +[8] "Burghers and Freemen of New York":29. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE SWAY OF THE LANDGRAVES + + +While this seizure of land was going on in New Netherlands, vast areas +in New England were passing suddenly into the hands of a few men. These +areas sometimes comprised what are now entire States, and were often +palpably obtained by fraud, collusion, trickery or favoritism. The +Puritan influx into Massachusetts was an admixture of different +occupations. Some were traders or merchants; others were mechanics. By +far the largest portion were cultivators of the soil whom economic +pressure not less than religious persecution had driven from England. To +these land was a paramount consideration. + +Describing how the English tiller had been expropriated from the soil +Wallace says: "The ingenuity of lawyers and direct landlord legislation +steadily increased the powers of great landowners and encroached upon +the rights of the people, till at length the monstrous doctrine arose +that a landless Englishman has no right whatever to enjoyment even of +the unenclosed commons and heaths and the mountain and forest wastes of +his native country, but is everywhere in the eye of the law a trespasser +whenever he ventures off a public road or pathway."[9] By the sixteenth +century the English peasantry had been evicted even from the commons, +which were turned into sheep walks by the impoverished barons to make +money from the Flemish wool market. The land at home wrenched from them, +the poor English immigrants ardently expected that in America land would +be plentiful. They were bitterly disappointed. The various English +companies, chartered by royal command with all-inclusive powers, despite +the frequent opposition of Parliament, held the trade and land of the +greater part of the colonies as a rigid monopoly. In the case of the New +England Company severe punishment was threatened to all who should +encroach upon its rights. It also was freed from payment for twenty-one +years and was relieved from taxes forever. + + +THE COLONIES CARVED INTO GREAT ESTATES. + +The New England colonies were carved out into a few colossal private +estates. The example of the British nobility was emulated; but the +chartered companies did not have to resort to the adroit, disingenuous, +subterranean methods which the English land magnates used in +perpetuating their seizure, as so graphically described by S. W. +Thackery in his work, "The Land and the Community". The land in New +England was taken over boldly and arbitrarily by the directors of the +Plymouth Company, the most powerful of all the companies which exploited +New England. The handful of men who participated in this division, +sustained with a high hand their claims and pretensions, and augmented +and fortified them by every device. Quite regardless of who the changing +monarch was, or what country ruled, these colonial magnates generally +contrived to keep the power strong in their own hands. There might be a +superficial show of changed conditions, an apparent infusion of +democracy, but, in reality, the substance remained the same. + +This was nowhere more lucidly or strikingly illustrated than after New +Netherlands passed into the control of the English and was renamed New +York. Laws were decreed which seemed to bear the impress of justice and +democracy. Monopoly was abolished, every man was given the much-prized +right of trading in furs and pelts, and the burgher right was extended +and its acquisition made easier. + +However well-intentioned these altered laws were, they turned out to be +shallow delusions. Under English rule, the gifts of vast estates in New +York were even greater than under Dutch rule and beyond doubt were +granted corruptly or by favoritism. Miles upon miles of land in New York +which had not been preempted were brazenly given away by the royal +Governor Fletcher for bribes; and it was suspected, although not clearly +proved, that he trafficked in estates in Pennsylvania during the time +when, by royal order, he supplanted William Penn in the government of +that province. From the evidence which has come down it would appear +that any one who offered Fletcher his price could be transformed into a +great vested land owner. But still the people imagined that they had a +real democratic government. Had not England established representative +assemblies? These, with certain restrictions, alone had the power of +law-making for the provinces. These representative bodies were supposed +to rest upon the vote of the people, which vote, however, was determined +by a strict property qualification. + + +THE LANDED PROPRIETORS THE POLITICAL RULERS. + +What really happened was that, apparently deprived of direct feudal +power, the landed interests had no difficulty in retaining their +law-making ascendancy by getting control of the various provincial +assemblies. Bodies supposedly representative of the whole people were, +in fact, composed of great landowners, of a quota of merchants who were +subservient to the landowners, and a sprinkling of farmers. In Virginia +this state was long-continuing, while in New York province it became +such an intolerable abuse and resulted in such oppressions to the body +of the people, that on Sept. 20, 1764, Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader +Colden, writing from New York to the Lords of Trade at London, strongly +expostulated. He described how the land magnates had devised to set +themselves up as the law-making class. Three of the large land grants +contained provisions guaranteeing to each owner the privilege of sending +a representative to the General Assembly. These landed proprietors, +therefore, became hereditary legislators. "The owners of other great +Patents," Colden continued, "being men of the greatest opulence in the +several American counties where these Tracts are, have sufficient +influence to be perpetually elected for those counties. The General +Assembly, then, of this Province consists of the owners of these +extravagant Grants, the merchants of New York, the principal of them +strongly connected with the owners of these Great Tracts by Family +interest, and of Common Farmers, which last are men easily deluded and +led away with popular arguments of Liberty and Privileges. The +Proprietors of the great tracts are not only freed from the quit rents +which the other landholders in the Provinces pay, but by their +influences in the Assembly are freed from every other public Tax on +their lands."[10] + +What Colden wrote of the landed class of New York was substantially true +of all the other provinces. The small, powerful clique of great +landowners had cunningly taken over to themselves the functions of +government and diverted them to their own ends. First the land was +seized and then it was declared exempt of taxation. + +Inevitably there was but one sequel. Everywhere, but especially so in +New York and Virginia, the landed proprietors became richer and more +arrogant, while poverty, even in new country with extraordinary +resources, took root and continued to grow. The burden of taxation fell +entirely upon the farming and laboring classes; although the merchants +were nominally taxed they easily shifted their obligations upon those +two classes by indirect means of trade. Usurious loans and mortgages +became prevalent. + +It was now seen what meaningless tinsel the unrestricted right to trade +in furs was. To get the furs access to the land was necessary; and the +land was monopolized. In the South, where tobacco and corn were the +important staples, the worker was likewise denied the soil except as a +laborer or tenant, and in Massachusetts colony, where fortunes were +being made from timber, furs and fisheries, the poor man had practically +no chance against the superior advantages of the landed and privileged +class. These conditions led to severe reprisals. Several uprisings in +New York, Bacon's rebellion in Virginia, after the restoration of +Charles II, when that king granted large tracts of land belonging to the +colony to his favorites, and subsequently, in 1734, a ferment in +Georgia, even under the mild proprietary rule of the philanthropist +Oglethorpe, were all really outbursts of popular discontent largely +against the oppressive form in which land was held and against +discriminative taxation, although each uprising had its local issues +differing from those elsewhere. + +In this conflict between landed class and people, the only hope of the +mass of the people lay in getting the favorable attention of royal +governors. At least one of these considered earnestly and +conscientiously the grave existing abuses and responded to popular +protest which had become bitter. + + +A CONFLICT BETWEEN LAND MAGNATES AND PEOPLE. + +This official was the Earl of Bellomont. Scarcely had he arrived after +his appointment as Captain-General and Governor of Massachusetts Bay, +New York and other provinces, when he was made acquainted with the +widespread discontent. The landed magnates had not only created an +abysmal difference between themselves and the masses in possessions and +privileges, but also in dress and air, founded upon strict distinctions +in law. The landed aristocrat with his laces and ruffles, his silks and +his gold and silver ornaments and his expensive tableware, his +consciously superior air and tone of grandiose authority, was far +removed in established position from the mechanic or the laborer with +his coarse clothes and mean habitation. Laws were long in force in +various provinces which prohibited the common people from wearing gold +and silver lace, silks and ornaments. Bellomont noted the sense of deep +injustice smouldering in the minds of the people and set out to +confiscate the great estates, particularly, as he set forth, as many of +them had been obtained by bribery. + +It was with amazement that Bellomont learned that one man, Colonel +Samuel Allen, claimed to own the whole of what is now the state of New +Hampshire. When, in 1635, the Plymouth Colony was about to surrender its +charter, its directors apportioned their territory to themselves +individually. New Hampshire went by lot to Captain John Mason who, some +years before, had obtained a patent to the same area from the company. +Charles I had confirmed the company's action. After Mason's death, his +claims were bought up by Allen for about $1,250. Mason, however, left an +heir and protracted litigation followed. In the meantime, settlers +taking advantage of these conflicting claims, proceeded to spread over +New Hampshire and hew the forests for cleared agricultural land. Allen +managed to get himself appointed governor of New Hampshire in 1692 and +declared the whole province his personal property and threatened to oust +the settlers as trespassers unless they came to terms. There was +imminent danger of an uprising of the settlers, who failed to see why +the land upon which they had spent labor did not belong to them. +Bellomont investigated; and in communication, dated June 22, 1700, to +the Lords of Trade, denounced Allen's title as defective and +insufficient, and brought out the charge that Allen had tried to get his +confirmation of his, Allen's, claims by means of a heavy bribe. + + +ATTEMPTED BRIBERY CHARGED. + +"There was an offer made me," Bellomont wrote, "of L10,000 in money, but +I thank God I had not the least tempting thought to accept of the offer +and I hope nothing in this world will ever be able to attempt me to +betray England in the least degree. This offer was made me three or four +times." Bellomont added: "I will make it appear that the lands and woods +claimed by Colonel Allen are much more valuable than ten of the biggest +estates in England, and I will rate those ten estates at L300,000 a +piece, one with another, which is three millions. By his own confession +to me at Pescattaway last summer, he valued the Quit Rents of his lands +(as he calls 'em) at L22,000 per annum at 3d per acre of 6d in the pound +of all improv'd Rents; then I leave your lordships to judge what an +immense estate the improv'd rents must be, which (if his title be +allowed) he has as good a right to the forementioned Quit Rents. And all +this besides the Woods which I believe he might very well value at half +the worth of the lands. There never was, I believe, since the world +began so great a bargain as Allen has had of Mason, if it be allowed to +stand good, that all this vast estate I have been naming should be +purchased for a poor L250 and that a desperate debt, too, as Col. Allen +thought. He pretends to a great part of this province as far Westward as +Cape St. Ann, which is said to take in 17 of the best towns in this +province next to Boston, the best improved land, and, (I think Col. +Allen told me) 8 or 900,000 acres of their land. If Col. Allen shall at +any time go about to make a forcible entry on these lands he pretends to +(for, to be sure, the people will never turn tenants to him willingly) +the present occupants will resist him by any force he shall bring and +the Province will be put to a combustion and what may be the course I +dread to think."...[11] + +But the persistent Allen did not establish his claim. Several times he +lost in the litigation, the last time in 1715. His death was followed by +his son's death; and after sixty years of fierce animosities and +litigation, the whole contention was allowed to lapse. Says Lodge: "His +heirs were minors who did not push the controversy, and the claim soon +sank out of sight to the great relief of the New Hampshire people, whose +right to their homes had so long been in question."[12] + +Similarly, another area, the entirety of what is now the State of Maine, +went to the individual ownership of Sir Fernandino Gorges, the same who +had betrayed Essex to Queen Elizabeth and who had received rich rewards +for his treachery.[13] The domain descended to his grandson, Fernando +Gorges, who, on March 13, 1677, sold it by deed to John Usher, a Boston +merchant, for L1,250. The ominous dissatisfaction of the New Hampshire +and other settlers with the monopolization of land was not slighted by +the English government; at the very time Usher bought Maine the +government was on the point of doing the same thing and opening the land +for settlement. Usher at once gave a deed of the province to the +governor and company of Massachusetts, of which colony and later, State, +it remained a part until its creation as a State in 1820.[14] + +These were two notable instances of vast land grants which reverted to +the people. In most of the colonies the popular outcry for free access +to the land was not so effective. In Pennsylvania, after the government +was restored to Penn, and in part of New Jersey conditions were more +favorable to the settlers. In those colonies corrupt usurpations of the +land were comparatively few, although the proprietary families continued +to hold extensive tracts. Penn's sons by his second wife, for instance, +became men of great wealth.[15] The pacific and conciliatory Quaker +faith operated as a check on any local extraordinary misuse of power. +Unfortunately for historical accuracy and penetration, there is an +obscurity as to the intimate circumstances under which many of the large +private estates in the South were obtained. The general facts as to +their grants, of course, are well known, but the same specific, +underlying details, such as may be disinterred from Bellomont's +correspondence, are lacking. In New York, at least, and presumably +during Fletcher's sway of government in Pennsylvania, great land grants +went for bribes. This is definitely brought out in Bellomont's official +communications. + + +VAST ESTATES SECURED BY BRIBERY. + +Fletcher, it would seem, had carried on a brisk traffic in creating by a +stroke of the quill powerfully rich families by simply granting them +domains in return for bribes. + +Captain John R. N. Evans had been in command of the royal warship +Richmond. An estate was his fervent ambition. Fletcher's mandate gave +him a grant of land running forty miles one way, and thirty another, on +the west bank of the Hudson. Beginning at the south line of the present +town of New Paltry, Ulster County, it included the southern tier of the +now existing towns in that picturesque county, two-thirds of the fertile +undulations of Orange County and a part of the present town of +Haverstraw. It is related of this area, that there was "but one house on +it, or rather a hut, where a poor man lives." Notwithstanding this lone, +solitary subject, Evans saw great trading and seignorial possibilities +in his tract. And what did he pay for this immense stretch of +territory? A very modest bribe; common report had it that he gave +Fletcher L100 for the grant.[16] + +Nicholas Bayard, of whom it is told that he was a handy go-between in +arranging with the sea pirates the price that they should pay for +Fletcher's protection, was another favored personage. Bayard was the +recipient of a grant forty miles long and thirty broad on both sides of +Schoharie Creek. Col. William Smith's prize was a grant from Fletcher of +an estate fifty miles in length on Nassau--now Long Island. According to +Bellomont, Smith got this land "arbitrarily and by strong hand." Smith +was in collusion with Fletcher, and moreover, was chief justice of the +province, "a place of great awe as well as authority." This judicial +land wrester forced the town of Southampton to accept the insignificant +sum of L10 for the greater part of forty miles of beach--a singularly +profitable transaction for Smith, who cleared in one year L500, the +proceeds of whales taken there, as he admitted to Bellomont.[17] Henry +Beekman, the astute and smooth founder of a rich and powerful family, +was made a magnate of the first importance by a grant from Fletcher of a +tract sixteen miles in length in Dutchess County, and also of another +estate running twenty miles along the Hudson and eight miles inland. +This estate he valued at L5,000.[18] Likewise Peter Schuyler, Godfrey +Dellius and their associates had conjointly secured by Fletcher's +patent, a grant fifty miles long in the romantic Mohawk Valley--a grant +which "the Mohawk Indians have often complained of". Upon this estate +they placed a value of L25,000. This was a towering fortune for the +period; in its actual command of labor, necessities, comforts and +luxuries it ranked as a power of transcending importance. + +These were some of the big estates created by "Colonel Fletcher's +intolerable corrupt selling away the lands of this Province," as +Bellomont termed it in his communication to the Lords of Trade of Nov. +28, 1700. Fletcher, it was set forth, profited richly by these corrupt +grants. He got in bribes, it was charged, at least L4,000.[19] But +Fletcher was not the only corrupt official. In his interesting work on +the times,[20] George W. Schuyler presents what is an undoubtedly +accurate description of how Robert Livingston, progenitor of a rich and +potent family which for generations exercised a profound influence in +politics and other public affairs, contrived to get together an estate +which soon ranked as the second largest in New York state and as one of +the greatest in the colonies. + +Livingston was the younger son of a poor exiled clergyman. In currying +favor with one official after another he was unscrupulous, dexterous and +adaptable. He invariably changed his politics with the change of +administration. In less than a year after his arrival he was appointed +to an office which yielded him a good income. This office he held for +nearly half a century, and simultaneously was the incumbent of other +lucrative posts. Offices were created by Governor Dongan apparently for +his sole benefit. His passion was to get together an estate which would +equal the largest. Extremely penurious, he loaned money at frightfully +usurious rates and hounded his victims without a vestige of +sympathy.[21] As a trader and government contractor he made enormous +profits; such was his cohesive collusion with high officials that +competitors found it impossible to outdo him. A current saying of him +was that he made a fortune by "pinching the bellies of the +soldiers"--that is, as an army contractor who defrauded in quantity and +quality of supplies. By a multitude of underhand and ignoble artifices +he finally found himself the lord of a manor sixteen miles long and +twenty-four broad. On this estate he built flour and saw mills, a bakery +and a brewery. In his advanced old age he exhibited great piety but held +on grimly to every shilling that he could and as long as he could. When +he died about 1728--the exact date is unknown--at the age of 74 years, +he left an estate which was considered of such colossal value that its +true value was concealed for fear of further enraging the discontented +people. + + +EFFECTS OF THE LAND SEIZURES. + +The seizure of these vast estates and the arbitrary exclusion of the +many from the land produced a combustible situation. An instantaneous +and distinct cleavage of class divisions was the result. Intrenched in +their possessions the landed class looked down with haughty disdain upon +the farming and laboring classes. On the other hand, the farm laborer +with his sixteen hours work a day for a forty-cent wage, the carpenter +straining for his fifty-two cents a day, the shoemaker drudging for his +seventy-three cents a day and the blacksmith for his seventy cents,[22] +thought over this injustice as they bent over their tasks. They could +sweat through their lifetime at honest labor, producing something of +value and yet be a constant prey to poverty while a few men, by means of +bribes, had possessed themselves of estates worth tens of thousands of +pounds and had preempted great stretches of the available lands. + +In consulting extant historical works it is noticeable that they give +but the merest shadowy glimpse of this intense bitterness of what were +called the lower classes, and of the incessant struggle now raging, now +smouldering, between the landed aristocracy and the common people. +Contrary to the roseate descriptions often given of the independent +position of the settlers at that time, it was a time when the use and +misuse of law brought about sharp divisions of class lines which arose +from artificially created inequalities, economically and politically. +With the great landed estates came tenantry, wage slavery and chattel +slavery, the one condition the natural generator of the others. + +The rebellious tendency of the poor colonists against becoming tenants, +and the usurpation of the land, were clearly brought out by Bellomont in +a letter written on Nov. 28, 1700, to the Lords of Trade. He complained +that "people are so cramped here for want of land that several families +within my own knowledge and observation are remov'd to the new country +(a name they give to Pennsylvania and the Jerseys) for, to use Mr. +Graham's expression to me, and that often repeated, too, what man will +be such a fool as to become a base tenant to Mr. Dellius, Colonel +Schuyler, Mr. Livingston (and so he ran through the whole role of our +mighty landgraves) when for crossing Hudson's River that man can, for a +song, purchase a good freehold in the Jerseys." + +If the immigrant happened to be able to muster a sufficient sum he +could, indeed, become an independent agriculturist in New Jersey and in +parts of Pennsylvania and provide himself with the tools of trade. But +many immigrants landed with empty pockets and became laborers dependent +upon the favor of the landed proprietors. As for the artisans--the +carpenters, masons, tailors, blacksmiths--they either kept to the cities +and towns where their trade principally lay, or bonded themselves to the +lords of the manors. + + +ATTEMPT AT CONFISCATION THWARTED. + +Bellomont fully understood the serious evils which had been injected +into the body politic and strongly applied himself to the task of +confiscating the great estates. One of his first proposals was to urge +upon the Lords of Trade the restriction of all governors throughout the +colonies from granting more than a thousand acres to any man without +leave from the king, and putting a quit rent of half a crown on every +hundred acres, this sum to go to the royal treasury. This suggestion was +not acted upon. He next attacked the assembly of New York and called +upon it to annul the great grants. In doing this he found that the most +powerful members of the assembly were themselves the great land owners +and were putting obstacle after obstacle in his path. After great +exertions he finally prevailed upon the assembly to vacate at least two +of the grants, those to Evans and Bayard. The assembly did this probably +as a sop to Bellomont and to public opinion, and because Evans and +Bayard had lesser influence than the other landed functionaries. But the +owners of the other estates tenaciously held them intact. The people +regarded Bellomont as a sincere and ardent reformer, but the landed men +and their following abused him as a meddler and destructionist. +Despairing of getting a self-interested assembly to act, Bellomont +appealed to the Lords of Trade: + +"If your Lordships mean I shall go on to break the rest of the +extravagant grants of land by Colonel Fletcher or other governors, by +act of assembly, I shall stand in need of a peremptory order from the +King so to do."[23] A month later he insisted to his superiors at home +that if they intended that the corrupt and extravagant grants should be +confiscated--"(which I will be bold to say by all the rules of reason +and justice ought to be done) I believe it must be done by act of +Parliament in England, for I am a little jealous I shall not have +strength enough in the assembly of New York to break them." The majority +of this body, he pointed out, were landed men, and when their own +interest was touched, they declined to act contrary to it. Unless, added +Bellomont, "the power of our Palatines, Smith, Livingston, the Phillips, +father and son[24]--and six or seven more were reduced ... the country +is ruined."[25] + +Despite some occasional breaches in its intrenchments, the landocracy +continued to rule everywhere with a high hand, its power, as a whole, +unbroken. + + +HOW THE LORDS OF THE SOIL LIVED. + +A glancing picture of one of these landed proprietors will show the +manner in which they lived and what was then accounted their luxury. As +one of the "foremost men of his day," in the colonies Colonel Smith +lived in befitting style. This stern, bushy-eyed man who robbed the +community of a vast tract of land and who, as chief justice, was +inflexibly severe in dealing punishment to petty criminals and ever +vigilant in upholding the rights of property, was lord of the Manor of +St. George, Suffolk County. The finest silks and lace covered his +judicial person. His embroidered belts, costing L110, at once attested +his great wealth and high station. He had the extraordinary number of +one hundred and four silver buttons to adorn his clothing. When he +walked a heavy silver-headed cane supported him, and he rode on a fancy +velvet saddle. His three swords were of the finest make; occasionally he +affected a Turkish scimeter. Few watches in the colonies could compare +with his massive silver watch. His table was embellished with heavy +silver plate, valued at L150, on which his coat-of-arms was engraved. +Twelve negro slaves responded to his nod; he had a large corps of +bounded apprentices and dependant laborers. His mansion looked down on +twenty acres of wheat and twenty of corn; and as for his horses and +cattle they were the envy of the country. In his last year thirty horses +were his, fourteen oxen, sixty steers, forty-eight cows and two +bulls.[26] He lived high, drank, swore, cheated--and administered +justice. + +One of the best and most intimate descriptions of a somewhat +contemporaneous landed magnate in the South is that given of Robert +Carter, a Virginia planter, by Philip Vickers Fithian,[27] a tutor in +Carter's family. Carter came to his estate from his grandfather, whose +land and other possessions were looked upon as so extensive that he was +called "King" Carter. + +Robert Carter luxuriated in Nomini Hall, a great colonial mansion in +Westmoreland County. It was built between 1725 and 1732 of brick covered +with strong mortar, which imparted a perfectly white exterior, and was +seventy-six feet long and forty wide. The interior was one of unusual +splendor for the time, such as only the very rich could afford. There +were eight large rooms, one of which was a ball-room thirty feet long. +Carter spent most of his leisure hours cultivating the study of law and +of music; his library contained 1,500 volumes and he had a varied +assortment of musical instruments. He was the owner of 60,000 acres of +land spread over almost every county of Virginia, and he was the master +of six hundred negro slaves. The greater part of a prosperous iron-works +near Baltimore was owned by him, and near his mansion he built a flour +mill equipped to turn out 25,000 bushels of wheat a year. Carter was not +only one of the big planters but one of the big capitalists of the age; +all that he had to do was to exercise a general supervision; his +overseers saw to the running of his various industries. Like the other +large landholders he was one of the active governing class; as a member +of the Provincial Council he had great influence in the making of laws. +He was a thorough gentleman, we are told, and took good care of his +slaves and of his white laborers who were grouped in workhouses and +little cottages within range of his mansion. Within his domain he +exercised a sort of benevolent despotism. He was one of the first few to +see that chattel slavery could not compete in efficiency with white +labor, and he reckoned that more money could be made from the white +laborer, for whom no responsibility of shelter, clothing, food and +attendance had to be assumed than from the negro slave, whose sickness, +disability or death entailed direct financial loss. Before his death he +emancipated a number of his slaves. This, in brief, is the rather +flattering depiction of one of the conspicuously rich planters of the +South. + + +THE NASCENT TRADING CLASS. + +Land continued to be the chief source of the wealth of the rich until +after the Revolution. The discriminative laws enacted by England had +held down the progress of the trading class; these laws overthrown, the +traders rose rapidly from a subordinate position to the supreme class in +point of wealth. + +No close research into pre-Revolutionary currents and movements is +necessary to understand that the Revolution was brought about by the +dissatisfied trading class as the only means of securing absolute +freedom of trade. Notwithstanding the view often presented that it was +an altruistic movement for the freedom of man, it was essentially an +economic struggle fathered by the trading class and by a part of the +landed interests. Admixed was a sincere aim to establish free political +conditions. This, however, was not an aim for the benefit of all +classes, but merely one for the better interests of the propertied +class. The poverty-stricken soldiers who fought for their cause found +after the war that the machinery of government was devised to shut out +manhood suffrage and keep the power intact in the hands of the rich. Had +it not been for radicals such as Jefferson, Paine and others it is +doubtful whether such concessions as were made to the people would have +been made. The long struggle in various States for manhood suffrage +sufficiently attests the deliberate aim of the propertied interests to +concentrate in their own hands, and in that of a following favorable to +them, the voting power of the Government and of the States. + +With the success of the Revolution, the trading class bounded to the +first rank. Entail and primogeniture were abolished and the great +estates gradually melted away. For more than a century and a half the +landed interests had dominated the social and political arena. As an +acknowledged, continuous organization they ceased to exist. Great +estates no longer passed unimpaired from generation to generation, +surviving as a distinct entity throughout all changes. They perforce +were partitioned among all the children; and through the vicissitudes of +subsequent years, passed bit by bit into many hands. Altered laws caused +a gradual disintegration in the case of individual holdings, but brought +no change in instances of corporate ownership. The Trinity Corporation +of New York City, for example, has held on to the vast estate which it +was given before the Revolution except such parts as it voluntarily has +sold. + + +DISINTEGRATION OF THE GREAT ESTATES. + +The individual magnate, however, had no choice. He could no longer +entail his estates. Thus, estates which were very large before the +Revolution, and which were regarded with astonishment, ceased to exist. +The landed interests, however, remained paramount for several decades +after the Revolution by reason of the acceleration which long possession +and its profits had given them. Washington's fortune, amounting at his +death, to $530,000, was one of the largest in the country and consisted +mainly of land. He owned 9,744 acres, valued at $10 an acre, on the Ohio +River in Virginia, 3,075 acres, worth $200,000, on the Great Kenawa, and +also land elsewhere in Virginia and in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, +Kentucky, the City of Washington and other places.[28] About half a +century later it was only by persistent gatherings of public +contributions that his very home was saved to the nation, so had his +estate become divided and run down. After a long career, Benjamin +Franklin acquired what was considered a large fortune. But it did not +come from manufacture or invention, which he did so much to encourage, +but from land. His estate in 1788, two years before his death, was +estimated to be worth $150,000, mostly in land.[29] By the opening +decades of the nineteenth century few of the great estates in New York +remained. One of the last of the patroons was Stephen Van Rensselaer, +who died at the age of 75 on Jan. 26, 1839, leaving ten children. Up to +this time the manor had devolved upon the eldest son. Although it had +been diminished somewhat by various cessions, it was still of great +extent. The property was divided among the ten children, and, according +to Schuyler, "In less than fifty years after his death, the seven +hundred thousand acres originally in the manor were in the hands of +strangers."[30] + +Long before old Van Rensselaer passed away he had seen the rise and +growth of the trading and manufacturing class and a new form of landed +aristocracy, and he observed with a haughty bitterness how in point of +wealth and power they far overshadowed the well-nigh defunct old feudal +aristocracy. A few hundred thousand dollars no longer was the summit of +a great fortune; the age of the millionaire had come. The lordly, +leisurely environment of the old landed class had been supplanted by +feverish trading and industrial activity which imposed upon society its +own newer standards, doctrines and ideals and made them uppermost +factors. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] "Land Nationalization,":122-125. + +[10] Colonial Documents, vii:654-655. + +[11] Colonial Documents, iv:673-674. + +[12] "A Short History of the English Colonies in America":402. + +[13] Yet, this fortune seeker, who had incurred the contempt of every +noble English mind, is described by one of the class of +power-worshipping historians as follows: "Fame and wealth, so often the +idols of _Superior Intellect_, were the prominent objects of this +aspiring man."--Williamson's "History of Maine," 1:305. + +[14] The Public Domain: Its History, etc.:38. + +[15] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth:66, 84, etc. Their claim to +inherit proprietary rights was bought at the time of the Revolutionary +War by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for L130,000 sterling or about +$580,000. + +[16] Colonial Documents, iv:463. + +[17] Ibid.:535. + +[18] Ibid.:39. + +[19] Colonial Documents, iv:528. One of Bellomont's chief complaints was +that the landgraves monopolized the timber supply. He recommended the +passage of a law vesting in the King the right to all trees such as were +fit for masts of ships or for other use in building ships of war. + +[20] "Colonial New York," 1:285-286. + +[21] According to Reynolds's "Albany Chronicles," Livingston was in +collusion with Captain Kidd, the sea pirate. Reynolds also tells that +Livingston loaned money at ten per cent. + +[22] Wright's "Industrial Evolution in the United States"; see also his +article "Wages" in Johnson's Encyclopaedia. The New York Colonial +Documents relate that in 1699 in the three provinces of Bellomont's +jurisdiction, "the laboring man received three shillings a day, which +was considered dear," iv:588. + +[23] Colonial Documents, iv:533-554. + +[24] Frederick and his son Adolphus. Frederick was the employer of the +pirate, Captain Samuel Burgess of New York, who at first was sent out by +Phillips to Madagascar to trade with the pirates and who then turned +pirate himself. From the first voyage Phillips and Burgess cleared +together L5,000, the proceeds of trade and slaves. The second voyage +yielded L10,000 and three hundred slaves. Burgess married a relative of +Phillips and continued piracy, but was caught and imprisoned in Newgate. +Phillips spent great sums of money to save him and succeeded. Burgess +resumed piracy and met death from poisoning in Africa while engaged in +carrying off slaves.--"The Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted +Pirates":177-183. This work was a serious study of the different sea +pirates. + +[25] Colonial Docs, iv:533-534. On November 27, 1700, Bellomont wrote to +the Lords of the Treasury: "I can supply the King and all his dominions +with naval stores (except flax and hemp) from this province and New +Hampshire, but then your Lordships and the rest of the Ministers must +break through Coll. Fletcher's most corrupt grants of all the lands and +woods of this province which I think is the most impudent villainy I +ever heard or read of any man," iv:780. + +[26] This is the inventory given in "Abstracts of Wills," 1:323. + +[27] "Journal and Letters," 1767-1774. + +[28] Sparks' "Life of Washington," Appendix, ix:557-559. + +[29] Bigelow's "Life of Franklin," iii:470. + +[30] "Colonial New York," 1:232. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE RISE OF THE TRADING CLASS + + +The creation of the great landed estates was accompanied by the slow +development of the small trader and merchant. Necessarily, they first +established themselves in the sea ports where business was concentrated. + +Many obstacles long held them down to a narrow sphere. The great +chartered companies monopolized the profitable resources. The land +magnates exacted tribute for the slightest privilege granted. Drastic +laws forbade competition with the companies, and the power of law and +the severities of class government were severely felt by the merchants. +The chartered corporations and the land dignitaries were often one group +with an identity of men and interests. Against their strength and +capital the petty trader or merchant could not prevail. Daring and +enterprising though he be, he was forced to a certain compressed routine +of business. He could sell the goods which the companies sold to him but +could not undertake to set up manufacturing. And after the companies had +passed away, the landed aristocracy used its power to suppress all undue +initiative on his part. + + +THE MANORIAL LORDS MONOPOLIZE TRADE. + +This was especially so in New York, where all power was concentrated in +the hands of a few landowners. "To say," says Sabine, "that the +political institutions of New York formed a feudal aristocracy is to +define them with tolerable accuracy. The soil was owned by a few. The +masses were mere retainers or tenants as in the monarchies of +Europe."[31] The feudal lord was also the dominant manufacturer and +trader. He forced his tenants to sign covenants that they should trade +in nothing else than the produce of the manor; that they should trade +nowhere else but at his store; that they should grind their flour at his +mill, and buy bread at his bakery, lumber at his sawmills and liquor at +his brewery. Thus he was not only able to squeeze the last penny from +them by exorbitant prices, but it was in his power to keep them +everlastingly in debt to him. He claimed, and held, a monopoly in his +domain of whatever trade he could seize. These feudal tenures were +established in law; woe to the tenant who presumed to infract them! He +became a criminal and was punished as a felon. The petty merchant could +not, and dared not, compete with the trading monopolies of the manorial +lords within these feudal jurisdictions. In such a system the merchant's +place for a century and a half was a minor one, although far above that +of the drudging laborer. Merchants resorted to sharp and frequently +dubious ways of getting money together. They bargained and sold +shrewdly, kept their wits ever open, turned sycophant to the aristocracy +and a fleecer of the laborer. + +It would appear that in New York, at least, the practice of the most +audacious usury was an early and favorite means of acquiring the +property of others. These others were invariably the mechanic or +laborer; the merchant dared not attempt to overreach the aristocrat +whose power he had good reason to fear. Money which was taken in by +selling rum and by wheedling the unsophisticated Indians into yielding +up valuable furs, was loaned at frightfully onerous rates. The loans +unpaid, the lender swooped mercilessly upon the property of the +unfortunate and gathered it in. + +The richest merchant of his period in the province of New York was +Cornelius Steenwyck, a liquor merchant, who died in 1686. He left a +total estate of L4,382 and a long list of book debts which disclosed +that almost every man in New York City owed money to him, partly for +rum, in part for loans.[32] The same was true of Peter Jacob Marius, a +rich merchant who died in 1706, leaving behind a host of debtors, "which +included about all the male population on Manhattan Island."[33] This +eminent counter-man was "buried like a gentleman." At his funeral large +sums were spent for wine, cookies, pipes and tobacco, beer, spice for +burnt wine and sugar--all according to approved and reverent Dutch +fashion. The actual currency left by some of these rich men was a +curious conglomeration of almost every stamp, showing the results of a +mixed assemblage of customers. There were Spanish pistoles, guineas, +Arabian coin, bank dollars, Dutch and French money--a motley assortment +all carefully heaped together. Without doubt, those enterprising pirate +captains, Kidd and Burgess, and their crews, were good customers of +these accommodating and undiscriminating merchants. It was a time when +money was triply valued, for little of it passed in circulation. To a +people who traded largely by barter and whose media of exchange, for a +long time, were wampum, peltries and other articles, the touch and clink +of gold and silver were extremely precious and fascinating. Buccaneers +Kidd and Burgess deserved the credit for introducing into New York much +of the variegated gold and silver coin, and it was believed that they +long had some of the leading merchants as their allies in disposing of +their plundered goods, in giving them information and affording them +protection. + + +THE TRADERS' METHODS. + +By one means or another, some of the New York merchants of the period +attained a standing in point of wealth equal to not a few of the land +magnates. William Lawrence of Flushing, Long Island, was "a man of great +wealth and social standing." Like the rest of his class he affected to +despise the merchant class. After his death, an inventory showed his +estate to be worth L4,032, mostly in land and in slaves, of which he +left ten.[34] While the landed men often spent much of their time +carousing, hunting, gambling, and dispersing their money, the merchants +were hawk-eyed alert for every opportunity to gather in money. They +wasted no time in frivolous pursuits, had no use for sentiment or +scruples, saved money in infinitesimal ways and thought and dreamed of +nothing but business. + +Throughout the colonies, not excepting Pennsylvania, it was the general +practice of the merchants and traders to take advantage of the Indians +by cunning and treacherous methods. The agents of the chartered +companies and the land owners first started the trick of getting the +Indians drunk, and then obtaining, for almost nothing, the furs that +they had gathered--for a couple of bottles of rum, a blanket or an axe. +After the charters of the companies were annulled or expired, the +landgraves kept up the practice, and the merchants improved on it in +various ingenious ways. "The Indians," says Felt,[35] "were ever ready +to give up their furs for knives, hatchets, beads, blankets, and +especially were anxious to obtain tobacco, guns, powder, shot and strong +water; the latter being a powerful instrument enabling the cunning +trader to perpetuate the grossest frauds. Immense quantities of furs +were shipped to Europe at a great profit." + +This description appropriately applied also to New York, New Jersey, and +the South. In New York there were severe laws against Indians who got +drunk, and in Massachusetts colony an Indian found drunk was subject to +a fine of ten shillings or whipping, at the discretion of the +magistrate. As to the whites who, for purposes of gain, got the Indians +drunk, the law was strangely inactive. Everyone knew that drink might +incite the Indians to uprisings and imperil the lives of men, women and +children. But the considerations of trade were stronger than even the +instinct of self-preservation and the practice went on, not infrequently +resulting in the butchery of innocent white victims and in great cost +and suspense to the whole community. + +Strict laws which pronounced penalties for profaneness and for not +attending church, connived at the systematic defrauding and swindling of +the Indians of land and furs. Two strong considerations were held to +justify this. The first was that the Indians were heathen and must give +way to civilization; that they were fair prey. The demands of trade, +upon which the colonies flourished was the second. The fact was that the +code of the trading class was everywhere gradually becoming the dominant +one, even breaking down the austere, almost ascetic, Puritan moral +professions. Among the common people--those who were ordinary wage +laborers--the methods of the rich were looked upon with suspicion and +enmity, and there was a prevalent consciousness that wealth was being +amassed by one-sided laws and fraud. Some of the noted sea pirates of +the age made this their strong justification for preying upon +commerce.[36] + +In Virginia the life of the community depended upon agriculture; +therefore slavery was thought to be its labor prop and was joyfully +welcomed and earnestly defended. In Massachusetts and New York trading +was an elemental factor, and whatever swelled the volume and profits was +accounted a blessing to the community and was held justified. Laws, the +judges who enforced them, and the spirit of the age reflected not so +much the morality of the people as their trading necessities. The one +was often mistaken for the other. + + +THE BONDING OF LABORERS. + +This condition was shown repeatedly in the trade conflicts of the +competing merchants, their system of bonded laborers and in the long +contests between the traders of the colonies and those of England, +culminating in the Revolution. In the churches the colonists prayed to +God as the Father of all men and showed great humility. But in actual +practice the propertied men recognized no such thing as equality and +dispensed with humility. The merchants imitated in a small way the +seignorial pretensions of the land nabobs. Few merchants there were who +did not deal in negro slaves, and few also were there who did not have a +bonded laborer or two, whose labor they monopolized and whose career was +their property for a long term of years. Limited bondage, called +apprenticeship, was general. + +Penniless boys, girls and adults were impressed by sheer necessity into +service. Nicholas Auger, 10 years old, binds himself, in 1694, to +Wessell Evertson, a cooper, for a term of nine years, and swears that +"he will truly serve the commandments of his master Lawfull, shall do no +hurt to his master, nor waste nor purloin his goods, nor lend them to +anybody at Dice, or other unlawful game, shall not contract matrimony, +nor frequent taverns, shall not absent himself from his master's service +day or night." In return Evertson will teach Nicholas the trade of a +cooper, give him "apparell, meat, drink and bedding" and at the +expiration of the term will supply him with "two good suits of wearing +apparell from head to foot." Cornelius Hendricks, a laborer, binds +himself in 1695 as an apprentice and servant to John Molet for five +years. Hendricks is to get L3 current silver money and two suits of +apparell--one for holy days, the other for working days, and also board +is to be provided. Elizabeth Morris, a spinster, in consideration of her +transportation from England to New York on the barkentine, "Antegun," +binds herself in 1696 as a servant to Captain William Kidd for four +years for board. When her term is over she is to get two dresses. These +are a few specific instances of the bonding system--a system which +served its purpose in being highly advantageous to the merchants and +traders. + + +THE FISHERIES OF NEW ENGLAND. + +Toward the close of the seventeenth century the merchants of Boston were +the richest in the colonies. Trade there was the briskest. By 1687, +according to the records of the Massachusetts Historical Society, there +were ten to fifteen merchants in Boston whose aggregate property +amounted to L50,000, or about L5,000 each, and five hundred persons who +were worth L3,000 each. Some of these fortunes came from furs, timber +and vending merchandise. + +But the great stimuli were the fisheries of the New England coast. +Bellomont in 1700 ascribed the superior trade of Massachusetts to the +fact that Fletcher had corruptly sold the best lands in New York +province and had thus brought on bad conditions. Had it not been for +this, he wrote, New York "would outthrive the Massachusetts Province and +quickly outdoe them in people and trade." While the people of the South +took to agriculture as a main support, and the merchants of New York +were contented with the more comfortable method of taking in coin over +counters, a large proportion of the 12,000 inhabitants of Boston and +those of Salem and Plymouth braved dangers to drag the sea of its spoil. +They developed hardy traits of character, a bold adventurousness and a +singular independence of movement which in time engendered a bustling +race of traders who navigated the world for trade. + +It was from shipping that the noted fortunes of the early decades of the +eighteenth century came. The origin of the means by which these fortunes +were got together lay greatly in the fisheries. The emblem of the +codfish in the Massachusetts State House is a survival of the days when +the fisheries were the great and most prolific sources of wealth and the +chief incentive of all kinds of trade. A tremendous energy was shown in +the hazards of the business. So thoroughly were the fisheries recognized +as important to the life of the whole New England community that vessels +were often built by public subscription, as was instanced in Plymouth, +where public subscription on one occasion defrayed the expense.[37] + +In response to the general incessant demand for ships, the business of +shipbuilding soon sprang up; presently there were nearly thirty ship +yards in Boston alone and sixty ships a year were built. It was a +lucrative industry. The price of a vessel was dear, while the wages of +the carpenters, smiths, caulkers and sparmakers were low. Not a few of +the merchants and traders or their sons who made their money by +debauching and cheating the Indians went into this highly profitable +business and became men of greater wealth. By 1700 Boston was shipping +50,000 quintals of dried codfish every year. The fish was divided into +several kinds. The choice quality went to the Catholic countries, where +there was a great demand for it, principally to Bilboa, Lisbon and +Oporto. The refuse was shipped to the West India Islands for sale to the +negro slaves and laborers. The price varied. In 1699 it was eighteen +shillings a quintal; the next year, we read, it had fallen to twelve +shillings because the French fisheries had glutted the market +abroad.[38] + + +"FORCE AS GOOD AS FORCE." + +Along with the fisheries, considerable wealth was extracted in New +England, as elsewhere in the colonies, from the shipment of timber. +Sharp traders easily got the advantage of Indians and landowners in +buying the privilege of cutting timber. In some cases, particularly in +New Hampshire, which Allen claimed to own, the timber was simply taken +without leave. The word was passed that force was as good as force, +fraud as good as fraud. Allen had got the province by force and fraud; +let him stop the timber cutters if he dare. Ship timber was eagerly +sought in European ports. One Boston merchant is recorded as having +taken a cargo of this timber to Lisbon and clearing a profit of L1,600 +on an expenditure of L300. "Everybody is excited," wrote Bellomont on +June 22, 1700, to the Lords Commissioners for Trades and Plantations. +"Some of the merchants of Salem are now loading a ship with 12,000 feet +of the noblest ships timber that was ever seen."[39] + +The whale fishery sprang up about this time and brought in great +profits. The original method was to sight the whale from a lookout on +shore, push out in a boat, capture him and return to the shore with the +carcass. The oil was extracted from the blubber and readily sold. As +whales became scarce around the New England islands the whalers pushed +off into the ocean in small vessels. Within fifty years at least sixty +craft were engaged in the venture. By degrees larger and larger vessels +were built until they began to double Cape Horn, and were sometimes +absent from a year and a half to three years. The labors of the cruise +were often richly rewarded with a thousand barrels of sperm oil and two +hundred and fifty barrels of whale oil. + + +BRITISH TRADERS' TACTICS. + +By the middle of the seventeenth century the colonial merchants were in +a position to establish manufactures to compete with the British. A +seafaring race and a mercantile fleet had come into a militant +existence; and ambitious designs were meditated of conquering a part of +the import and export trade held by the British. The colonial shipowner, +sending tobacco, corn, timber or fish to Europe did not see why he +should not load his ship with commodities on the return trip and make a +double profit. It was now that the British trading class peremptorily +stepped in and used the power of government to suppress in its infancy a +competition that alarmed them. + +Heavy export duties were now declared on every colonial article which +would interfere with the monopoly which the British trading class held, +and aimed to hold, while the most exacting duties were put on +non-British imports. Colonial factories were killed off by summary +legislation. In 1699 Parliament enacted that no wool yarn or woolen +manufactures of the American colonies should be exported to any place +whatever. This was a destructive bit of legislation, as nearly every +colonial rural family kept sheep and raised flax and were getting expert +at the making of coarse linen and woolen cloths. No sooner had the +colonists begun to make paper than that industry was likewise choked. +With hats it was the same. The colonists had scarcely begun to export +hats to Spain, Portugal and the West Indies before the British Company +of Hatters called upon the Government to put a stop to this colonial +interference with their trade. An act was thereupon passed by Parliament +forbidding the exportation of hats from any American colony, and the +selling in one colony of hats made in another. Colonial iron mills began +to blast; they were promptly declared a nuisance, and Parliament ordered +that no mill or engine for slitting or rolling iron be used, but +graciously allowed pig and bar iron to be imported from England into the +colonies. Distilleries were common; molasses was extensively used in the +making of rum and also by the fishermen; a heavy duty was put upon +molasses and sugar as also on tea, nails, glass and paints. Smuggling +became general; a narrative of the adroit devices resorted to would make +an interesting tale. + +These restrictive acts brought about various momentous results. They not +only arrayed the whole trading class against Great Britain, and in turn +the great body of the colonists, but they operated to keep down in size +and latitude the private fortunes by limiting the ways in which the +wealth of individuals could be employed. Much money was withdrawn from +active business and invested in land and mortgages. Still, despite the +crushing laws with which colonial capitalists had to contend, the +fisheries were an incessant source of profit. By 1765 they employed +4,000 seamen and had 28,000 tons of shipping and did a business +estimated at somewhat more than a million dollars. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] "Lives of the Loyalists,":18. + +[32] "Abstracts of Wills," ii:444-445. + +[33] Ibid., 1:323-324. + +[34] "Abstracts of Wills," 1:108. + +[35] "An Historical Account of Massachusetts Currency." See also +Colonial Documents, iii:242, and the Records of New Amsterdam. See the +chapters on the Astor fortune in Part II for full details of the methods +in debauching and swindling the Indians in trading operations. + +[36] Thus Captain Bellamy's speech in 1717 to Captain Baer of Boston, +whose sloop he had just sunk and rifled: "I am sorry that they [his +crew] won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a +mischief when it is not for my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink +her, and she might be of use to you. Though you are a sneaking puppy, +and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich +men have made for their own security--for the cowardly whelps have not +the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery. But damn +ye altogether; damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and ye who serve +them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They villify us, the +scoundrels do, when there is only this difference: they rob the poor +under cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under protection +of our own courage. Had you better not make one of us than sneak after +these villains for employment." Baer refused and was put ashore.--"The +Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates":129-130. + +[37] "A Commercial Sketch of Boston," Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, 1839, +1:125. + +[38] Colonial Documents, iv:790. + +[39] Ibid., 678. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SHIPPING FORTUNES + + +Thus it was that at the time of the Revolution many of the consequential +fortunes were those of shipowners and were principally concentrated in +New England. Some of these dealt in merchandise only, while others made +large sums of money by exporting fish, tobacco, corn, rice and timber +and lading their ships on the return with negro slaves, for which they +found a responsive market in the South. Many of the members of the +Continental Congress were ship merchants, or inherited their fortunes +from rich shippers, as, for instance, Samuel Adams, Robert Morris, Henry +Laurens of Charleston, S. C., John Hancock, whose fortune of $350,000 +came from his uncle Thomas, Francis Lewis of New York and Joseph Hewes +of North Carolina. Others were members of various Constitutional +conventions or became high officials in the Federal or State +governments. The Revolution disrupted and almost destroyed the colonial +shipping, and trade remained stagnant. + + +FORTUNES FROM PRIVATEERING. + +Not wholly so, for the hazardous venture of privateering offered great +returns. George Cabot of Boston was the son of an opulent shipowner. +During the Revolution, George, with his brother swept the coast with +twenty privateers carrying from sixteen to twenty guns each. For four or +five years their booty was rich and heavy, but toward the end of the +war, British gun-boats swooped on most of their craft and the brothers +lost heavily. George subsequently became a United States Senator. Israel +Thorndike, who began life as a cooper's apprentice and died in 1832 at +the age of 75, leaving a fortune, "the greatest that has ever been left +in New England,"[40] made large sums of money as part owner and +commander of a privateer which made many successful cruises. With this +money he went into fisheries, foreign commerce and real estate, and +later into manufacturing establishments. One of the towering rich men of +the day, we are told that "his investments in real estate, shipping or +factories were wonderfully judicious and hundreds watched his movements, +believing his pathway was safe." The fortune he bequeathed was ranked as +immense. To each of his three sons he left about $500,000 each, and +other sums to another son, and to his widow and daughters. In all, the +legacies to the surviving members of his family amounted to about +$1,800,000.[41] + +Another "distinguished merchant," as he was styled, to take up +privateering was Nathaniel Tracy, the son of a Newburyport merchant. +College bred, as were most of the sons of rich merchants, he started out +at the age of 25 with a number of privateers, and for many years +returned flushed with prizes. To quote his appreciative biographer: "He +lived in a most magnificent style, having several country seats or large +farms with elegant summer houses and fine fish ponds, and all those +matters of convenience or taste that a British nobleman might think +necessary to his rank and happiness. His horses were of the choicest +kind and his coaches of the most splendid make." But alas! this gorgeous +career was abruptly dispelled when unfeeling British frigates and +gun-boats hooked in his saucy privateers and Tracy stood quite ruined. + +Much more fortunate was Joseph Peabody. As a young man Peabody enlisted +as an officer on Derby's privateer "Bunker Hill." His second cruise was +on Cabot's privateer "Pilgrim" which captured a richly cargoed British +merchantman. Returning to shore he studied for an education, later +resuming the privateer deck. Some of his exploits, as narrated by George +Atkinson Ward in "Hunt's Lives of American Merchants," published in +1856, were thrilling enough to have found a deserved place in a gory +novel. With the money made as his share of the various prizes, he bought +a vessel which he commanded himself, and he personally made sundry +voyages to Europe and the West Indies. By 1791 he had amassed a large +fortune. There was no further need of his going to sea; he was now a +great merchant and could pay others to take charge of his ships. These +increased to such an extent that he built in Salem and owned +eighty-three ships which he freighted and dispatched to every known part +of the world. Seven thousand seamen were in his employ. His vessels were +known in Calcutta, Canton, Sumatra, St. Petersburg and dozens of other +ports. They came back with cargoes which were distributed by coasting +vessels among the various American ports. It was with wonderment that +his contemporaries spoke of his paying an aggregate of about $200,000 in +State, county and city taxes in Salem, where he lived.[42] He died on +Jan. 5, 1844, aged 84 years. + +Asa Clapp, who at his death in 1848, at the age of 85 years, was +credited with being the richest man in Maine,[43] began his career +during the Revolution as an officer on a privateer. After the war he +commanded various trading vessels, and in 1796 established a shipping +business of his own, with headquarters at Portland. His vessels traded +with Europe, the East and West Indies and South America. In his later +years he went into banking. Of the size of his fortune we are left in +ignorance. + + +A GLANCE AT OTHER SHIPPING FORTUNES. + +These are instances of rich men whose original capital came from +privateering, which was recognized as a legitimate method of reprisal. +As to the inception of the fortunes of other prominent capitalists of +the period, few details are extant in the cases of most of them. Of the +antecedents and life of Thomas Russell, a Boston shipper, who died in +1796, "supposedly leaving the largest amount of property which up to +that time had been accumulated in New England," little is known. The +extent of his fortune cannot be learned. Russell was one of the first, +after the Revolution, to engage in trade with Russia, and drove many a +hard bargain. He built a stately mansion in Charleston and daily +traveled to Boston in a coach drawn by four black horses. In business he +was inflexible; trade considerations aside he was an alms-giver. Of +Cyrus Butler, another shipowner and trader, who, according to one +authority, was probably the richest man in New England[44]--and who, +according to the statement of another publication[45]--left a fortune +estimated at from three to four millions of dollars, few details +likewise are known. He was the son of Samuel Butler, a shoemaker who +removed from Edgartown, Mass., to Providence about 1750 and became a +merchant and shipowner. Cyrus followed in his steps. When this +millionaire died at the age of 82 in 1849, the size of his fortune +excited wonderment throughout New England. It may be here noted as a +fact worthy of comment that of the group of hale rich shipowners there +were few who did not live to be octogenarians. + +The rapidity with which large fortunes were made was not a riddle. Labor +was cheap and unorganized, and the profits of trade were enormous. +According to Weeden the customary profits at the close of the eighteenth +century on muslins and calicoes were one hundred per cent. Cargoes of +coffee sometimes yielded three or four times that amount. Weeden +instances one shipment of plain glass tumblers costing less than $1,000 +which sold for $12,000 in the Isle of France.[46] + +The prospects of a dazzling fortune, speedily reaped, instigated owners +of capital to take the most perilous chances. Decayed ships, +superficially patched up, were often sent out on the chance that luck +and skill would get them through the voyage and yield fortunes. Crew +after crew was sacrificed to this frenzied rush for money, but nothing +was thought of it. Again, there were examples of almost incredible +temerity. In his biography of Peter Charndon Brooks, one of the +principal merchants of the day, and his father-in-law, Edward Everett +tells of a ship sailing from Calcutta to Boston with a youth of nineteen +in command. Why or how this boy was placed in charge is not explained. +This juvenile captain had nothing in the way of a chart on board except +a small map of the world in Guthrie's Geography. He made the trip +successfully. Later, when he became a rich Boston banker, the tale of +this feat was one of the proud annals of his life and, if true, +deservedly so.[47] + +Whitney's notable invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had given a +stupendous impetus to cotton growing in the Southern States. As the +shipowners were chiefly centered in New England the export of this +staple vastly increased their trade and fortunes. It might be thought, +parenthetically, that Whitney himself should have made a surpassing +fortune from an invention which brought millions of dollars to planters +and traders. But his inventive ability and perseverance, at least in his +creation of the cotton gin, brought him little more than a multitude of +infringements upon his patent, refusals to pay him, and vexatious and +expensive litigation to sustain his rights.[48] In despair, he turned, +in 1808, to the manufacture in New Haven of fire-arms for the +Government, and from this business managed to get a fortune. From the +Canton and Calcutta trade Thomas Handasyd Perkins, a Boston shipper, +extracted a fortune of $2,000,000. His ships made thirty voyages around +the world. This merchant peer lived to the venerable age of 90; when he +passed away in 1854 his fortune, although intact, had shrunken to modest +proportions compared with a few others which had sprung up. James Lloyd, +a partner of Perkins', likewise profited; in 1808 he was elected a +United States Senator and later reelected. + +William Gray, described as "one of the most successful of American +merchants," and as one who was considered and taxed in Salem "as one of +the wealthiest men in the place, where there were several of the largest +fortunes that could be found in the United States," owned, in his +heyday, more than sixty sail of vessels. Some scant details are +obtainable as to the career and personality of this moneyed colossus of +his day. He began as an apprenticed mechanic. For more than fifty years +he rose at dawn and was shaved and dressed. His letters and papers were +then spread before him and the day's business was begun. At his death in +1825 no inventory of his estate was taken. The present millions of the +Brown fortune of Rhode Island came largely from the trading activities +of Nicholas Brown and the accretions of which increased population and +values have brought. Nicholas Brown was born in Providence in 1760, of a +well-to-do father. He went to Rhode Island College (later named in his +honor by reason of his gifts) and greatly increased his fortune in the +shipping trade. + +It is quite needless, however, to give further instances in support of +the statement that nearly all the large active fortunes of the latter +part of the eighteenth and the early period of the nineteenth century, +came from the shipping trade and were mainly concentrated in New +England. The proceeds of these fortunes frequently were put into +factories, canals, turnpikes and later into railroads, telegraph lines +and express companies. Seldom, however, has the money thus employed +really gone to the descendants of the men who amassed it, but has since +passed over to men who, by superior cunning, have contrived to get the +wealth into their own hands. This statement is an anticipation of facts +that will be more cognate in subsequent chapters, but may be +appropriately referred to here. There were some exceptions to the +general condition of the large fortunes from shipping being compactly +held in New England. Thomas Pym Cope, a Philadelphia Quaker, did a brisk +shipping trade, and founded the first regular line of packets between +Philadelphia and Baltimore; with the money thus made he went into canal +and railroad enterprises. And in New York and other ports there were a +number of shippers who made fortunes of several millions each. + + +THE WORKERS' MEAGER SHARE. + +Obviously these millionaires created nothing except the enterprise of +distributing products made by the toil and skill of millions of workers +the world over. But while the workers made these products their sole +share was meager wages, barely sufficient to sustain the ordinary +demands of life. Moreover, the workers of one country were compelled to +pay exorbitant prices for the goods turned out by the workers of other +countries. The shippers who stood as middlemen between the workers of +the different countries reaped the great rewards. Nevertheless, it +should not be overlooked that the shippers played their distinct and +useful part in their time and age, the spirit of which was intensely +ultra-competitive and individualistic in the most sordid sense. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[40] "Hunt's Merchant's Magazine," 11:516-517. + +[41] Allen's "Biographical Dictionary," Edition of 1857:791. + +[42] Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants":382. + +[43] Allen's "Biographical Dictionary," Edit. of 1857:227. + +[44] Stryker's "American Register" for 1849:241. + +[45] "The American Almanac" for 1850:324. + +[46] "An Economic and Social History of New England," 11:825. + +[47] Hunt's "Lives of American Merchants":139. + +[48] Life of Eli Whitney, "Our Great Benefactors":567. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SHIPPERS AND THEIR TIMES + + +Unfortunately only the most general and eulogistic accounts of the +careers of most of the rich shippers have appeared in such biographies +as have been published. + +Scarcely any details are preserved of the underlying methods and +circumstances by which these fortunes were amassed. Sixty years ago, +when it was the unqualified fashion to extol the men of wealth as great +public benefactors and truckle to them, and when sociological inquiry +was in an undeveloped stage, there might have been some excuse for this. +But it is extremely unsatisfactory to find pretentious writers of the +present day glossing over essential facts or not taking the trouble to +get them. A "popular writer," who has pretended to deal with the origin +of one of the great present fortunes, the Astor fortune, and has given +facts, although conventionally interpreted, as to one or two of Astor's +land transactions,[49] passes over with a sentence the fundamental facts +as to Astor's shipping activities, and entirely ignores the peculiar +special privileges, worth millions of dollars, that Astor, in +conjunction with other merchants, had as a free gift from the +Government. This omission is characteristic, inasmuch as it leaves the +reader in complete ignorance of the kind of methods Astor used in +heaping up millions from the shipping trade--millions that enabled him +to embark in the buying of land in a large and ambitious way. Certainly +there is no lack of data regarding the two foremost millionaires of the +first decades of the nineteenth century--Stephen Girard and John Jacob +Astor. The very names of nearly all of the other powerful merchants of +the age have receded into the densest obscurity. But both those of +Girard and Astor live vivifyingly, the first by virtue of a memorable +benefaction, the second as the founder of one of the greatest fortunes +in the world. + + +COMMERCE SURCHARGED WITH FRAUD. + +Because of their unexcelled success, these two were the targets for the +bitter invective or the envy of their competitors on the one hand, and, +on the other, of the laudation of their friends and beneficiaries. Harsh +statements were made as to the methods of both, but, in reality, if we +but knew the truth, they were no worse than the other millionaires of +the time except in degree. The whole trading system was founded upon a +combination of superior executive ability and superior cunning--not +ability in creating, but in being able to get hold of, and distribute, +the products of others' creation. + +Fraudulent substitution was an active factor in many, if not all, of the +shipping fortunes. The shippers and merchants practiced the grossest +frauds upon the unsophisticated people. Walter Barrett, that pseudonymic +merchant, who took part in them himself, and who writes glibly of them +as fine tricks of trade, gives many instances in his volumes dealing +with the merchants of that time. + +The firm of F. & G. Carnes, he relates, was one of the many which made a +large fortune in the China trade. This firm found that Chinese +yellow-dog wood, when cut into proper sizes, bore a strong superficial +resemblance to real Turkey rhubarb. The Carnes brothers proceeded to +have the wood packed in China in boxes counterfeiting those of the +Turkey product. They then made a regular traffic importing this spurious +and deleterious stuff and selling it as the genuine Turkey article at +several times the cost. It entirely superseded the real product. This +firm also sent to China samples of Italian, French and English silks; +the Chinese imitated them closely, and the bogus wares were imported +into the United States where they were sold as the genuine European +goods. The Carneses were but a type of their class. Writing of the trade +carried on by the shipping class, Barrett says that the shippers sent to +China samples of the most noted Paris and London products in sauces, +condiments, preserves, sweetmeats, syrups and other goods. The Chinese +imitated them even to fac-similies of printed Paris and London labels. +The fraudulent substitutions were then brought in cargoes to the United +States where they were sold at fancy prices. + + +MERCHANTS THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY. + +This was the prevalent commercial system. The most infamous frauds were +carried on; and so dominant were the traders' standards that these +frauds passed as legitimate business methods. The very men who profited +by them were the mainstays of churches, and not only that, but they were +the very same men who formed the various self-constituted committees +which demanded severe laws against paupers and petty criminals. A study +of the names of the men, for instance, who comprised the New York +Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, 1818-1823, shows that nearly +all of them were shippers or merchants who participated in the current +commercial frauds. Yet this was the class that sat in judgment upon the +poverty of the people and the acts of poor criminals and which dictated +laws to legislatures and to Congress. + +Girard and Astor were the superfine products of this system; they did in +a greater way what others did in a lesser way. As a consequence, their +careers were fairly well illumined. The envious attacks of their +competitors ascribed their success to hard-hearted and ignoble +qualities, while their admirers heaped upon them tributes of praise for +their extraordinary genius. Both sets exaggerated. Their success in +garnering millions was merely an abnormal manifestation of an ambition +prevalent among the trading class. Their methods were an adroit +refinement of methods which were common. The game was one in which, +while fortunes were being amassed, masses of people were thrown into the +direst poverty and their lives were attended by injustice and suffering. +In this game a large company of eminent merchants played; Girard and +Astor were peers in the playing and got away with the greater share of +the stakes. + + +POST-REVOLUTIONARY CONDITIONS. + +Before describing Girard's career, it is well to cast a retrospective +fleeting glance into conditions following the Revolution. + +Despite the lofty sentiments of the Declaration of +Independence--sentiments which were submerged by the propertied class +when the cause was won--the gravity of law bore wholly in favor of the +propertied interests. The propertyless had no place or recognition. The +common man was good enough to shoulder a musket in the stress of war but +that he should have rights after the war, was deemed absurd. In the +whole scheme of government neither the feelings nor the interests of the +worker were thought of. + +The Revolution brought no immediate betterment to his conditions; such +slight amelioration as came later was the result of years of agitation. +No sooner was the Revolution over than in stepped the propertied +interests and assumed control of government functions. They were +intelligent enough to know the value of class government--a lesson +learned from the tactics of the British trading class. They knew the +tremendous impact of law and how, directly and indirectly, it worked +great transformations in the body social. While the worker was +unorganized, unconscious of what his interests demanded, deluded by +slogans and rallying-cries which really meant nothing to him, the +propertied class was alert in its own interests. + + +PROPERTY'S RULE INTRENCHED. + +It proceeded to intrench itself in political as well as in financial +power. The Constitution of the United States was so drafted as to take +as much direct power from the people as the landed and trading interests +dared. Most of the State Constitutions were more pronounced in rigid +property discriminations. In Massachusetts, no man could be governor +unless he were a Christian worth a clear L1,000; in North Carolina if he +failed of owning the required L1,000 in freehold estate; nor in Georgia +if he did not own five hundred acres of land and L4,000, nor in New +Hampshire if he lacked owning L500 in property. In South Carolina he had +to own L1,500 in property clear of all debts. In New York by the +Constitution of 1777, only actual residents having freeholds to the +value of L100 free of all debts, could vote for governor and other State +officials. The laws were so arranged as effectually to disfranchise +those who had no property. In his "Reminiscenses" Dr. John W. Francis +tells of the prevalence for years in New York of a supercilious class +which habitually sneered at the demand for political equality of the +leather-breeched mechanic with his few shillings a day. + +Theoretically, religious standards were the prevailing ones; in +actuality the ethics and methods of the propertied class were all +powerful. The Church might preach equality, humility and the list of +virtues; but nevertheless that did not give the propertyless man a vote. +Thus it was, that in communities professing the strongest religious +convictions and embodying them in Constitutions and in laws and customs, +glaring inconsistencies ran side by side. The explanation lay in the +fact that as regarded essential things of property, the standards of the +trading class had supplanted the religious. Even the very admonition +given by pastors to the poor, "Be content with your lot," was a +preachment entirely in harmony with the aims of the trading class which, +in order to make money, necessarily had to have a multitude of workers +to work for it and from whose labor the money, in its finality, had to +come. In the very same breath that they advised the poverty-stricken to +reverence their superiors and to expect their reward in heaven, the +ministers glorified the aggrandizing merchants as God's chosen men who +were called upon to do His work.[50] + +Since the laws favored the propertied interests, it was correspondingly +easy for them to get direct control of government functions and +personally exercise them. In New England rich shipowners rose at once to +powerful elective and appointive officers. Likewise in New York rich +landowners, and in the South, plantation men were selected for high +offices. Law-making bodies, from Congress down, were filled with +merchants, landowners, plantation men and lawyers, which last class was +trained, as a rule, by association and self-interest to take the views +of the propertied class and vote with, and for, it. A puissant +politico-commercial aristocracy developed which, at all times, was +perfectly conscious of its best interests. The worker was regaled with +flattering commendations of the dignity of labor and sonorous +generalizations and promises, but the ruling class took care of the +laws. + +By means of these partial laws, the propertied interests early began to +get tremendously valuable special privileges. Banking rights, canal +construction, trade privileges, government favors, public franchises all +came in succession. + + +THE RIGORS OF LAW ON THE POOR. + +At the same time that laws were enacted or were twisted to suit the will +of property, other laws were long in force oppressing the poor to a +terrifying degree. + +Poor debtors could be thrown in jail indefinitely, no matter how small a +sum they owned. In law, the laborer was accorded few rights. It was easy +to defraud him of his meager wages, since he had no lien upon the +products of his labor. His labor power was all that he had to sell, and +the value of this power was not safeguarded by law. But the products +created by his labor power in the form of property were fortified by the +severest laws. For the laborer to be in debt was equal to a crime, in +fact, in its results, worse than a crime. The burglar or pickpocket +would get a certain sentence and then go free. The poor debtor, +however, was compelled to languish in jail at the will of his creditor. + +The report of the Prison Discipline Society for 1829 estimated that +fully 75,000 persons were annually imprisoned for debt in the United +States and that more than one-half of these owed less than twenty +dollars.[51] And such were the appalling conditions of these debtors' +prisons that there was no distinction of sex, age or character; all of +the unfortunates were indiscriminately herded together. Sometimes, even +in the inclement climate of the North, the jails were so poorly +constructed, that there was insufficient shelter from the elements. In +the newspapers of the period advertisements may be read in which +charitable societies or individuals appeal for food, fuel and clothing +for the inmates of these prisons. The thief and the murderer had a much +more comfortable time of it in prison than the poor debtor. + + +LAW KIND TO THE TRADERS. + +With the law-making mercantile class the situation was very different. +The state and national bankruptcy acts, as apply to merchants, bankers, +storekeepers--the whole commercial class--were so loosely drafted and so +laxly enforced and judicially interpreted, that it was not hard to +defraud creditors and escape with the proceeds. A propertied bankrupt +could conceal his assets and hire adroit lawyers to get him off +scot-free on quibbling technicalities--a condition which has survived +to the present time, though in a lesser degree.[52] + +But imprisonment for debt was not the only fate that befell the +propertyless. According to the "Annual Report of the Managers of the +Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in New York City," there were +12,000 paupers in New York City in 1820.[53] Many of these were +destitute Irish who, after having been plundered and dispossessed by the +absentee landlords and the capitalists of their own country, were +induced to pay their last farthing to the shippers for passage to +America. There were laws providing that ship masters must report to the +Mayors of cities and give a bond that the destitutes that they brought +over should not become public charges. These laws were systematically +and successfully evaded; poor immigrants were dumped unceremoniously at +obscure places along the coast from whence they had to make their way, +carrying their baggage and beds, to the cities the best that they could. +Cadwallader D. Colden, mayor of New York for some years, tells, in his +reports, of harrowing cases of death after death resulting from +exposure due to this horrible form of exploitation. + +Now when the immigrant or native found himself in a state of near, or +complete, destitution and resorted to the pawnbrokers's or to theft, +what happened? The law restricted pawnbrokers from charging more than +seven per cent on amounts more than $25, but on amounts below that they +were allowed to charge twenty-five per cent. which, as the wage value of +money then went, was oppressively high. Of course, the poor with their +cheap possessions seldom owned anything on which they could get more +than $25; consequently they were the victims of the most grinding +legalized usury. Occasionally some legislative committee recognized, +although in a dim and unanalytic way, this onerous discrimination of law +against the propertyless. "Their [the pawnbrokers'] rates of interest," +an Aldermanic committee reported in 1832, "have always been exorbitant +and exceedingly oppressive. It has from time to time been regulated by +law, and its sanctions have (as is usual upon most occasions when +oppression has been legalized) been made to fall most heavily upon the +poor." The committee continued with the following comments which were +naive in the extreme considering that for generations all law had been +made by and for the propertied interests: "It is a singular fact that +the smallest sums advanced have always been chargeable with the highest +rates of interest.... It is a fact worthy of consideration that by far +the greater number of loans effected at these establishments are less +than one dollar, and of the whole twelve-fifteenths are in sums less +than one dollar and a half."[54] + +On the other hand, the propertied class not only was able to raise money +at a fairly low rate of interest, but, as will appear, had the free use +of the people's money, through the power of government, to the extent of +tens of millions of dollars. + + +THE PENALTIES OF POVERTY. + +If a man were absolutely destitute and took to theft as the only means +of warding off starvation for himself or his family, the whole force of +law at once descended heavily upon him. In New York State the law +decreed it grand larceny to steal to the value of $25, and in other +States the statutes were equally severe. For stealing $25 worth of +anything the penalty was three years in prison at hard labor. The +unfortunate was usually put in the convict chain-gang and forced to work +along the roads. Street-begging was prohibited by drastic laws; poverty +was substantially a crime. The moment a propertyless person stole, the +assumption at once was that he was _prima facie_ a criminal; but let the +powerful propertied man steal and government at once refused to see the +criminal _intent_; if he were prosecuted, the usual outcome was that he +never went to jail. Hundreds of specific instances could be given to +prove this. One of the most noted of these was that of Samuel Swartwout, +who was Collector of the Port of New York for a considerable period and +who, at the same time, was a financier and large land-speculation +promoter. It came out in 1838 that he had stolen the enormous sum of +$1,222,705.69 from the Government,[55] which money he had used in his +schemes. He was a fugitive from justice for a time, but upon his return +was looked upon extenuatingly as the "victim of circumstances" and he +never languished in jail. + +Money was the standard of everything. The propertied person could commit +any kind of crime, short of murder, and could at once get free on bail. +But what happened to the accused who was poor? Here is a contemporaneous +description of one of the prisons of the period: + + "In Bridewell, white females of every grade of character, from the + innocent who is in the end acquitted, down to the basest wretch + that ever disgraced the refuges of prostitution, are crowded into + the same abandoned abode. With the white male prisons, the case is + little altered.... And so it is with the colored prisoners of both + sexes. Hundreds are taken up and sent to these places, who, after + remaining frequently several weeks, are found to be innocent of + the crime alleged and are then let loose upon the community."[56] + +"Let loose upon the community." Does not this clause in itself convey +volumes of significance of the attitude of the propertied interests, +even when banded together in a pseudo "charitable" enterprise, toward +the poverty-stricken? While thus the charitable societies were holding +up the destitute to scorn and contumely as outcasts and were loftily +lecturing down to the poor on the evils of intemperance and +gambling--practices which were astoundingly prevalent among the rich--at +no time did they make any attempt to alter laws so glaringly unjust that +they practically made poverty a distinct crime, subject to long terms of +imprisonment. + +For instance, if a rich man were assaulted and made a complaint, all +that he had to do was to give bail to insure his appearance as a +witness. But if a poor man or woman were cheated or assaulted and could +not give bail to insure his or her appearance at the trial as a +complaining witness, the law compelled the authorities to lock up that +man or woman in prison. In the debates in the New York Constitutional +Convention of 1846, numerous cases were cited of this continuing +barbarity in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and other states. In +Maryland a young woman was assaulted and preferred criminal charges. As +she could not give bail she was locked up for eighteen months as a +detained witness. This was but one instance in thousands of similar +cases. + + +MASTER AND BONDED MAN. + +For an apprenticed laborer to quit his master and job was a crime in +law; once caught he was forthwith bundled off to jail, there to await +the dispensation of his master. No matter how cruelly his master +ill-treated him, however dissatisfied he was, the apprenticed laborer in +law had no rights. Almost every day the newspapers of the eighteenth, +and the early part of the nineteenth, century contained offers of +rewards for the apprehension of fugitive apprentice laborers; from a +survey of the Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and other colonial +and state newspapers it is clear that thousands of these apprentices had +to resort to flight to escape their bondage. This is a specimen +advertisement: + +TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD. + + RAN away from the subscriber, an Apprentice Boy, named William + Rustes, about 18 years and 3 months old, by trade a house + carpenter, of a dark complexion, dark eye brows, black eyes and + black hair, about 5 feet, 8 inches high, his dress unknown as he + took with him different kinds of clothes. The above reward will be + paid to any person that will secure him in gaol or return him to + his master. + + GEORGE LORD, + No. 12 First Street.[57] + +In contradistinction to the scorpion-like laws which worked such +injustice to the poor and which made a mockery of doctrines of equality +before the law, the propertied interests endowed themselves, by their +control of government, with invaluable exemptions and peculiarly +profitable special privileges. + +Even where, in civil cases, all men, theoretically, had an equal chance +in courts of equity, litigation was made so expensive, whether purposely +or not, that justice was really a one-sided pastime, in which the rich +man could easily wear out the poor contestant. This, however, is not the +place for a dissertation on that most remarkable of noteworthy +sorcerer's arts, the making of justice an expensive luxury, while still +deluding the people with the notion that the law knows no preferences. +The preferences which are more to the point at present are those in +which government force is used to enrich the already rich and impoverish +the impoverished still further. At the very time that property was +bitterly resisting enlightened pleas for the abolition of imprisonment +for debt, for the enactment of a mechanic's lien law, and for the +extension of the suffrage franchise it was using the public money of the +whole people for its personal and private enterprises. In works dealing +with those times it is not often that we get penetration into the +underlying methods of the trading class. But a lucid insight is +inadvertently given by Walter Barrett (who, for sixty years, was in the +mercantile trade), in his smug and conventional, but quaintly +entertaining, volumes, "The Merchants of Old New York." This strong +instance shows like a flashlight that while the success of the shippers +was attributed to a fine category of energetic qualities, the benevolent +assistance of the United States Government was, in a large measure, +responsible for part of their accumulations. + + +THE SHIPPERS' HUGE GRAFT. + +The Griswolds of New York owned the ship, "Panama." She carried spelter, +lead, iron and other products to China and returned with tea, false +cinnamon and various other Chinese goods. The duty on these was +extremely high. But the Government was far more lenient to the trading +class than the trader was to the poor debtor. It generously extended +credit for nine, twelve and eighteen months before it demanded the +payment of the tariff duties. What happened under this system? As soon +as the ship arrived, the cargo was sold at a profit of fifty per cent. +The Griswolds, for example, would pocket their profits and instead of +using their own capital in further ventures, they would have the +gratuitous use of Government money, that is to say, the people's money, +for periods of from six months to a year and a half. Thus the endless +chain was kept up. According to Barrett, this was the customary attitude +of the Government toward merchants: it was anything but unusual for a +merchant to have the free use of Government money to the sum of four or +five hundred thousand dollars.[58] + +"John Jacob Astor," says Barrett in a view of admiration, "at one period +of his life had several vessels operating in this way. They would go to +the Pacific and carry furs from thence to Canton. These would be sold at +large profits. Then the cargoes of tea would pay enormous duties which +Astor did not have to pay to the United States for a year and a half. +His tea cargoes would be sold for good four and six months paper, or +perhaps cash; so that for eighteen or twenty years John Jacob Astor had +what was actually a free-of-interest loan from the Government of over +_five millions_ of dollars."[59] + +"One house," continues Barrett, "was Thomas H. Smith & Sons. This firm +went enormously into the Canton trade, and, although possessing +originally but a few thousand dollars, Smith imported to such an extent +that when he failed he owed the United States three millions and not a +cent has ever been paid." Was Smith imprisoned for debt? Not at all. + +It is such revelations as these that indicate how it was possible for +the shippers to pile up great fortunes at a time when "a house that +could raise $260,000 in specie had an uncommon capital." They showed how +the same functions of government which were used as an engine of such +oppressive power against the poor, were perverted into highly efficient +auxiliary of trading class aims and ambitions. By multifarious subtle +workings, these class laws inevitably had a double effect. They poured +wealth into the coffers of the merchant-class and simultaneously tended +to drive the masses into poverty. The gigantic profits taken in by +merchants had to be borne by the worker, perhaps not superficially, but +in reality so. They came from his slender wages, from the tea and cotton +and woolen goods that he used, the sugar and the coffee and so on. In +this indirect way the shippers absorbed a great part of the products of +his labor; what they did not expropriate the landlord did. Then when the +laborer fell in debt to the middleman tradesman to jail he went.[60] + + +UNITE AGAINST THE WORKER. + +The worker denounced these discriminations as barbarous and unjust. But +he could do nothing. The propertied class, with its keen understanding +of what was best for its interests, acted and voted, and usually +dragooned the masses of enfranchised into voting, for men and measures +entirely favorable to its designs. Sometimes these interests conflicted +as they did when a part of New England became manufacturing centers and +favored a high protective tariff in opposition to the importing trades, +the plantation owners and the agricultural class in general. Then the +vested class would divide, and each side would appeal with passionate +and patriotic exhortations to the voting elements of the people to +sustain it, or the country would go to ruin. But when the working class +made demands for better laws, the propertied class, as a whole, united +to oppose the workers bitterly. However it differed on the tariff, or +the question of state or national banks, substantially the whole trading +class solidly combated the principle of manhood suffrage and the +movements for the wiping out of laws for imprisonment for debt, for +mechanic's liens and for the establishment of shorter hours of work. + +Political institutions and their offspring in the form of laws being +generally in the control of the trading class, the conditions were +extraordinarily favorable for the accumulation of large fortunes, +especially on the part of the shipowners, the dominant class. The grand +climax of the galaxy of American fortunes during the period from 1800 to +1831--the greatest of all the fortunes up to the beginning of the third +decade of that century--was that of Girard. He built up what was looked +up to as the gigantic fortune of about ten millions of dollars and far +overtopped every other strainer for money except Astor, who survived him +seventeen years, and whose wealth increased during that time to double +the amount that Girard left. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[49] "The Astor Fortune," McClure's Magazine, April, 1905. + +[50] Innumerable were the sermons and addresses poured forth, all to the +same end. To cite one: The Rev. Daniel Sharp of the Third Baptist +Meeting House, Boston, delivered a sermon in 1828 on "The Tendency of +Evil Speaking Against Rulers." It was considered so powerful an argument +in favor of obedience that it was printed in pamphlet form (Beals, Homer +& Co., Printers), and was widely distributed to press and public. + +[51] Various writers assert that twenty dollars was the average minimum. +In many places, however, the great majority of debts were for less than +ten dollars. Thus, for the year ending November 26, 1831, nearly one +thousand citizens had been imprisoned for debt in Baltimore. Of this +number more than half owed less than ten dollars, and of the whole +number, only thirty-four individually had debts exceeding one hundred +dollars.--Reports of Committees, First Session, Twenty-fourth Congress, +Vol. II, Report No. 732:3. + +[52] In his series of published articles, "The History of the +Prosecution of Bankrupt Frauds," the author has brought out +comprehensive facts on this point. + +[53] The eminent merchants who sat on this committee had their own +conclusive opinion of what produced poverty. In commenting on the growth +of paupers they ascribed pauperism to seven sources. (1) Ignorance, (2) +Intemperance, (3) Pawnbrokers, (4) Lotteries, (5) Charitable +Institutions, (6) Houses of Ill-Fame, (7) Gambling. + +No documents more wonderfully illustrate the bourgeois type of +temperament and reasoning than their reports. The people of the city +were ignorant because 15,000 of the 25,000 families did not attend +church. Pawnbrokers were an incentive to theft, cunning and lack of +honest industry, etc., etc. Thus their explanations ran. In referring to +mechanics and paupers, the committee described them as "the middling and +inferior classes." Is it any wonder that the working class justly views +"charitable" societies, and the spirit behind them, with intense +suspicion and deep execration? + +[54] Documents of the Board of Assistant Aldermen of New York City, +1831-32, Doc. No. 45:1. + +[55] House Executive Document, No. 13, Twenty-fifth Congress, Third +Session; also, House Report, No. 313. + +[56] Report for 1821 of the "Society for the Prevention of Pauperism." + +[57] "New York Gazette and General Advertiser", Aug. 5, 1797. The +rewards offered for the apprehension of fugitive apprentices varied. An +advertisement in the same newspaper, issue of July 3, 1797, held out an +offer of five dollars reward for an indented German boy who had +"absconded." The fear was expressed that he would attempt to board some +ship, and all persons were notified not to harbor or conceal him as they +would be "proceeded against as the law directs". That old apprentice law +has never been repealed in New York State. + +[58] The Government reports bear out Barrett's statements, although in +saying this it must be with qualifications. The shippers engaged in the +East India and China trade were more favored, it seems, than other +classes of shippers, which discrimination engendered much antagonism. +"Why," wrote the Mercantile Society of New York to the House Committee +on Manufactures in 1821, "should the merchant engaged in the East India +trade, who is the overgrown capitalist, have the extended credit of +twelve months in his duties, the amount of which on one cargo furnishes +nearly a sufficient capital for completing another voyage, before his +bonds are payable?" The Mercantile Society recommended that credits on +duties be reduced to three and six months on merchandise imported from +all quarters of the globe.--Reports of Committees, Second Session, +Sixteenth Congress, 1820-21, Vol. I, Document No. 34. + +[59] "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:31-33. Barrett was a great +admirer of Astor. He inscribed Vol. iii, published in 1864, to Astor's +memory. + +[60] The movement to abolish imprisonment for debt was a protracted one +lasting more than a quarter of a century, and was acrimoniously opposed +by the propertied classes, as a whole. By 1836, however, many State +legislatures had been induced to repeal or modify the provisions of the +various debtors' imprisonment acts. In response to a recommendation by +President Andrew Jackson that the practise be abolished in the District +of Columbia, a House Select Committee reported on January 17, 1832, that +"the system originated in cupidity. It is a confirmation of power in the +few against the many; the Patrician against the Plebeian." On May 31, +1836, the House Committee for the District of Columbia, in reporting on +the debtors' imprisonment acts, said: "They are disgraceful evidences of +the ingenious subtlety by which they were woven into the legal system we +adopted from England, and were obviously intended to increase and +confirm the power of a wealthy aristocracy by rendering poverty a crime, +and subjecting the liberty of the poor to the capricious will of the +rich."--Reports of Committees, Second Session, Twenty-second Congress, +1832-33, Report No. 5, and Reports of Committees, First Session, +Twenty-fourth Congress, 1836, Report No. 732, ii:2. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GIRARD--THE RICHEST OF THE SHIPPERS + + +Girard was born at Bordeaux, France, on May 21, 1750, and was the eldest +of five children of Captain Pierre Girard, a mariner. When eight years +old he became blind in one eye, a loss and deformity which subjected his +sensibilities to severe trials and which had the effect of rendering him +morose and sour. It was his lament in later life that while his brothers +had been sent to college, he was the ugly duckling of the family and +came in for his father's neglect and a shrewish step-mother's +waspishness. At about fourteen years of age he relieved himself of these +home troubles and ran away to sea. During the nine years that he sailed +between Bordeaux and the West Indies, he rose from cabin-boy to mate. +Evading the French law which required that no man should be made master +of a ship unless he had sailed two cruises in the royal navy and was +twenty-five years old, Girard got the command of a trading vessel when +about twenty-two years old. While in this service he clandestinely +carried cargoes of his own which he sold at considerable profit. In May, +1776, while en route from New Orleans to a Canadian port, he became +enshrouded in a fog off the Delaware Capes, signaled for aid, and when +the fog had cleared away sufficiently for an American ship, near by, to +come to his assistance, learned that war was on. He thereupon scurried +for Philadelphia, where he sold vessel and cargo, of which latter only +a part belonged to him, and with the proceeds opened up a cider and wine +bottling and grocery business in a small store on Water street. + +Girard made money fast; and in July, 1777, married Mary Lum, a woman of +his own class. She is usually described as a servant girl of great +beauty and as one whose temper was of quite tempestuous violence. This +unfortunate woman subsequently lost her reason; undoubtedly her +husband's meannesses and his forbidding qualities contributed to the +process. One of his most favorable biographers thus describes him: "In +person he was short and stout, with a dull repulsive countenance, which +his bushy eyebrows and solitary eye almost made hideous. He was cold and +reserved in manner, and was disliked by his neighbors, the most of whom +were afraid of him."[61] + +During the British occupation of Philadelphia he was charged by the +revolutionists with extreme double-dealing and duplicity in pretending +to be a patriot, and taking the oath of allegiance to the colonies, +while secretly trading with the British. None of his biographers deny +this. While merchant after merchant was being bankrupted from disruption +of trade, Girard was incessantly making money. By 1780 he was again in +the shipping trade, his vessels plying between American ports and New +Orleans and San Domingo; not the least of his profits, it was said, +came from slave-trading. + +[Illustration: STEPHEN GIRARD. +(From an Engraving.)] + + +HOW HE BUILT HIS SHIPS. + +A troublous partnership with his brother, Captain Jean Girard, lasted +but a short time; the brothers could not agree. At the dissolution in +1790 Stephen Girard's share of the profits amounted to $30,000. Girard's +greatest stroke came from the insurrection of the San Domingo negroes +against the French several years later. He had two vessels lying in the +harbor of one of the island ports. At the first mutterings of danger, a +number of planters took their valuables on board one of these ships and +scurried back to get the remainder. The sequel, as commonly narrated, is +represented thus: The planters failed to return, evidently falling +victims to the fury of the insurrectionists. The vessels were taken to +Philadelphia, and Girard persistently advertised for the owners of the +valuables. As no owners ever appeared, Girard sold the goods and put the +proceeds, $50,000, into his own bank account. "This," says Houghton, +"was a great assistance to him, and the next year he began the building +of those splendid ships which enabled him to engage so actively in the +Chinese and West India trades." + +From this time on his profits were colossal. His ships circumnavigated +the world many times and each voyage brought him a fortune. He practiced +all of those arts of deception which were current among the trading +class and which were accepted as shrewdness and were inseparably +associated with legitimate business methods. In giving one of his +captains instructions he wrote, as was his invariable policy, the most +explicit directions to exercise secretiveness and cunning in his +purchases of coffee at Batavia. Be cautious and prudent, was his +admonition. Keep to yourself the intention of the voyage and the amount +of specie that you have on board. To satisfy the curious, throw them off +the scent by telling them that the ship will take in molasses, rice and +sugar, if the price is very low, adding that the whole will depend upon +the success in selling the small Liverpool cargo. If you do this, the +cargo of coffee can be bought ten per cent cheaper than it would be if +it is publicly known there is a quantity of Spanish dollars on board, +besides a valuable cargo of British goods intended to be invested in +coffee for Stephen Girard of Philadelphia. + +By 1810 we see him ordering the Barings of London to invest in shares of +the Bank of the United States half a million dollars which they held for +him. When the charter expired, he was the principal creditor of that +bank; and he bought, at a great bargain, the bank and the cashier's +house for $120,000. On May 12, 1812, he opened the Girard Bank, with a +capital of $1,200,000, which he increased the following year by $100,000 +more.[62] + + +A DICTATOR OF FINANCE. + +His wealth was now overshadowingly great; his power immense. He was a +veritable dictator of the realms of finance; an assiduous, repellent +little man, with his devil's eye, who rode roughshod over every obstacle +in his path. His every movement bred fear; his veriest word could bring +ruin to any one who dared cross his purposes. The war of 1812 brought +disaster to many a merchant, but Girard harvested fortune from the +depths of misfortune. "He was, it must be said," says Houghton, "hard +and illiberal in his bargains, and remorseless in exacting the last cent +due him." And after he opened the Girard Bank: "Finding that the +salaries which had been paid by the government were higher than those +paid elsewhere, he cut them down to the rate given by the other banks. +The watchman had always received from the old bank the gift of an +overcoat at Christmas, but Girard put a stop to this. He gave no +gratuities to any of his employees, but confined them to the +compensation for which they had bargained; yet he contrived to get out +of them service more devoted than was received by other men who paid +higher wages and made presents. Appeals to him for aid were unanswered. +No poor man ever came full-handed from his presence. He turned a deaf +ear to the entreaties of failing merchants to help them on their feet +again. He was neither generous nor charitable. When his faithful cashier +died, after long years spent in his service, he manifested the most +hardened indifference to the bereavement of the family of that +gentleman, and left them to struggle along as best they could." + +Further, Houghton unconsciously proceeds to bring out several incidents +which show the exorbitant profits Girard made from his various business +activities. In the spring of 1813, one of his ships was captured by a +British cruiser at the mouth of the Delaware. Fearing that his prize +would be recaptured by an American war ship if he sent her into port, +the English Admiral notified Girard that he would ransom the ship for +$180,000 in coin. Girard paid the money; and, even after paying that +sum, the cargo of silks, nankeens and teas yielded him a profit of half +a million dollars. His very acts of apparent public spirit were means by +which he scooped in large profits. Several times, when the rate of +exchange was so high as to be injurious to general business, he drew +upon Baring Bros. for sums of money to be transferred to the United +States. This was hailed as a public benefaction. But what did Girard do? +He disposed of the money to the Bank of the United States and charged +ten per cent. for the service. + + +BRIBERY AND INTIMIDATION. + +The reestablishment and enlarged sway of this bank were greatly due to +his efforts and influence; he became its largest stockholder and one of +its directors. No business institution in the first three decades of the +nineteenth century exercised such a sinister and overshadowing influence +as this chartered monopoly. The full tale of its indirect bribery of +politicians and newspaper editors, in order to perpetuate its great +privileges and keep a hold upon public opinion, has never been set +forth. But sufficient facts were brought out when, after years of +partizan agitation, Congress was forced to investigate and found that +not a few of its own members for years had been on the payrolls of the +bank.[63] + +In order to get its charter renewed from time to time and retain its +extraordinary special privileges, the United States Bank systematically +debauched politics and such of the press as was venal; and when a +critical time came, as it did in 1832-34, when the mass of the people +sided with President Jackson in his aim to overthrow the bank, it +instructed the whole press at its command to raise the cry of "the +fearful consequences of revolution, anarchy and despotism," which +assuredly would ensue if Jackson were reelected. To give one instance of +how for years it had manipulated the press: The "Courier and Enquirer" +was a powerful New York newspaper. Its owners, Webb and Noah, suddenly +deserted Jackson and began to denounce him. The reason was, as revealed +by a Congressional investigation, that they had borrowed $50,000 from +the United States Bank which lost no time in giving them the alternative +of paying up or supporting the bank.[64] + +Girard's share in the United States Bank brought him millions of +dollars. With its control of deposits of government funds and by the +provisions of its charter, this bank swayed the whole money marts of the +United States and could manipulate them at will. It could advance or +depress prices as it chose. Many times, Girard with his fellow directors +was severely denounced for the arbitrary power he wielded. But--and let +the fact be noted--the denunciation came largely from the owners of the +State banks who sought to supplant the United States Bank. The struggle +was really one between two sets of capitalistic interests. + +Shipping and banking were the chief sources of Girard's wealth, with +side investments in real estate and other forms of property. He owned +large tracts of land in Philadelphia, the value of which increased +rapidly with the growth of population; he was a heavy stockholder in +river navigation companies and near the end of his life he subscribed +$200,000 toward the construction of the Danville & Pottsville Railroad. + + +THE SOLITARY CROESUS. + +He was at this time a solitary, crusty old man living in a four-story +house on Water street, pursued by the contumely of every one, even of +those who flattered him for mercenary purposes. Children he had none, +and his wife was long since dead. His great wealth brought him no +comfort; the environment with which he surrounded himself was mean and +sordid; many of his clerks lived in better style. There, in his dingy +habitation, this lone, weazened veteran of commerce immersed himself in +the works of Voltaire, Diderot, Paine and Rousseau, of whom he was a +profound admirer and after whom some of his best ships were named. + +This grim miser had, after all, the one great redeeming quality of being +true to himself. He made no pretense to religion and had an abhorrence +of hypocrisy. Cant was not in his nature. Out into the world he went, a +ferocious shark, cold-eyed for prey, but he never cloaked his motives +beneath a calculating exterior of piety or benevolence. Thousands upon +thousands he had deceived, for business was business, but himself he +never deceived. His bitter scoffs at what he termed theologic +absurdities and superstitions and his terrific rebuffs to ministers who +appealed to him for money, undoubtedly called forth a considerable +share of the odium which was hurled upon him. He defied the anathemas of +organized churchdom; he took hold of the commercial world and shook it +harshly and emerged laden with spoils. To the last, his volcanic spirit +flashed forth, even when, eighty years old, he lay with an ear cut off, +his face bruised and his sight entirely destroyed, the result of being +felled by a wagon. + +In all his eighty-one years charity had no place in his heart. But +after, on Dec. 26, 1831, he lay stone dead and his will was opened, what +a surprise there was! His relatives all received bequests; his very +apprentices each got five hundred dollars, and his old servants +annuities. Hospitals, orphan societies and other charitable associations +all benefited. Five hundred thousand dollars went to the City of +Philadelphia for certain civic improvements; three hundred thousand +dollars for the canals of Pennsylvania; a portion of his valuable estate +in Louisiana to New Orleans for the improvement of that city. The +remainder of the estate, about six millions, was left to trustees for +the creation and endowment of a College for Orphans, which was promptly +named after him. + +A chorus of astonishment and laudation went up. Was there ever such +magnificence of public spirit? Did ever so lofty a soul live who was so +misunderstood? Here and there a protesting voice was feebly heard that +Girard's wealth came from the community and that it was only justice +that it should revert to the community; that his methods had resulted in +widows and orphans and that his money should be applied to the support +of those orphans. These protests were frowned upon as the mouthings of +cranks or the ravings of impotent envy. Applause was lavished upon +Girard; his very clothes were preserved as immemorial mementoes.[65] + + +"THE GREAT BENEFACTOR." + +All of the benefactions of the other rich men of the period waned into +insignificance compared to those of Girard. His competitors and compeers +had given to charity, but none on so great a scale as Girard. +Distinguished orators vied with one another in extolling his wonderful +benefactions,[66] and the press showered encomiums upon him as that of +the greatest benefactor of the age. To them this honestly seemed so, for +they were trained by the standards of the trading class, by the +sophistries of political economists and by the spirit of the age, to +concentrate their attention upon the powerful and successful only, while +disregarding the condition of the masses of the people. + +The pastimes of a king or the foibles of some noted politician or rich +man were things of magnitude and were much expatiated upon, while the +common man, singly or in mass, was of absolutely no importance. The +finely turned rhetoric of the orators, pleasing as it was to that +generation, is, judged by modern standards, well nigh meaningless and +worthless. In that highflown oratory, with its carefully studied +exordiums, periods and perorations can be clearly discerned the +reverence given to power as embodied by possession of property. But +nowhere do we see any explanation, or even an attempt at explanation, of +the basic means by which this property was acquired or of its effect +upon the masses of the people. Woefully lacking in facts are the +productions of the time as to how the great body of the workers lived +and what they did. Facts as to the rich are fairly available, although +not abundant, but facts regarding the rest of the population are +pitifully few. The patient seeker for truth--the mind which is not +content with the presentation of one side--finds, with some impatience, +that only a few writers thought it worth while to give even scant +attention to the condition of the working class. One of these few was +Matthew Carey, an orthodox political economist, who, in a pamphlet +issued in 1829[67], gave this picture which forms both a contrast and a +sequel to the accumulations of multimillionaires, of which Girard was +then the archetype: + + +A STARK CONTRAST PRESENTED. + + "Thousands of our laboring people travel hundreds of miles in + quest of employment on canals at 62-1/2 cents to 87-1/2 cents per + day, paying $1.50 to $2.00 a week for board, leaving families + behind depending upon them for support. They labor frequently in + marshy grounds, where they inhale pestiferous miasmata, which + destroy their health, often irrevocably. They return to their poor + families broken hearted, and with ruined constitutions, with a + sorry pittance, most laboriously earned, and take to their beds, + sick and unable to work. Hundreds are swept off annually, many of + them leaving numerous and helpless families. Notwithstanding their + wretched fate, their places are quickly supplied by others, + although death stares them in the face. Hundreds are most + laboriously employed on turnpikes, working from morning to night + at from half a dollar to three-quarters a day, exposed to the + broiling sun in summer and all the inclemency of our severe + winters. There is always a redundancy of wood-pilers in our + cities, whose wages are so low that their utmost efforts do not + enable them to earn more than from thirty-five to fifty cents per + day.... Finally there is no employment whatever, how disagreeable + or loathsome, or deleterious soever it may be, or however reduced + the wages, that does not find persons willing to follow it rather + than beg or steal." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[61] "Kings of Fortune":16--The pretentious title and sub-title of this +work, written thirty odd years ago by Walter R. Houghton, A.M., gives an +idea of the fantastic exaltation indulged in of the careers of men of +great wealth. Hearken to the full title: "Kings of Fortune--or the +Triumphs and Achievements of Noble, Self-made men.--Whose brilliant +careers have honored their calling, blessed humanity, and whose lives +furnish instruction for the young, entertainment for the old and +valuable lessons for the aspirants of fortune." Could any fulsome +effusion possibly surpass this? + +[62] "Mr. Girard's bank was a financial success from the beginning. A +few months after it opened for business its capital was increased to one +million three hundred thousand dollars. One of the incidents which +helped, at the outstart, to inspire the public with confidence in the +stability of the new institution was the fact that the trustees who +liquidated the affairs of the old Bank of the United States opened an +account in Girard's Bank, and deposited in its vaults some millions of +dollars in specie belonging to the old bank."--"The History of the +Girard National Bank of Philadelphia," by Josiah Granville Leach, LL.B., +1902. This eulogistic work contains only the scantiest details of +Girard's career. + +[63] The First Session of the Twenty-second Congress, 1831, iv, +containing reports from Nos. 460 to 463. + +[64] Ibid. + +An investigating committee appointed by the Pennsylvania Legislature in +1840, reported that during a series of years the Bank of the United +States (or United States Bank, as it was more often referred to) had +corruptly expended $130,000 in Pennsylvania for a re-charter.--Pa. House +Journal, 1842, Vol. II, Appendix, 172-531. + +[65] In providing for the establishment of Girard College, Girard stated +in his will: "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or +minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any station +or duty whatsoever in the said college; nor shall any such person be +admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor within the premises +appropriated to the purposes of said college."--The Will of the Late +Stephen Girard, Esq., 1848:22-23. + +An attempt was made by his relatives in France to break his will, one of +the grounds being that the provisions of his will were in conflict with +the Christian religion which was a part of the common law of +Pennsylvania. The attempt failed. + +[66] For example, an address by Edward Everett, at the Odeon, before the +Mercantile Library Association in Boston, September 13, 1838: "Few +persons, I believe, enjoyed less personal popularity in the community in +which he lived and to which he bequeathed his personal fortune.... A +citizen and a patriot he lived in his modest dwelling and plain garb; +appropriating to his last personal wants the smallest pittance from his +princely income; living to the last in the dark and narrow street in +which he made his fortune; and when he died bequeathed it for the +education of orphan children. For the public I do not believe he could +have done better," etc., etc.--Hunt's "Merchant's Magazine," 1830, 1:35. + +[67] "The Public Charities of Philadelphia." + + + + +PART II + + +THE GREAT LAND FORTUNES + + +[Illustration: GEN. STEPHEN VAN RENSSLAER. +The Last of the Patroons. +(From an Engraving.)] + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE ORIGIN OF HUGE CITY ESTATES + + +In point of succession and importance the next great fortunes came from +ownership of land in the cities. They far preceded fortunes from +established industries or from the control of modern methods of +transportation. Long before Vanderbilt and other of his contemporaries +had plucked immense fortunes from steamboat, railroad and street railway +enterprises, the Astor, Goelet, and Longworth fortunes were counted in +the millions. In the seventy years from 1800 the landowners were the +conspicuous fortune possessors; and, although fortunes of millions were +extracted from various other lines of business, the land fortunes were +preeminent. + +At the dawn of the nineteenth century and until about 1850, survivals of +the old patroon estates were to be met with. But these gradually +disintegrated. Everywhere in the North the tendency was toward the +partition of the land into small farms, while in the South the condition +was the reverse. The main fact which stood out was that the rich men of +the country were no longer those who owned vast tracts of rural land. +That powerful kind of landowner had well-nigh vanished. + + +THE MANORIAL LORDS PASS AWAY. + +For more than two centuries the manorial lords had been conspicuous +functionaries. Shorn of much power by the alterations of the Revolution +they still retained a part of their state and estate. But changing laws +and economic conditions drove them down and down in the scale until the +very names of many of them were gradually lost sight of. As they +descended in the swirl, other classes of rich men jutted into strong +view. Chief among these nascent classes were the landowners of the +cities, at first grabbling tradesmen and land speculators and finally +rising to the crowning position of multimillionaires. Originally, as we +have seen, the manorial magnate himself made the laws and decreed +justice; but in two centuries great changes had taken place. He now had +to fight for his very existence. + +Thus, to give one example, the manorial men in New York were confronted +in 1839 by a portentous movement. Their tenants were in a state of +unrest. On the Van Rensselaer, the Livingston and other of the old +feudal estates they rose in revolt. They objected to the continuing +system which gave the lords of these manors much the same rights over +them as a lord in England exercised over his tenants. Under the leases +that the manorial lords compelled their tenants to sign, there were +oppressive anachronisms. If he desired to entertain a stranger in his +house for twenty-four hours, the tenant was required to get permission +in writing. He was forced to obligate himself not to trade in any +Commodities except the produce of the manor. He could not get his flour +ground anywhere else than at the mill of the manor without violating his +lease and facing ejectment, nor could he buy anything at any place +except at the store of the manorial magnate. These were the rights +reserved to the manorial lords after the Revolution, because theirs were +the rights of private property; and as has often been set forth, +property absolutely dominated the laws and greatly nullified the spirit +of a movement made successful by the blood and lives of the masses in +the Revolutionary Army. Tardily, subsequent legislatures had abolished +all feudal tenures, but these laws were neither effective nor were +enforced by the authorities who reflected and represented the interests +of the proprietors of the manors. + +On their part the manorial men believed that self-interest, pride and +adherence to ancient traditions called for the perpetuation of their +arbitrary power of running their domains as they pleased. They refused +to acknowledge that law had any right to interfere in the managing of +what they considered their private affairs. Eager to avail themselves of +the police power of the law in dispossessing any fractious or +impecunious tenant and in suppressing protest meetings, they, at the +same time, denounced law as tyrannical when it sought to inject more +modern and humane conditions in the managing of their estates. They +stubbornly insisted upon a tenantry, and as obstinately contested any +forfeiture of what they deemed their property rights. + + +FEUDAL TENURES ABOLISHED. + +A long series of reprisals and an intense agitation developed. The +Anti-Renters mustered such sympathetic political strength and threw the +whole state into such a vortex of radical discussion, that the +politicians of the day, fearing the effects of such a movement, +practically forced the manorial magnates to compromise by selling their +land in small farms,[68] which they did at exorbitant prices. They made +large profits on the strength of the very movement which they had so +bitterly opposed. Affrighted at the ominous unrest of a large part of +the people and hoping to stem it, the New York Constitutional Convention +in 1846 adopted a Constitutional inhibition on all feudal tenures, an +inhibition so drafted that no legislature could pass a law contravening +it.[69] + +So, in this final struggle, passed away the last vestiges of the sway of +the all-powerful patroons of old. They had become archaic. It was +impossible for them to survive in the face of newer conditions, for they +represented a bygone economic and social era. Their power was one +accruing purely from the extent of their possessions and discriminative +laws. When these were wrenched from their grasp, their importance as +wielders of wealth and influence ceased. They might still boast of their +lineage, their aristocratic enclosure and culture and their social +altitude, but these were about the only remnants of consolation left. + +The time was unpropitious for the continuation of great wealth based +upon rural or small-town land. Many influences conspired to make this +land a variable property, while these same influences, or a part of +them, fixed upon city land an enhancing and graduating permanency of +value. The growth of the shipping trade built up the cities and +attracted workers and population generally. The establishment of the +factory system in 1790 had a two-fold effect. It began to drain country +sections of many of the younger generations and it immediately enlarged +the trading activities of the cities. Another and much more considerable +part of the farming population in the East was constantly migrating to +the West and Southwest with their promising opportunities. Some country +districts thinned out; others remained stationary. But whether the rural +census increased or not, there were other factors which sent up or down +the value of farming lands. The building of a canal would augment the +value of land in section and cause stimulation, and depress conditions +in another section not so favored. Even this stimulation, however, was +often transient. With each fresh settlement of the West and with the +construction of each pioneer railroad, new and complex factors turned up +which generally had a depreciating effect upon Eastern lands. A country +estate worth a large sum in one generation might very well succumb to a +mortgage in the next. + + +THE NEW ARISTOCRACY. + +But fortunes based upon land in the cities were indued with a +mathematical certainty and a perpetuity. City real estate was not +subject to the extreme fluctuating processes which so disordered the +value of rural land. All of the tendencies and currents of the times +favored the building up of an aristocracy based upon ownership of city +property. Compared to their present colossal proportions the cities were +then mere villages. There was a nucleus of perhaps a mile or two of +houses, beyond which were fields and orchards, meadows and wastes. These +could be bought for an insignificant sum. With the progressing growth +of commerce and population, with immigration continually going on, every +year witnessing a keener pressure for occupation of the land, the value +of this latter was certain to increase. There was no chance of its being +otherwise. + +Up to 1825 it was a mooted question whether the richest landowners would +arise in New York, Philadelphia, Boston or Baltimore. For many years +Philadelphia had been far in the lead in extent of commerce. But the +opening of the Erie Canal at once settled this question. At a bound New +York attained the rank of the foremost commercial city in the United +States, completely outstripping its competitors. While the trade of +these fell off precipitately, the population and trade of New York City +nearly doubled in a single decade. The value of land began to increase +stupendously. The swamps, rocky wastes and flats and the land under +water of a few years before became prolific sources of fortunes. Land +which had been worth a paltry sum ten or twenty years before sprang to a +considerable value and, in course of time, with the same causes in a +more intense ratio of operation, was vested with a value of hundreds of +millions of dollars. This being so, it was not surprising that the +richest landowners should appear first in New York City and should be +able to maintain their supremacy. + +The wealth of the landowners soon completely eclipsed that of the +shippers. Enormous as were the profits of the shipping business, they +were immediate only. In the contest for wealth it was inevitable that +the shippers should fall behind. Their business was one of peculiar +uncertainties. The hazards of the sea, the fluctuations and vicissitudes +of trade, the severe competition of the times, exposed their traffic to +many mutations. Many of the rich shipowners well understood this; the +surplus wealth derived from commerce on the seas they invested in land, +banks, factories, turnpikes, insurance companies, railroads and in some +instances, lotteries. Those shipping millionaires who clung exclusively +to the sea fell in the scale of the rich class, especially as the time +came when foreign shipping largely supplanted the trade hitherto carried +in American cutters. Other shippers who applied their surplus capital to +investments in other forms of trade and ownership advanced rapidly in +wealth. + + +CITY LAND THE SUPREME FACTOR. + +Between land ownership and other forms, however, there was a great +difference. Trade was then extremely individualistic; the artificial +controlling power called the corporation was in its earliest infantile +condition. The heirs of the owner of sixty line of sail might not +possess the same astuteness, the same knowledge, adroitness, and +cunning--or let us say, unscrupulousness--the same severe application as +the founder. Consequently the business would decay or fall into the +hands of others shrewder or more fortunate. As to factories the +condition was somewhat the same; and, after the organization of labor +unions the possibility of strikes was an ever-present danger to the +constant flow of profits. Banks were by no means fixed, unchangeable +establishments. Like other media of profit-making, the extent of their +power and profits depended upon prevailing conditions and very largely +upon the favoritism or policy of Government. At any time the party +controlling government functions might change and a radically different +policy in banking, tariff or other laws be put in force. + +These changing laws did not, it is true, vitally benefit the masses of +the people, for one set or other of the propertied interests almost +invariably benefited. The laws enacted were usually in response to a +demand made by contending propertied interests. The trade and political +struggles carried on by the commercial interests were a series of +incessant wars, in which every individual owner, firm or combination was +fiercely resisting competitors or striving for their overthrow. + + +THE INVULNERABLE LANDOWNER. + +But the landowner occupied a superior position which neither political +conditions nor the flux of changing circumstances could materially +assail. He was ardently individualistic also in that he demanded, and +was accorded, the unimpaired right to get land in any way that he +legally could, hold a monopoly of as much of it as he pleased, and +dispose of it as he willed. In the very act of asserting this +individualism he called upon Society, through its machinery of +Government, for the enactment of particular laws, to guarantee him the +sole possession of his land and uphold his claims and rights by force if +necessary. These were all the basic laws that he needed and these laws +did not change. From generation to generation they remained fixed, +immovable. The interests of all landowners were identical; those of the +traders were varying and conflicting. For long periods the landowner +could expect the continuance of existing fundamental laws regarding the +ownership of land, while the shipper, the factory owner, the banker did +not know what different set of laws might be enacted at any time. + +Furthermore, the landowner had an efficient and never-failing +auxiliary. He yoked society as a partner, but it was a partnership in +which the revenue went exclusively to the landowner. The principal +factor he depended upon was the work of collective humans in adding +greater and greater values to his land. Broadly speaking, his share +consisted in merely looking on; he had nothing to do except hold on to +his land. His sons, grandsons, his descendants down to remotest +posterity need do even less; they could leisurely hold on to their +inheritance, enlarge it, hire the necessary ability of superintendence +and vast and ever vaster riches would be theirs. Society worked +feverishly for the landowner. Every street laid and graded by the city; +every park plotted and every other public improvement; every child born +and every influx of immigrants; every factory, warehouse and dwelling +that went up;--all these and more agencies contributed toward the +abnormal swelling of his fortune. + + +A PROLIFIC BREEDER OF WEALTH. + +Under such a system land was the one great auspicious, facile and +durable means of rolling up an overshadowing fortune. Its exclusive +possession struck at the very root of human necessity. At a pinch people +can do without trade or money, but land they must have, even if only to +lie down on and starve. The impoverish, jobless worker, with disaster +facing him, must first perforce give up his precious few coins to the +landlord and take chances on food and the remainder. Especially is land +in demand in a complicated industrial system which causes much of the +population to gravitate to centers where industries and trade are +concentrated and congest there. + +A more formidable system for the foundation and amplification of lasting +fortunes has not existed. It is automatically self-perpetuating. And +that it is preeminently so is seen in the fact that the large shipping +fortunes of a century ago are now generally as completely forgotten as +the methods then used are obsolete. But the land has remained land; and +the fortunes then incubated have grown into mighty powers of great +national, and some of considerable international, importance. + +It was by favor of these propitious conditions that many of the great +fortunes, based upon land, were founded. According to the successive +census returns of the United States, by far the greater part of the +wealth of the country as regards real estate was, and is, concentrated +in the North Atlantic Division and the North Central Division, the one +taking in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the other +Chicago, Cincinnati and other cities.[70] It is in the large cities that +the great land fortunes are to be found. The greatest of these fortunes +are the Astor, Goelet and Rhinelander estates in the East and, in the +West, the Longworth and Field estates are notable examples. To deal with +all the conspicuous fortunes based upon land would necessitate an +interminable narrative. Suffice it for the purposes of this work to take +up a few of the superlatively great fortunes as representatives of those +based upon land. + + +VAST FORTUNES FROM LAND. + +The foremost of all American fortunes derived from land is the Astor +fortune. Its present bulk, embracing all the collateral family branches, +is estimated by some authorities at about $300,000,000. This, it is +generally believed, is an underestimate. As long ago as 1889, when the +population of New York City was much less than now, Thomas G. Shearman, +a keen student of land conditions, placed the collective wealth of the +Astors at $250,000,000.[71] The stupendous magnitude of this fortune +alone may at once be seen in its relation to the condition of the masses +of the people. An analysis of the United States census of 1900, compiled +by Lucien Sanial, shows that while the total wealth of the country was +estimated at about $95,000,000,000, the proletarian class, composed +chiefly of wage workers and a small proportion of those in professional +classes, and numbering 20,393,137 persons, owned only about +$4,000,000,000. It is by such a contrast, bringing out how one family +alone, the Astors, own more than many millions of workers, that we begin +to get an idea of the overreaching, colossal power of a single fortune. +The Goelet fortune is likewise vast; it is variously estimated at from +$200,000,000 to $225,000,000, although what its exact proportions are is +a matter of some obscurity. + +In the case of these great fortunes it is well nigh impossible to get an +accurate idea of just how much they reach. All of them are based +primarily upon ownership of land, but they also include many other forms +such as shares in banks, coal and other mines, railroads, city +transportation systems, gas plants, industrial corporations. Even the +most indefatigable tax assessors find it such a fruitless and elusive +task in attempting to discover what personal property is held by these +multimillionaires, that the assessment is usually a conjectural or +haphazard performance. The extent of their land holdings is known; these +cannot be hid in a safe deposit vault. But their other varieties of +property are carefully concealed from public and official knowledge. +Since this is so, it is entirely probable that the fortunes of these +families are considerably greater than is commonly estimated. The case +of Marshall Field, a Chicago Croesus, who left a fortune valued at +about $100,000,000, is a strong illustration. This man owned $30,000,000 +worth of real estate in Chicago alone. There was no telling, however, +what his whole estate amounted to, for he refused year after year to pay +taxes on more than a valuation of $2,500,000 of personal property. Yet, +after his death in 1906, an inventory of his estate filed in January, +1907, disclosed a clear taxable personal property of $49,977,270. He was +far richer than he would have it appear. + +Let us investigate the careers of some of these powerful landed men, the +founders of great fortunes, and inquire into their methods and into the +conditions under which they succeeded in heaping up their immense +accumulations. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[68] In 1847 and 1849 the Anti-Renters demonstrated a voting strength in +New York State of about 5,000. Livingston's title to his estate being +called into question, a suit was brought. The court decision favored +him. The Livingstons, it may be again remarked, were long powerful in +politics, and had had their members on the bench.--"Life of Silas +Wright," 179-226; "Last Leaves of American History":16-18, etc. + +[69] The debates in this convention showed that the feudal conditions +described in this chapter prevailed down to 1846.--New York +Constitution; Debates in Convention, 1846; 1052-1056. This is an extract +from the official convention report: "Mr. Jordan [a delegate] said that +it was from such things that relief was asked: which although the moral +sense of the community will not admit to be enforced, are still actually +in existence." + +[70] Of a total of $39,544,333,000, representing wealth in real estate +and improvements, the census of 1890 attributed $13,905,274,364 to the +North Atlantic Division and a trifle more than $15,000,000,000 to the +North Central Division. + +[71] The Forum (Magazine), November, 1889. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE INCEPTION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +The founder of the Astor fortune was John Jacob Astor, a butcher's son. +He was born in Waldorf, Germany, on July 17, 1763. At the age of +eighteen, according to traditional accounts, he went to London, where a +brother, George Peter, was in the business of selling musical +instruments. Two years later with "one good suit of Sunday clothes, +seven flutes and five pounds sterling of money"[72] he emigrated to +America. Landing at Baltimore he proceeded to New York City. + +Here he became an apprentice to George Dieterich, a baker at No. 351 +Pearl street, for whom he peddled cakes, as was the custom. Walter +Barrett insists that this was Astor's first occupation in New York. +Later, Astor went into business for himself. "For a long time," says +Barrett, "he peddled [fur] skins, and bought them where he could; and +bartered cheap jewelry, etc., from the pack he carried on his back."[73] +Another story is that he got a job beating furs for $2 a week and board +in the store of Robert Bowne, a New York merchant; that while in this +place he showed great zest in quizzing the trappers who came in to sell +furs, and that in this fashion he gained considerable knowledge of the +fur animals. The story proceeds that as Bowne grew older he entrusted to +Astor the task of making long and fatiguing journeys to the Indian +tribes in the Adirondacks and Canada and bargaining with them for furs. + + +ASTOR'S EARLY CAREER. + +Astor got together enough money to start in the fur business for himself +in 1786 in a small store on Water street. It is not unreasonable to +suppose that at this time he, in common with all the fur dealers of the +time, participated in the current methods of defrauding the Indians. It +is certain that he contrived to get their most valuable furs for a jug +of rum or for a few toys or notions. Returning from these strokes of +trade, he would ship large quantities of the furs to London where they +were sold at great profit. + +His marriage to Sarah Todd, a cousin of Henry Brevoort, brought him a +good wife, who had the shining quality of being economical, and an +accession of some means and considerable family connections. Remarkably +close-fisted, he weighed over every penny. As fast as his means +increased he used them in extending his business. By 1794 he was +somewhat of an expansive merchant. Scores of trappers and agents ravaged +the wilderness at his command. Periodically he shipped large quantities +of furs to Europe. His modest, even niggardly, ways of living in rooms +over his store were not calculated to create the impression that he was +a rich man. It was his invariable practice habitually to deceive others +as to his possessions and plans. But when, in 1800, he removed to No. +223 Broadway, at the corner of Vesey street, then a fashionable +neighborhood, he was rated, perforce, as a man of no inconsiderable +means. He was, in fact, as nearly as can be gathered, worth at this time +a quarter of a million dollars--a monumental fortune at a period when +a man who had $50,000 was thought rich; when a good house could be +rented for $350 a year and when $750 or $800 would fully defray the +annual expenses of the average well-living family. + +[Illustration: JOHN JACOB ASTOR. +The Founder of the Colossal Astor Fortune. +(From an Engraving.)] + +The great profits from the fur trade naturally led him into the business +of being his own shipowner and shipper, for he was a highly efficient +organizer and well understood the needlessness of middlemen. A beaver +skin bought for one dollar from the Indian or white trappers in Western +New York could be sold in London for six dollars and a quarter. On all +other furs there were the same large profits. But, in addition to these, +Astor saw that his profits could be still further increased by investing +the money that he received from the sale of his furs in England, in +English goods and importing them to the United States. By this process, +the profit from a single beaver skin could be made to reach ten dollars. +At that time the United States depended upon British manufactures for +many articles, especially certain grades of woolen goods and cutlery. +These were sold at exorbitant profit to the American people. This trade +Astor carried on in his own ships. + + +HIS METHODS IN BUSINESS. + +It is of the greatest importance to ascertain Astor's methods in his fur +trade, for it was fundamentally from this trade that he reaped the +enormous sums that enabled him to become a large landowner. What these +methods were in his earlier years is obscure. Nothing definite is +embodied in any documentary evidence. Not so, however, regarding the +methods of the greatest and most successful of his fur gathering +enterprises, the American Fur Company. The "popular writer" referred to +before says that the circumstances of Astor's fur and shipping +activities are well known. On the contrary, they are distinctly not well +known nor have they ever been set forth. None of Astor's biographers +have brought them out, if, indeed, they knew of them. And yet these +facts are of the most absolute significance in that they reveal the +whole foundation of the colossal fortune of the Astor family. + +The pursuit and slaughter of fur animals were carried on with such +indefatigable vigor in the East that in time that territory became +virtually exhausted. It became imperative to push out into the fairly +virgin regions of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and of the Rocky +Mountains. The Northwest Company, a corporation running under British +auspices, was then scouring the wilds west and northwest of the Great +Lakes. Its yearly shipments of furs were enormous.[74] Astor realized +the inconceivably vaster profits which would be his in extending his +scope to the domains of the far West, so prolific in opportunities for +furs. + +In 1808 he incorporated the American Fur Company. Although this was a +corporation, he was, in fact, the Company. He personally supplied its +initial capital of $500,000 and dictated every phase of its policy. His +first ambitious design was to found the settlement of Astoria in Oregon, +but the war of 1812 frustrated plans well under way, and the expedition +that he sent out there had to depart.[75] Had this plan succeeded, Astor +would have been, as he rightly boasted, the richest man in the world; +and the present wealth of his descendants instead of being $450,000,000 +would be manifold more. + + +MONOPOLY BASED ON FORCE. + +Thwarted in his project to get a monopoly of the incalculable riches of +furs in the extreme Northwest, he concentrated his efforts on that vast +region extending along the Missouri River, far north to the Great Lakes, +west to the Rocky Mountains and into the Southwest. It was a region +abounding in immense numbers of fur animals and, at that time, was +inhabited by the Indian tribes, with here and there a settlement of +whites. By means of Government favoritism and the unconcealed exercise +of both fraud and force, he obtained a complete monopoly, as complete +and arbitrary as ever feudal baron held over seignorial estates. +Nominally, the United States Government ruled this great sweep of +territory and made the laws and professed to execute them. In reality, +Astor's company was a law unto itself. That it employed both force and +fraud and entirely ignored all laws enacted by Congress, is as clear as +daylight from the Government reports of that period. + +The American Fur Company maintained three principal posts or depots of +receiving and distribution--one at St. Louis, one at Detroit, the third +at Mackinac. In response to an order from Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, +to send in complete reports of the fur trade, Joshua Pilcher reported +from St. Louis, December 1, 1831: + + About this time [1823] the American Fur Company had turned their + attention to the Missouri trade, and, as might have been expected, + soon put an end to all opposition. Backed, as it was, by any + amount of capital, and with skillful agents to conduct its affairs + at _every point_, it succeeded by the year 1827, in monopolizing + the trade of the Indians on the Missouri, and I have but little + doubt will continue to do so for years to come, as it would be + rather a hazardous business for small adventurers to rise in + opposition to it.[76] + +In that wild country where the Government, at best, had an insufficient +force of troops, and where the agents of the company went heavily armed, +it was distinctly recognized, and accepted as a fact, that no possible +competitor's men, or individual trader, dare intrude. To do it was to +invite the severest reprisals, not stopping short of outright murder. +The American Fur Company overawed and dominated everything; it defied +the Government's representatives and acknowledged no authority superior +to itself and no law other than what its own interests demanded. The +exploitation that ensued was one of the most deliberate, cruel and +appalling that has ever taken place in any country. + + +THE DEBAUCHING OF INDIANS. + +If there was any one serious crime at that time it was the supplying of +the Indians with whisky. The Government fully recognized the baneful +effects of debauching the Indians, and enacted strict laws with harsh +penalties. Astor's company brazenly violated this law, as well as all +other laws conflicting with its profit interests. It smuggled in +prodigious quantities of rum. The trader's ancient trick of getting the +Indians drunk and then swindling them of their furs and land was carried +on by Astor on an unprecedented scale. To say that Astor knew nothing of +what his agents were doing is a palliation not worthy of consideration; +he was a man who knew and attended to even the pettiest details of his +varied business. Moreover, the liquor was despatched by his orders +direct by ship to New Orleans and from thence up the Mississippi to St. +Louis and to other frontier points. The horrible effects of this traffic +and the consequent spoliation were set forth by a number of Government +officers. + +Col. J. Snelling, commanding the garrison at Detroit, sent an indignant +protest to James Barbour, Secretary of War, under date of August 23, +1825. "He who has the most whisky, generally carries off the most furs," +wrote Col. Snelling, and then continued: + + The neighborhood of the trading houses where whisky is sold, + presents a disgusting scene of drunkenness, debauchery and + misery; it is the fruitful source of all our difficulties, and of + nearly all the murders committed in the Indian country.... For the + accommodation of my family I have taken a house three miles from + town, and in passing to and from it, I have daily opportunities of + seeing the road strewed with the bodies of men, women and + children, in the last stages of brutal intoxication. It is true + there are laws in this territory to restrain the sale of whisky, + but they are not regarded....[77] + +Col. Snelling added that during that year there had been delivered by +contract to an agent of the North American Fur Company, at Mackinac (he +meant the American Fur Company which, as we have seen, had one of its +principal headquarters at that post and maintained a monopoly there), +3,300 gallons of whisky and 2,500 gallons of high wines. This latter +liquor was preferred by the agents, he pointed out, as it could be +"increased at pleasure." Col. Snelling went on: "I will venture to add +that an inquiry into the manner in which the Indian trade is conducted, +especially by the North American Fur Company, is a matter of no small +importance to the tranquillity of the borders."[78] + + +VIOLATION OF LAWS. + +A similar report was made the next winter by Thomas L. McKenney, +Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to the Secretary of War. In a +communication dated Feb. 14, 1826, McKenney wrote that "the forbidden +and destructive article, whisky, is considered so essential to a +lucrative commerce, as not only to still those feelings [of repugnance] +but lead the traders to brave the most imminent hazards, and evade, by +various methods the threatened penalties of law." The superintendent +proceeded to tell of the recent seizure by General Tipton, Indian Agent +at Fort Wayne, of an outfit in transit containing a considerable supply +of whisky, which was owned in large part, he says, by the American Fur +Company. He then continued: "The trader with the whisky, it must be +admitted, is certain of getting the most furs.... There are many +honorable and high-minded citizens in this trade, but expediency +overcomes their objections and reconciles them for the sake of the +profits of the trade."[79] + +In stating this fact, McKenney was unwittingly enunciating a profound +truth, the force of which mankind is only now beginning to realize, that +the pursuit of profit will transform natures inherently capable of much +good into sordid, cruel beasts of prey, and accustom them to committing +actions so despicable, so inhuman, that they would be terrified were it +not that the world is under the sway of the profit system and not merely +excuses and condones, but justifies and throws a glamour about, the +unutterable degradations and crimes which the profit system calls forth. + +Living in a more advanced time, in an environment adjusted to bring out +the best, instead of the worst, Astor and his henchmen might have been +men of supreme goodness and gentleness. As it was, they lived at a +period when it was considered the highest, most astute and successful +form of trade to resort to any means, however base, to secure profits. +Let not too much ignominy be cast upon their memories; they were but +creatures of their time; and their time was not that "golden age," so +foolishly pictured, but a wild, tempestuous, contending struggle in +which every man was at the throat of his fellowman, and in a vortex +which statesmen, college professors, editors, political economists, all +praised and sanctified as "progressive civilization." + +Like all other propertied interests, Astor's company regarded the law as +a thing to be rigorously invoked against the poor, the helpless and +defenseless, but as not to be considered when it stood in the way of the +claims, designs and pretensions of property. Superintendent McKenney +reported that all laws in the Indian country were inoperative--so much +dead matter. Andrew S. Hughes, reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 31, 1831, +to Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, wrote: + + .... The traders that occupy the largest and most important space + in the Indian country are the agents and engagees of the American + Fur Trade Company. They entertain, as I know to be the fact, no + sort of respect for our citizens, agents, officers or the + Government, or its laws or general policy. + +After describing the "baneful influence of these persons," Hughes went +on: + + The capital employed in the Indian trade must be very large, + especially that portion which is employed in the annual purchase + of whisky and alcohol into the Indian country for the purpose of + trade with the Indians. It is not believed that the superintendent + is ever applied to for a permit for the one-hundredth gallon that + is taken into the Indian country. The whisky is sold to the + Indians in the face of the [Government] agents. Indians are made + drunk, and, of course, behave badly.... + + +PROFIT AND ITS RESULTS. + +Not only, however, were the Indians made drunk with the express purpose +of befuddling and swindling them,[80] but in the very commission of this +act, an enormous profit was made on the sale of the whisky. Those who +may be inclined to recoil with horror at the historic contemplation of +this atrocity, will do well to remember that this was simply one +manifestation of the ethics of the trading class--the same class which +formed and ruled government, made and interpreted laws, and constituted +the leading, superior and exclusive groups of high society. Hughes +continued: + + I am informed that there is but little doubt, but a clear gain of + more than fifty thousand dollars has been made this year on the + sale of whisky to the Indians on the river Missouri; the _prices + are from $25 to $50 a gallon_. Major Morgan, United States sutler + at Cantonment Leavenworth, says that thousands of gallons of + alcohol has passed that post during the present year, destined for + the Indian country.[81] + +These official reports were supplemented by another on the same subject +from William M. Gordon to General William Clark, at that time +Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In his report, Gordon, writing from +St. Louis, pointed out that, "whisky, though not an authorized article, +has been a principal, and I believe a very lucrative one for the last +several years."[82] + +What a climax of trading methods, first to debauch the Indians +systematically in order to swindle them, and then make a large revenue +on the rum that enabled the company to do it! Undoubtedly it was by +these means that Astor became possessed of large tracts of land in +Wisconsin and elsewhere in the West. But the methods thus far enumerated +were but the precursors of others. When the Indians were made maudlin +drunk and bargained with for their furs were they paid in money? By no +means. The American Fur Company had another trick in reserve. Astor +employed the cunning expedient of exchanging merchandise for furs. Large +quantities of goods, especially woolens, made by underpaid adult and +child labor in England and America, and representing the sweat and +suffering of the labor of the workers, were regularly shipped by him to +the West. For these goods the Indians were charged one-half again or +more what each article cost after paying all expenses of +transportation.[83] Reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 24, 1831, in a +communication to the Secretary of War, Thomas Forsyth gave a description +of this phase of the American Fur Company's dealings. He said: + + In the autumn of every year [when the hunting season began] the + trader carefully avoids giving credit to the Indians on many + costly articles such as silver works, wampum, scarlet cloth, fine + bridles, etc., etc., as also a few woolens, such as blankets, + strouds, etc., unless it be to an Indian whom he knows will pay + all his debts. In that case he will allow the Indian, on credit, + everything he wishes. + + Traders always prefer giving credit on gunpowder, flints, lead, + knives, tomahawks, hoes, domestic cottons, etc.; which they do _at + the rate of 300 or 400 per cent_, and if one-fourth of the price + of these articles be paid, he is amply remunerated.[84] + +Nor were these the final injustices and infamies heaped upon the +untutored aborigines. It was not enough that they should be pillaged of +their possessions; that the rights guaranteed them by the solemn +treaties of Government should be blown aside like so much waste paper by +the armed force of the American Fur Company; that whole tribes should be +demoralized with rum and then defrauded; that shoddy merchandise, for +which generally no market could be found elsewhere, should be imposed +upon them at such incredibly high prices, that they were bound to be +beggared.[85] These methods were not enough. Never were human beings so +frightfully exploited as these ignorant, unsophisticated savages of the +West. Through the long winters they roamed the forests and the prairies, +and assiduously hunted for furs which eventually were to clothe and +adorn the aristocracy of America, Europe and Asia. When in the spring +they came in with their spoil, they were, with masterly cunning, +artfully made intoxicated and then robbed. Not merely robbed in being +charged ruinous prices for merchandise, but robbed additionally in the +weight of their furs. Forsyth relates that for every dollar in +merchandise that the Astor company exchanged for furs, the company +received $1.25 or $1.50 in fur values, undoubtedly by the trader's low +trick of short weighing. + + +A LONG RECORD OF VIOLENCE. + +In law the Indian was supposed to have certain rights, but Astor's +company not only ignored but flouted them. Now when the Indians +complained, what happened? Did the Government protect them? The +Government, and especially the courts, were quick and generous in +affording the greatest protection and the widest latitude to Astor's +company. But when the Indians resented the robberies and injustices to +which they were subjected beyond bearing, they were murdered. They were +murdered wantonly and in cold blood; and then urgent alarmist +representations would be sent to Washington that the Indians were in a +rebellious state, whereupon troops would be punitively hurried forth to +put them down in slaughter. In turn, goaded by an intense spirit of +revenge, the Indians would resort to primitive force and waylay, rob and +murder the white agents and traders.[86] + +From 1815 to 1831 more than 150 traders were robbed and killed by +Indians.[87] Many of these were Astor's men. But how many Indians were +killed by the whites has never been known, nor apparently was there any +solicitude as to whether the number was great or small. + +What did Astor pay his men for engaging in this degrading and dangerous +business? Is it not a terrifying commentary on the lengths to which men +are forced to go in quest of a livelihood, and the benumbing effects on +their sensibilities, that Astor should find a host of men ready to +seduce the Indians into a state of drunkenness, cheat and rob them, and +all this only to get robbed and perhaps murdered in turn? For ten or +eleven months in the year Astor's subaltern men toiled arduously through +forest and plain, risking sickness, the dangers of the wilderness and +sudden death. They did not rob because it benefited them; it was what +they were paid to do; and it was likewise expected of them that they +should look upon the imminent chances of death as a part of their +contract. + +For all this what was their pay? It was the trifling sum of $130 for the +ten or eleven months. But this was not paid in money. The poor wretches +who gave up their labor, and often their health and lives, for Astor +were themselves robbed, or their heirs, if they had any. Payment was +nearly always made in merchandise, which was sold at exorbitant prices. +Everything that they needed they had to buy at Astor's stores; by the +time that they had bought a year's supplies they not only had nothing +coming to them, but they were often actually in debt to Astor. + +But Astor--how did he fare? His profits from the fur trade of the West +were truly stupendous for that period. He, himself, might plead to the +Government that the company was in a decaying state of poverty. These +pleas deceived no one. It was characteristic of his habitual deceit that +he should petition the Government for a duty on foreign furs on the +ground that the company was being competed with in the American markets +by the British fur companies. At this very time Astor held a virtual +monopoly of fur trading in the United States. One need not be surprised +at the grounds of such a plea. Throughout the whole history of the +trading class, this pathetic and absurdly false plea of poverty has +incessantly been used by this class, and used successfully, to get +further concessions and privileges from a Government which reflected, +and represented, its interests. Curiously, enough, however, if a +mendicant used the same plea in begging a mite of alms on the streets, +the law has invariably regarded him as a vagrant to be committed to the +Workhouse. + + +ASTOR'S ENORMOUS PROFITS. + +At about the identical time that John Jacob Astor was persistently +complaining that the company was making no money, his own son and +partner, William B. Astor, was writing from New York on Nov. 25, 1831, +to the Secretary of War, that the company had a capital of about +$1,000,000 and that, "You may, however, estimate our annual returns at +half a million dollars."[88] Not less than $500,000 annual revenues on a +capital of $1,000,000! These were inconceivably large returns for the +time; Thomas J. Dougherty, Indian Agent at Camp Leavenworth, estimated +that from 1815 to 1830 the fur trade on the Missouri and its waters had +yielded returns amounting to $3,330,000 with a clear profit of +$1,650,000. This was unquestionably a considerable underestimate. + +It is hardly necessary to say that Astor, as the responsible head and +beneficiary of the American Fur Company, was never prosecuted for the +numerous violations of both penal and civil laws invariably committed +by his direction and for his benefit. With the millions that rolled in, +he was able to command the services of not only the foremost lawyers in +warding off the penalties of law, but in having as his paid retainers +some of the most noted and powerful politicians of the day.[89] Senator +Benton, of Missouri, a leading light in the Democratic party, was not +only his legal representative in the West and fought his cases for him, +but as United States Senator introduced in Congress measures which Astor +practically drafted and the purport of which was to benefit Astor and +Astor alone. Thus was witnessed a notorious violator of the law, +invoking aid of the law to enrich himself still further,--a condition +which need not arouse exceptional criticism, since the whole trading +class in general did precisely the same thing. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[72] Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":28. + +[73] "The Old Merchants of New York," 1:287. + +[74] The extent of its operations and the rapid slaughter of fur animals +may be gathered by a record of one year's work. In 1793 this company +enriched itself by 106,000 beaver skins, 2,100 bear skins, 1,500 fox +skins, 400 kit fox, 16,000 muskrat, 32,000 martin, 1,800 mink, 6,000 +lynx, 6,000 wolverine, 1,600 fisher, 100 raccoon, 1,200 dressed deer, +700 elk, 550 buffalo robes, etc. + +[75] Astor was accused by a Government agent of betraying the American +cause at the outbreak of this war. In addition to the American Fur +Company, Astor had other fur companies, one of which was the Southwest +Company. Under date of June 18, 1818, Matthew Irwin, U. S. factor or +agent at Green Bay, Wis., wrote to Thomas L. McKenney, U. S. +Superintendent of Indian Affairs: "It appears that the Government has +been under an impression [that] the Southwest Company, of which Mr. John +Jacob Astor is the head, is strictly an American company, and in +consequence, some privileges in relation to trade have been granted to +that company." Irwin went on to tell how Astor had obtained an order +from Gallatin, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, allowing him, Astor, to +land furs at Mackinac from the British post at St. Joseph's. Astor's +agent in this transaction was a British subject. "On his way to St. +Joseph's," Irwin continued, "he [Astor's British agent] communicated to +the British at Malden that war had been or would be declared. The +British made corresponding arrangements and landed on the Island of +Mackinac with regulars, Canadians and Indians before the commanding +officer there had notice that war would be declared. The same course was +about to be pursued at Detroit, before the arrival of troops with Gen. +Hull, who, having been on the march there, frustrated it." Irwin +declared that Astor's purpose was to save his furs from capture by the +British, and concluded: "Mr. Astor's agent brought the furs to Mackinac +_in company with the British troops_, and the whole transaction is well +known at Mackinac and Detroit."--U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, +Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:50-51. + +[76] Document No. 90, U. S. Senate, First Session, 22nd Congress, ii:30. + +[77] Document No. 58, U. S. Senate Docs. First Session, 19th +Congress:7-8. + +[78] Ibid. That the debauching of the Indians was long continuing was +fully evidenced by the numerous communications sent in by Government +representatives. The following is an extract from a letter written on +October 6, 1821, by the U. S. Indian Agent at Green Bay to the +Superintendent of Indian Affairs (or Indian Trade): "Mr. Kinzie, son to +the sub Indian Agent at Chicago, _and agent for the American Fur +Company_, has been detected in selling large quantities of whisky to the +Indians at and near Milwaukee of Lake Michigan."--Senate Docs., First +Session, Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Doc. No. 60:54. + +[79] Doc. No. 58:10. + +[80] Of this fact there can be no doubt. Writing on February 27, 1822, +to Senator Henry Johnson, chairman of the U. S. Senate Committee on +Indian Affairs, Superintendent McKenney said: ".... The Indians, it is +admitted, are good judges of the articles in which they deal, and, +generally when they are permitted to be sober, they can detect attempts +to practise fraud upon them. The traders knowing this (however, few of +the Indians are permitted to trade without a previous preparation in the +way of liquor,) would not be so apt to demand exorbitant prices.... This +may be illustrated by the fact, as reported to this office by Matthew +Irwin, that previous to the establishment of the Green Bay factory +[agency] as much as one dollar and fifty cents had been demanded by the +traders of the Indians, and received, for a brass thimble, and eighteen +dollars for one pound of tobacco!"--U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, +Seventeenth Congress, 1821-22, Vol. I, Document No. 60:40. + +[81] Document No. 90, U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, 22nd Congress, +ii:23-24. + +[82] Ibid:54. + +[83] For a white 3 point blanket which cost $4.00 they were charged $10; +for a beaver trap costing $2.50, the charge was $8; for a rifle costing +$11 they had to pay $30; a brass kettle which Astor could buy at 48 +cents a pound, he charged the Indians $30 for; powder cost him 20 cents +a pound; he sold it for $4 a pound; he bought tobacco for 10 cents a +pound and sold it at the rate of five small twists for $6, etc., etc., +etc. + +[84] Document No. 90:72. + +[85] Many of the tribes, the Government reports show, not only yielded +up to Astor's company the whole of their furs, but were deeply in debt +to the company. In 1829 the Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes owed Farnham & +Davenport, agents for the American Fur Company among those tribes, +$40,000; by 1831 the debts had risen to $50,000 or $60,000. The Pawnees +owed fully as much, and the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Sioux and other +tribes were heavily in debt.--Doc. No. 90:72. + +[86] Forsyth admits that in practically all of these murders the whites +were to blame.--Doc. No. 90:76. + +[87] Doc. No. 90.--This is but a partial list. The full list of the +murdered whites the Government was unable to get. + +[88] Document No. 90:77. + +[89] Some of the original ledgers of the American Fur Company were put +on exhibition at Anderson's auction rooms in New York city in March, +1909. One entry showed that $35,000 had been paid to Lewis Cass for +services not stated. Doubtless, Astor had the best of reasons for not +explaining that payment; Cass was, or had been, the Governor of Michigan +Territory, and he became the identical Secretary of War to whom so many +complaints of the crimes of Astor's American Fur Company were made. + +The author personally inspected these ledgers. The following are some +extracts from a news account in the New York "Times," issue of March 7, +1909, of the exhibition of the ledgers: + +"They cover the business of the Northern Department from 1817 to 1835, +and consist of six folio volumes of about 1,000 pages each, in two stout +traveling cases, fitted with compartments, lock and key. It is said that +these books were missing for nearly seventy-five years, and recently +escaped destruction by the merest accident. + +"The first entry is April 1, 1817. There are two columns, one for +British and the other for American money. An entry, May 3, 1817, shows +that Lewis Cass, then Governor of Michigan Territory and afterward +Democratic candidate for the Presidency against Gen. Zachary Taylor, the +successful Whig candidate, took about $35,000 of the Astor money from +Montreal to Detroit, in consideration of something which is not set +down." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GROWTH OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +While at the outposts, and in the depths, of the Western wilderness an +armed host was working and cheating for Astor, and, in turn, being +cheated by their employer; while, for Astor's gain, they were violating +all laws, debauching, demoralizing and beggaring entire tribes of +Indians, slaying and often being themselves slain in retaliation, what +was the beneficiary of this orgy of crime and bloodshed doing in New +York? + +For a long time he lived at No. 223 Broadway in a large double house, +flanked by an imposing open piazza supported by pillars and arches. In +this house he combined the style of the ascending capitalist with the +fittings and trappings of the tradesman. It was at once residence, +office and salesroom. On the ground floor was his store, loaded with +furs; and here one of his sons and his chief heir, William B. could be +seen, as a lad, assiduously beating the furs to keep out moths. Astor's +disposition was phlegmatic and his habits were extremely simple and +methodical. He had dinner regularly at three o'clock, after which he +would limit himself to three games of checkers and a glass of beer. Most +of his long day was taken up with close attention to his many business +interests of which no detail escaped him. However execrated he might be +in the Indian territories far in the West, he assumed, and somewhat +succeeded in being credited with, the character of a patriotic, +respectable and astute man of business in New York. + + +ASTOR SUPERIOR TO LAW. + +During (taking a wide survey) the same series of years that he was +directing gross violations of explicit laws in the fur-producing +regions--laws upon the observance of which depended the very safety of +the life of men, women and children, white and red, and which laws were +vested with an importance corresponding with the baneful and bloody +results of their infraction--Astor was turning other laws to his +distinct advantage in the East. Pillaging in the West the rightful and +legal domain, and the possessions, of a dozen Indian tribes, he, in the +East, was causing public money to be turned over to his private treasury +and using it as personal capital in his shipping enterprises. + +As applied to the business and landowning class, law was notoriously a +flexible, convenient, and highly adaptable function. By either the tacit +permission or connivance of Government, this class was virtually, in +most instances, its own law-regulator. It could consistently, and +without being seriously interfered with, violate such laws as suited its +interests, while calling for the enactment or enforcement of other laws +which favored its designs and enhanced its profits. We see Astor +ruthlessly brushing aside, like so many annoying encumbrances, even +those very laws which were commonly held indispensable to a modicum of +fair treatment of the Indians and to the preservation of human life. +These laws happened to conflict with the amassing of profits; and always +in a civilization ruled by the trading class, laws which do this are +either unceremoniously trampled upon, evaded or repealed. + +For all the long-continued violations of law in the West, and for the +horrors which resulted from his exploitation of the Indians, was Astor +ever prosecuted? To repeat, no; nor was he disturbed even by such a +triviality as a formal summons. Yet, to realize the full enormity of +acts for which he was responsible, and the complete measure of immunity +that he enjoyed, it is necessary to recall that at the time the +Government had already begun to assume the role of looking upon the +Indians as its wards, and thus of theoretically extending to them the +shield of its especial protection. If Government allowed a people whom +it pleased to signify as its wards to be debauched, plundered and slain, +what kind of treatment could be expected for the working class as to +which there was not even the fiction of Government concern, not to +mention wardship? + + +LAW BREAKERS AND LAW MAKERS. + +But when it came to laws which, in the remotest degree, could be used or +manipulated to swell profits or to buttress property, Astor and his +class were untiring and vociferous in demanding their strict +enforcement. Successfully ignoring or circumventing laws objectionable +to them, they, at the same time, insisted upon the passage and exact +construction and severe enforcement of laws which were adjusted to their +interests. Law breakers, on the one hand, they were law makers on the +other. They caused to be put in statute, and intensified by judicial +precedent, the most rigorous laws in favor of property rights. They +virtually had the extraordinary power of choosing what laws they should +observe and what they should not. This choice was invariably at the +expense of the working class. Law, that much-sanctified product, was +really law only when applied to the propertyless. It confronted the poor +at every step, was executed with summary promptitude and filled the +prisons with them. Poverty had no choice in saying what laws it should +obey and what it should not. It, perforce, had to obey or go to prison; +either one or the other, for the laws were expressly drafted to bear +heavily upon it. + +It is illustrative, in the highest degree, of the character of +Government ruled by commercial interests, that Astor was allowed to +pillage and plunder, cheat, rob and (by proxy) slaughter in the West, +while, in the East, that same Government extended to him, as well as to +other shippers, the free use of money which came from the taxation of +the whole people--a taxation always weighted upon the shoulders of the +worker. In turn, this favored class, either consciously or +unconsciously, voluntarily or involuntarily, cheated the Government of +nearly half of the sums advanced. From the foundation of the Government +up to 1837, there were nine distinct commercial crises which brought +about terrible hardships to the wage workers. Did the Government step in +and assist them? At no time. But during all those years the Government +was busy in letting the shippers dig into the public funds and in being +extremely generous to them when they failed to pay up. From 1789 to 1823 +the Government lost more than $250,000,000 in duties,[90] all of which +sum represented what the shippers owed and did not, or could not, pay. +And no criminal proceedings were brought against any of these +defaulters. + +This, however, was not all that the Government did for the favored, +pampered class that it represented. Laws were severe against labor-union +strikes, which were frequently judicially adjudged conspiracies. +Theoretically, law inhibited monopoly, but monopolies existed, because +law ceases to be effective law when it is not enforced; and the +propertied interests took care that it was not enforced. Their own class +was powerful in every branch of Government. Furthermore, they had the +money to buy political subserviency and legal dexterity. The $35,000 +that Astor paid to Cass, the very official who, as Secretary of War, had +jurisdiction over the Indian tribes and over the Indian trade, and the +sums that Astor paid to Benton, were, it may well be supposed, only the +merest parts of the total sums that he disbursed to officials and +politicians, high and low. + + +ASTOR'S MONOPOLIES. + +Astor profited richly from his monopolies. His monopoly of furs in the +West was made a basis for the creation of other monopolies. China was a +voracious and highly profitable market for furs. In exchange for the +cargoes of these that he sent there, his ships would be loaded with teas +and silks. These products he sold at exorbitant prices in New York. His +profits from a single voyage sometimes reached $70,000; the average +profits from a single voyage were $30,000. During the War of 1812-15 tea +rose to double its usual price. Astor was invariably lucky in that his +ships escaped capture. At one period he was about the only merchant who +had a cargo of tea in the market. He exacted, and was allowed to exact, +his own price. + +Meanwhile, Astor was setting about making himself the richest and +largest landowner in the country. His were not the most extensive land +possessions in point of extent but in regard to value. He aimed at being +a great city, not a great rural, landlord. It was estimated that his +trade in furs and associated commerce brought him a clear annual revenue +of about two million dollars. This estimate was palpably inadequate. Not +only did he reap enormous profits from the fur trade, but also from +banking privileges in which he was a conspicuous factor. + +It was on one of his visits to London, so the recital goes, that he +first became possessed of the idea of founding an extraordinarily rich +landed family. He admired, it is told, the great landed estates of the +British nobility, and observed the prejudice against the caste of the +trader and the corresponding exalted position of the landowner. Whether +this story is true or not, it is evident that he was impressed with the +increasing power and the stability of a fortune founded upon land, and +how it radiated a certain splendid prestige. The very definition of the +word landlord--lord of the soil--signified the awe-compelling and +authoritative position of him who owned land--a definition heightened +and enforced in a thousand ways by the laws. + +The speculative and solid possibilities of New York City real estate +held out dazzling opportunities gratifying his acquisitiveness for +wealth and power--the wealth that fed his avarice, and the power flowing +from the dominion of riches. + + +ASTOR NOT AN EXCEPTION. + +It may here be observed that Astor's methods in trade or in acquiring of +land need not be indiscriminately condemned as an exclusive mania. Nor +should they be held up to the curiosity of posterity as a singular and +pernicious exhibition, detached from his time and generation, and +independent of them. Again and again the facts disclose that men such as +he were merely the representative crests of prevailing commercial and +political life. Substantially the whole propertied class obtained its +wealth by methods which, if not the same, had a strong relationship. His +methods differed nowise from those of many cotton planters of the South +who stole, on a monstrous scale,[91] Government land and then with the +wealth derived from their thefts, bought negro slaves, set themselves up +in the glamour of a patriarchal aristocracy and paraded a florid display +of chivalry and honor. And it was this same grandiose class that +plundered Whitney of the fruits of his invention of the cotton-gin and +shamelessly defrauded him.[92] + +Far more flagrant, however, were the means by which other Southern +plantation owners and business firms secured landed estates in Alabama, +Georgia and in other States. Their methods in expropriating the +reservations of such Indian tribes as the Creeks and Chickasaws were not +less fraudulent than those that Astor used elsewhere. They too, those +fine Southern aristocrats, debauched Indian tribes with whisky, and +after swindling them of their land, caused the Government to remove them +westward. The frauds were so extensive, and the circumstances so +repellant, that President Andrew Jackson, in 1833, ordered an +investigation. From the records of this investigation,--four hundred and +twenty-five solid pages of official correspondence--more than enough +details can be obtained.[93] + + +WHERE WAS FRAUD ABSENT? + +In Wisconsin the most valuable Government lands, containing rich +deposits of lead and other mineral ore, were being boldly appropriated +by force and fraud. The House Committee on Public Lands reported on +December 18, 1840, that with the connivance of local land agents, these +lands, since 1835, had been sold at private sale before they were even +subject to public entry.[94] "In consequence of which," the Committee +stated, "many tracts of land known to be rich and valuable mineral lands +for many years, and known to be such at the time of the entry, have been +entered by evil-minded persons, who have falsely made, or procured +others to make, the oath required by the land offices. Honest men have +been excluded from the purchase of these lands, while the dishonest and +unscrupulous have been permitted to enter them by means of false oath +and fraud."[95] + +These are but the merest glimpses of the widespread frauds in seizing +land, whether agricultural, timber or mineral. What of the mercantile +importers, the same class that the Government so greatly favored in +allowing it long periods in which to pay its customs duties? It was +defrauding the Government on the very importations on which it was +extended long-time credit for customs payments. The few official reports +available clearly indicate this. Great frauds were continuously going on +in the importations of lead.[96] Large quantities of sugar were imported +in the guise of molasses which, it was discovered, after being boiled a +few minutes, would produce an almost equal weight in brown sugar.[97] +Doubtless similar frauds were being committed in other lines of +importations. Between the methods of these divisions of the capitalist +class, and those of Astor, no basic difference can be discerned. + +Neither was there any essential difference between Astor's methods and +those of the manufacturing capitalists of the North who remorselessly +robbed Charles Goodyear of the benefits of his discovery of vulcanized +rubber and who drove him, after protracted litigation, into insolvency, +and caused him to die loaded down with worries and debts, a broken-down +man, at the age of 60.[98] As for that pretentious body of gentry who +professed to spread enlightenment and who set themselves high and +solemnly on a pinnacle as dispensers of knowledge and molders of public +opinion--the book, periodical and newspaper publishers--their methods at +bottom were as fraudulent as any that Astor ever used. They mercilessly +robbed and knew it, while making the most hypocritical professions of +lofty motives. Buried deep in the dusty archives of the United States +Senate is a petition whereon appear the signatures of Moore, Carlyle, +the two Disraelis, Milman, Hallam, Southey, Thomas Campbell, Sir Charles +Lyell, Bulwer Lytton, Samuel Rogers, Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau +and other British literary luminaries, great or small. In this petition +these authors, some of them representing the highest and finest in +literary, philosophical, historical, and scientific thought and +expression, implore Congress to afford them protection against the +indiscriminate theft of their works by American booksellers. Their +works, they set forth, are not only appropriated without their consent +but even contrary to their expressed desire. And there is no redress. +Their productions are mutilated and altered, yet their names are +retained. They instance the pathetic case of Sir Walter Scott. His works +have been published and sold from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, yet not a +cent has he received. "An equitable remuneration," they set forth, +"might have saved his life, and would, at least have relieved his +closing years from the burdens of debts and destructive toils."[99] + +How fares this petition read in the United States Senate on February 2, +1837? The booksellers, magazine, periodical and newspaper publishers +have before succeeded in defeating one copyright bill. They now bestir +themselves again; the United States Senate consigns the petition to the +archives; and the piracy goes on as industriously as ever. + + +LEGALIZED PIRACY IN ALL BRANCHES OF TRADE. + +What else could be expected from a Congress which represented the +commercial and landholding classes? No prodding was needed to cause it +to give the fullest protection to possessions in commerce, land and +negro slaves; these were concrete property. But thought was not +capitalized; it was not a manufactured product like iron or soap. +Nothing can express the pitying contempt or the lofty air of +patronization with which the dominant commercial classes looked down +upon the writer, the painter, the musician, the philosopher or the +sculptor. Regarding these "sentimentalists" as easy, legitimate and +defenseless objects of prey, and as incidental and impractical +hangers-on in a world where trade was all in all, the commercial classes +at all times affected a certain air of encouragement of the fine arts, +which encouragement, however, never attempted to put a stop to piracies +of publication or reproduction. How sordidly commercial that era was, to +what extremes its standards went, and how some of the basest forms of +theft were carried on and practically legalized, may be seen by the fate +of Peter Cardelli's petition to Congress. Cardelli was a Roman sculptor, +residing in the United States for a time. He prays Congress in 1820 to +pass an act protecting him from commercial pirates who make casts and +copies of his work and who profit at his expense. The Senate Committee +on Judiciary, to whom the petition is referred, rejects the plea. On +what ground? Because he "has not discovered any new invention on which +he can claim the right."[100] Could stupidity go further? + +All of the confluent facts of the time show conclusively that every +stratum of commercial society was permeated with fraud, and that this +fraud was accepted generally as a routine fixture of the business of +gathering property or profits. Astor, therefore, was not an isolated +phenomenon, but a typically successful representative of his time and +of the methods and standards of the trading class of that time. + +Whatever in the line of business yielded profits, that act, whether +cheating, robbing or slaughtering, was justified by some sophistry or +other. Astor did not debauch, spoliate, and incite slaughter because he +took pleasure in doing them. Perhaps--to extend charitable judgment--he +would have preferred to avoid them. But they were all part of the +formulated necessities of business which largely decreed that the +exercise of humane and ethical considerations was incompatible with the +zealous pursuit of wealth. + +In the wilderness of the West, Astor, operating through his agents, +could debauch, rob and slay Indians with impunity. As he was virtually +the governing body there, without fear of being hindered, he thus could +act in the most high-handed, arbitrary and forcible ways. In the East, +however, where law, or the forms of law, prevailed, he had to have +recourse to methods which bore no open trace of the brutal and +sanguinary. He had to become the insidious and devious schemer, acting +through sharp lawyers instead of by an armed force. Hence in his Eastern +operations he made deception a science and used every instrument of +cunning at his command. The result was precisely the same as in the +West, except that the consequences were not so overt, and the +perpetration could not be so easily distinguished. In the West, death +marched step by step with Astor's accumulating fortune; so did it in the +East, but it was not open and bloody as in the fur country. The +mortality thus accompanying Astor's progress in New York was of that +slow and indefinite, but more lingering and agonizing, kind ensuing from +want, destitution, disease and starvation. + +Astor's supreme craft was at no time better shown than by the means by +which he acquired possession of an immense estate in Putnam County, New +York. During the Revolution, a tract consisting of 51,012 acres held by +Roger Morris and Mary his wife, Tories, had been confiscated by New York +State. This land, it is worth recalling, was part of the estate of +Adolphus Phillips, the son of Frederick who, as has been set forth, +financed and protected the pirate Captain Samuel Burgess in his +buccaneer expeditions, and whose share of the Burgess' booty was +extremely large.[101] Mary Morris was a descendant of Adolph Phillips +and came into that part of the property by inheritance. The Morris +estate comprised nearly one-third of Putnam County. After confiscation, +the State sold the area in parts to various farmers. By 1809 seven +hundred families were settled on the property, and not a shadow of a +doubt had ever been cast on their title. They had long regarded it as +secure, especially as it was guaranteed by the State. + + +A NOTED LAND TRANSACTION. + +In 1809 a browsing lawyer informed Astor that those seven hundred +families had no legal title whatever; that the State had had no legal +right to confiscate the Morris property, inasmuch as the Morrises held a +life lease only, and no State could ever confiscate a life lease. The +property, Astor was informed, was really owned by the children of the +Morris couple, to whom it was to revert after the lease of their parents +was extinguished. Legally, he was told, they were as much the owners as +ever. Astor satisfied himself that this point would hold in the courts. +Then he assiduously hunted up the heirs, and by a series of strategic +maneuvers worthy of the pen of a Balzac, succeeded in buying their +claim for $100,000. + +In the thirty-three years which had elapsed since confiscation, the land +had been greatly improved. Suddenly came a notification to these +unsuspecting farmers that not they, but Astor, owned the land. All the +improvements that they had made, all the accumulated standing products +of the thirty-three years' labor of the occupants, he claimed as his, by +virtue of the fact that, in law, they were trespassers. Dumfounded, they +called upon him to prove his claim. Whereupon his lawyers, men saturated +with the terminology and intricacies of legal lore, came forward and +gravely explained that the law said so and so and was such and such and +that the law was incontestible in support of Astor's claim. The +hard-working farmers listened with mystification and consternation. They +could not make out how land which they or their fathers had paid for, +and which they had tilled and improved, could belong to an absentee who +had never turned a spade on it, had never seen it, all simply because he +had the advantage of a legal technicality and a document emblazoned with +a seal or two. + + +THE PUBLIC UPROAR OVER ASTOR'S CLAIM. + +They appealed to the Legislature. This body, influenced by the public +uproar over the transaction, refused to recognize Astor's title. The +whole State was aroused to a pitch of indignation. Astor's claim was +generally regarded as an audacious piece of injustice and robbery. He +contended that he was not subject to the provision of the statute +directing sales of confiscated estates which provided that tenants could +not be dispossessed without being paid for improvements. In fine, he +claimed the right to evict the entire seven hundred families without +being under the legal or moral necessity of paying them a single cent +for their improvements. In the state of public temper, the officials of +the State of New York decided to fight his claim. Astor offered to sell +his claim to the State for $667,000. But such was the public outburst at +the effrontery of a man who had bought what was virtually an extinct +claim for $100,000, and then attempting to hold up the State for more +than six times that sum, that the Legislature dared not consent. + +The contention went to the courts and there dragged along for many +years. Astor, however, won his point; it was decided that he had a valid +title. Finally in 1827 the Legislature allowed itself[102] to +compromise, although public opinion was as bitter as ever. The State +gave Astor $500,000 in five per cent stock, specially issued, in +surrender of his claim.[103] Thus were the whole people taxed to buy, at +an exorbitant price, the claim of a man who had got it by artifice and +whose estate eventually applied the interest and principal of that stock +to buying land in New York City. Thus also can a considerable part of +the Astor fortune be traced to Adolphus Phillips, son of Frederick, the +partner, protector and chief spoil-sharer of Captain Burgess, sea +pirate, and whose estate, the Phillips manor, had been obtained by +bribing Fletcher, the royal governor. + +But while Astor gradually appropriated vast tracts of land in +Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa and other parts of the West, and levied his +toll on one-third of Putnam County, it was in New York City that he +concentrated the great bulk of his real estate speculations. To buy +steadily on the scale that he did required a constant revenue. This +revenue, as we have seen, came from his fur trading methods and +activities and the profits and privileges of his shipping. But these +factors do not explain his entire agencies in becoming a paramount +landocrat. One of these was the banking privilege--a privilege so +ordained by law that it was one of the most powerful and insidious +suctions for sapping the wealth created by the toil of the producers, +and for enriching its owners at a most appalling sacrifice to the +working and agricultural classes. And above all, Astor in common with +his class, made the most valuable asset of Law, whether exploiting the +violation, or the enforcement, of it. + +If we are to accept the superficial, perfunctory accounts of Astor's +real estate investments in New York City, then he will appear in the +usual eulogistic light of a law-loving, sagacious man engaged in a +legitimate enterprise. The truth, however, lies deeper than that--a +truth which has been either undiscerned or glossed over by those +conventional writers who, with a panderer's instinct, give a +wealth-worshipping era the thing it wants to read, not what it ought to +know. Although apparently innocent and in accord with the laws and +customs of the times, Astor's real estate transactions were inseparably +connected with consecutive evasions, trickeries, frauds and violations +of law. Extraordinarily favorable as the law was to the propertied +classes, even that law was constantly broken by the very classes to whom +it was so partial. + +Simultaneously, while reaping large revenues from his fur trade among +the Indians in both the East and West, Astor was employing a different +kind of fraud in using the powers of city and State government in New +York in obtaining, for practically nothing, enormously valuable grants +of land and other rights and privileges which added to the sum total of +his growing wealth. + + +CORRUPT GRANTS OF CITY LAND. + +In this procedure he was but doing what a number of other contemporaries +such as Peter Goelet, the Rhinelanders, the Lorillards, the +Schermerhorns and other men who then began to found powerful landed +families, were doing at the same time. The methods by which these men +secured large areas of land, now worth huge sums, were unquestionably +fraudulent, although the definite facts are not as wholly available as +are, for instance, those which related to Fletcher's granting vast +estates for bribes in the seventeenth century, or the bribery which +corrupted the various New York legislatures beginning in the year 1805. +Nevertheless, considering the character of the governing politicians, +and the scandals that ensued from the granting and sales of New York +City land a century or more ago, it is reasonably certain that corrupt +means were used. The student of the times cannot escape from this +conclusion, particularly as it is borne out by many confirming +circumstances. + +New York City, at one time, owned a very large area of land which was +fraudulently granted or sold to private individuals. Considerable of +this granting or selling was done during the years when the corrupt +Benjamin Romaine was City Controller. Romaine was so badly involved in a +series of scandals arising from the grants and corrupt sales of city +land, that in 1806 the Common Council, controlled by his own party, the +Tammany machine, found it necessary to remove him from the office of +City Controller for malfeasance.[104] The specific charge was that he +had fraudulently obtained valuable city land in the heart of the city +without paying for it. Something had to be done to still public +criticism, and Romaine was sacrificed. But, in fact, he was far from +being the only venal official concerned in the current frauds. These +frauds continued no matter which party or what set of officials were in +power. Several years after Romaine was removed, John Bingham, a powerful +member of the Aldermanic Committee on Finance, which passed upon and +approved these various land grants, was charged by public investigators +with having caused the city to sell to his brother-in-law land which he +later influenced the city administration to buy back at an exorbitant +price. Spurred by public criticism the Common Council demanded its +reconveyance.[105] It is more than evident--it is indisputable--from the +records and the public scandals, that the successive city +administrations were corruptly conducted. The conservative newspaper +comments alone of the period indicate this clearly, if nothing else +does. + + +A PROCESS OF SPOLIATION. + +Neither Astor nor Goelet were directly active members of the changing +political cliques which controlled the affairs of the city. It is likely +that they bore somewhat the same relation to these cliques that the +politico-industrial magnates and financiers of to-day do; to all +appearances distinctly apart from participation in politics, and yet by +means of money, having a strong or commanding influence in the +background. But the Rhinelander brothers, William and Frederick, were +integral members of the political machine in power. Thus we find that in +1803, William Rhinelander was elected Assessor for the Fifth Ward (a +highly important and sumptuary office at that time), while both he and +Frederick were, at the same time, appointed inspectors of +elections.[106] + +The action of the city officials in disposing of city land to +themselves, to political accomplices and to favorites (who, it is +probable, although not a matter of proof, paid bribes) took two forms. +One was the granting of land under water, the other the granting of city +real estate. At that time the configuration of Manhattan Island was such +that it was marked by ponds, streams and marshes, while the marginal +lines of the Hudson River and the East River extended much further +inland than now. When an individual got what was called a water grant, +it meant land under shallow water, where he had the right to build +bulkheads and wharves and to fill in and make solid ground. Out of these +water grants was created property now worth hundreds upon hundreds of +millions of dollars. The value at that time was not great, but the +prospective value was immense. This fact was recognized in the official +reports of the day, which set forth how rapidly the city's population +and commerce were increasing. As for city land as such, the city not +only owned large tracts by reason of old grants and confiscations, but +it constantly came into possession of more because of non-payment of +taxes. + +The excuses by which the city officials covered their short-sighted or +fraudulent grants of the water rights and the city land were various. +One was that the gifts were for the purpose of assisting religious +institutions. This, however, was but an occasional excuse. The principal +excuse which was persisted in for forty years was that the city needed +revenue. This was a fact. The succeeding city administrations so +corruptly and extravagantly squandered the city's money that the city +was constantly in debt. Perhaps this debt was created for the very +purpose of having a plausible ground for disposing of city land. So it +was freely charged at that time. + + +THE CITY CREATES LANDLORDS. + +Let us see how the religious motive worked. On June 10, 1794, the city +gave to Trinity Church a water grant covering all that land from +Washington street to the North River between Chambers and Reade streets. +The annual rent was one shilling per running foot after the expiration +of forty-two years from June 10, 1794. Thus, for forty-two years, no +rent was charged. Shortly after the passage of this grant, Trinity +Church conveyed it to William Rhinelander, and also all that ground +between Jay and Harrison streets, from Greenwich street to the North +River. By a subsequent arrangement with Trinity Church and the city, all +of this land as well as certain other Trinity land became William +Rhinelander's property; and then, by agreement of the Common Council on +May 29, 1797, and confirmation of Nov. 16, 1807, he was given all rights +to the land water between high and low water mark, bounding his +property, for an absurdly low rental.[107] These water grants were +subsequently filled in and became of enormous value. + +Astor was as energetic as Rhinelander in getting grants from the city +officials. In 1806 he obtained two of large extent on the East Side--on +Mangin street between Stanton and Houston streets, and on South street +between Peck Slip and Dover street. On May 30, 1808, upon a favorable +report handed in by the Finance Committee, of which the notorious John +Bingham was a member, Astor received an extensive grant along the Hudson +bounding the old Burr estate which had come into his possession.[108] In +1810 he received three more water grants in the vicinity of Hubert, +Laight, Charlton, Hammersly and Clarkson streets, and on April 28, 1828, +three at Tenth avenue, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth +streets. These were some of the grants that he received. But they do not +include the land in the heart of the city that he was constantly buying +from private owners or getting by the evident fraudulent connivance of +the city officials. + +Having obtained the water grants and other land by fraud, what did the +grantees next proceed to do? They had them filled in, not at their own +expense, but largely at the expense of the municipality. Sunken lots +were filled in, sewers placed, and streets opened, regulated and graded +at but the merest minimum of expense to these landlords. By fraudulent +collusion with the city authorities they foisted much of the expense +upon the taxpayers. How much money the city lost by this process in the +early decades of the nineteenth century was never known. But in 1855 +Controller Flagg submitted to the Common Council an itemized statement +for the five years from 1850 in which he referred to "the startling fact +that the city's payments, in a range of five years [for filling in +sunken lots, regulating and grading streets, etc.], exceed receipts by +the sum of more than two millions of dollars."[109] + + +MANY PARTICIPANTS IN THE CURRENT FRAUDS. + +In the case of most of these so-called water fronts, there was usually a +trivial rental attached. Nearly always, however, this was commuted upon +payment of a small designated sum, and a full and clear title was then +given by the city. In this rush to get water-grants--grants many of +which are now solid land filled with business and residential +buildings--many of the ancestors of those families which pride +themselves upon their exclusive air participated. The Lorillards, the +Goelets, William F. Havemeyer, Cornelius Vanderbilt, W. H. Webb, W. H. +Kissam, Robert Lenox, Schermerhorn, James Roosevelt, William E. Dodge, +Jr.--all of these and many others--not omitting Astor's American Fur +Company--at various times down to, and including the period of, the +monumentally corrupt Tweed "ring," got grants from corrupt city +administrations. Some of these water rights, that is to say, such +fragmentary parts of them as pertained to wharves and bulkheads, New +York City, in recent years, has had to buy back at exorbitant prices. +From the organization of the Dock Department down to 1906 inclusive, New +York City had expended $70,000,000 for the purchase of bulkhead and +wharf property and for construction. + +During all the years from 1800 on, Astor, in conjunction with other +landholders, was manipulating the city government not less than the +State and Federal Government. Now he gets from the Board of Aldermen +title to a portion of this or that old country road on Manhattan which +the city closes up; again and again he gets rights of land under water. +He constantly solicits the Board of Aldermen for this or that right or +privilege and nearly always succeeds. No property or sum is too small +for his grasp. In 1832, when Eighth avenue, from Thirteenth to +Twenty-third streets is graded down and the earth removed is sold by the +city to a contractor for $3,049.44, Astor, Stephen D. Beekman and Jacob +Taylor petition that each get a part of the money for earth removed from +in front of their lots. This is considered such a petty attempt at +defrauding, that the Aldermen call it an "unreasonable petition" and +refuse to accede.[110] In 1834 the Aldermen allow him a part of the old +Hurlgate road, and Rhinelander a part of the Southampton road. Not a +year passes but that he does not get some new right or privilege from +the city government. At his request some streets are graded and +improved; the improvement of such other streets as is not to his +interest to have improved is delayed. Here sewers are placed; then they +are refused. Every function of city administration was incessantly used +by him. The cumulative effect of this class use of government was to +give him and others a constant succession of grants and privileges that +now have a prodigious value. + +But it should be noted that those who thus benefited, singularly enjoyed +the advantages of laws and practices. For city land that they bought +they were allowed to pay on easy terms; not infrequently the city had to +bring action for final payment. But the tenants of these landlords had +to pay rent on the day that it fell due, or within a few days of the +time; they could not be in arrears more than three days without having +to face dispossess proceedings. Nor was this all the difference. On +land which they corruptly obtained from the city and which, to a large +extent, they fraudulently caused to be filled in, regulated, graded or +otherwise improved at the expense of the whole community, the landlords +refused to pay taxes promptly, just as they refused to pay them on land +that they had bought privately. What was the result? "Some of our +wealthiest citizens," reported the Controller in 1831, "are in the habit +of postponing the payment of taxes for six months and more, and the +Common Council are necessitated to borrow money on interest to meet the +ordinary disbursements of the city."[111] If a man of very moderate +means were backward in payment of taxes, the city promptly closed him +out, and if a tenant of any of these delinquent landlords were +dispossessed for non-payment of rent, the city it was which undertook +the process of eviction. The rich landlord, however, could do as he +pleased, since all government represented his interests and those of his +class. Instead of the punishment for non-payment of taxes being visited +upon him, it was imposed upon the whole community in the form of +interest-bearing bonds. + + +PILLAGE, PROFITS AND LAND. + +The money that Astor secured by robbing the Indians and exploiting the +workers by means of monopolies, he thus put largely into land. In 1810, +a story runs, he offers to sell a Wall Street lot for $8,000. The price +is so low that a buyer promptly appears. "Yes, you are astonished," +Astor says. "But see what I intend to do with that eight thousand +dollars. That Wall Street lot, it is true, will be worth twelve thousand +dollars in a few years. But I shall take that eight thousand dollars +and buy eighty lots above Canal street and by the time your one lot is +worth twelve thousand dollars, my eighty lots will be worth eighty +thousand dollars." So goes one of the fine stories told to illustrate +his foresight, and to prove that his fortune came exclusively from that +faculty and from his industry. + +This version bears all the impress of being undoubtedly a fraud. Astor +was remarkably secretive and dissembling, and never revealed his plans +to anyone. That he bought the lots is true enough, but his attributed +loquacity is mythical and is the invention of some gushing eulogist. At +that time he was buying for $200 or $300 each many lots on lower +Broadway, then, for the most part, an unoccupied waste. What he was +counting upon was the certain growth of the city and the vastly +increasing values not that he would give his land, but which would +accrue from the labor of an enlarged population. These lots are now +occupied by crowded business buildings and are valued at from $300,000 +to $400,000 each. + +Throughout those years in the first decade of the nineteenth century he +was constantly buying land on Manhattan Island. Practically all of it +was bought, not with the idea of using it, but of holding it and +allowing future populations to make it a thousand times more valuable. +An exception was his country estate of thirteen acres at Hurlgate +(Hellgate) in the vicinity of Sixtieth street and the East River. It was +curious to look back at the fact that less than a century ago the upper +regions of Manhattan Island were filled with country estates--regions +now densely occupied by huge tenement houses and some private dwellings. +In those days, not less than in these, a country seat was considered a +necessary appendage to the possessions of a rich man. Astor bought that +Hurlgate estate as a country seat; but as such it was long since +discontinued although the land comprising it has never left the hold of +the Astor family. + +What were the intrinsic circumstances of the means by which he bought +land, now worth hundreds of millions of dollars? For once, we get a +gleam of the truth, but a gleam only, in the "popular writer's" account +when he says: "John Jacob Astor's record is constantly crossed by +embarrassed families, prodigal sons, mortgages and foreclosure sales. +Many of the victims of his foresight were those highest in church and +state. He thus acquired for $75,000 one-half of Governor George +Clinton's splendid Greenwich country place [in the old Greenwich village +on the west side of Manhattan Island].... After the Governor's death, he +kept persistently at the heirs, lent them money and acquired additional +slices of the family property.... Nearly two-thirds of the Clinton farm +is now held by Astor's descendants, and is covered by scores of business +buildings, from which is derived an annual income estimated at +$500,000." + + +THE FATE OF OTHERS HIS GAIN. + +In this transaction we see the beginnings of that period of conquest on +the part of the very rich using their surplus capital in effacing the +less rich--a period which really opened with Astor and which has been +vastly intensified in recent times. Clinton was accounted a rich man in +his day, but he was a pigmy in that respect compared to Astor. With his +incessant inflow of surplus wealth, Astor was in a position where on the +instant he could take advantage of the difficulties of less rich men and +take over to himself their property. A large amount of Astor's money was +invested in mortgages. In times of periodic financial and industrial +distress, the mortgagers were driven to extremities and could no longer +keep up their payments. These were the times that Astor waited for, and +it was in such times that he stepped in and possessed himself, at +comparatively small expense, of large additional tracts of land. + +It was this way that he became the owner of what was then the Cosine +farm, extending on Broadway from Fifty-third to Fifty-seventh streets +and westward to the Hudson River. This property, which he got for +$23,000 by foreclosing a mortgage, is now in the very heart of the city, +filled with many business, and every variety of residential, buildings, +and is rated as worth $6,000,000. By much the same means he acquired +ownership of the Eden farm in the same vicinity, coursing along Broadway +north from Forty-second street and slanting over to the Hudson River. +This farm lay under pledges for debt and attachments for loans. Suddenly +Astor turned up with a third interest in an outstanding mortgage, +foreclosed, and for a total payment of $25,000 obtained a sweep of +property now covered densely with huge hotels, theaters, office +buildings, stores and long vistas of residences and tenements--a +property worth at the very least $25,000,000. Any one with sufficient +security in land who sought to borrow money would find Astor extremely +accommodating. But woe betide the hapless borrower, whoever he was, if +he failed in his obligations to the extent of even a fraction of the +requirements covered by law! Neither personal friendship, religious +considerations nor the slightest feelings of sympathy availed. + +But where law was insufficient or non-existent, new laws were created +either to aggrandize the powers of landlordship, or to seize hold of +land or enchance its value, or to get extraordinary special privileges +in the form of banking charters. And here it is necessary to digress +from the narrative of Astor's land transactions and advert to his +banking activities, for it was by reason of these subordinately, as well +as by his greater trade revenues, that he was enabled so successfully to +pursue his career of wealth-gathering. The circumstances as to the +origin of certain powerful banks in which he and other landholders and +traders were large stockholders, the methods and powers of those banks, +and their effect upon the great body of the people, are component parts +of the analytic account of his operations. Not a single one of Astor's +biographers has mentioned his banking connections. Yet it is of the +greatest importance to describe them, inasmuch as they were closely +intertwined with his trade, on the one hand, and with his land +acquisitions, on the other. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[90] Doc. No. 13, State Papers, Second Session, 18th Congress, Vol. ii. + +[91] "Stole on a monstrous scale." The land frauds, by which many of the +Southern planters obtained estates in Louisiana, Mississippi and other +States were a national scandal. Benjamin F. Linton, United States +Attorney for Western Louisiana, reported to President Andrew Jackson on +August 27, 1835, that in seizing possession of Government land in that +region "the most shameful frauds, impositions and perjuries had been +committed in Louisiana." Sent to investigate, V. M. Garesche, an agent +of the Government Land Office, complained that he could get no one to +testify. "Is it surprising," he wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury, +"when you consider that those engaged in this business belong to every +class of society from the member of the Legislature (if I am informed +correctly) down to the quarter quarter-section settler!" Up to that time +the Government held title to immense tracts of land in the South and had +thrown it open to settlers. Few of these were able to get it, however. +Southern plantation men and Northern capitalists and speculators +obtained possession by fraud. "A large company," Garesche reported, "was +formed in New York for the purpose, and have an agent who is continually +scouring the country." The final report was a whitewashing one; hence, +none of the frauds was sent to jail.--Doc. No. 168, Twenty-fourth +Congress, 2d Session, ii:4-25, also Doc. No. 213, Ibid. + +[92] "America," admits Houghton, "never presented a more shameful +spectacle than was exhibited when the courts of the cotton-growing +regions united with the piratical infringers of Whitney's rights in +robbing their greatest benefactor.... In spite of the far-reaching +benefits of his invention, he had not realized one dollar above his +expenses. He had given millions upon millions of dollars to the +cotton-growing states, he had opened the way for the establishment of +the vast cotton-spinning interests of his own country and Europe, and +yet, after fourteen years of hard labor, he was a poor man, the victim +of wealthy, powerful, and, in his case, a dishonest class."--"Kings of +Fortune":337. All other of Whitney's biographers relate likewise. + +[93] See Senate Documents, First Session, 24th Congress, 1835, Vol. vi, +Doc. No. 425. A few extracts from the great mass of correspondence will +lucidly show the nature of the fraudulent methods. Writing from +Columbus, Georgia, on July 15, 1833, Col. John Milton informed the War +Department ... "Many of them [the Indians] are almost starved, and +suffer immensely for the things necessary to the support of life, and +are sinking in moral degradation. They have been much corrupted by white +men who live among them, who induce them to sell to as many different +individuals as they can, and then cheat them out of the proceeds."... +(p. 81.) Luther Blake wrote to the War Department from Fort Mitchell, +Alabama, on September 11, 1833 ... "Many, from motives of speculation, +have bought Indian reserves fraudulently in this way--take their bonds +for trifles, pay them ten or twenty dollars in something they do not +want, and take their receipts for five times the amount." (p. 86). On +February 1, 1834, J. H. Howard, of Pole-Cat Springs, Creek Nation, sent +a communication, by request, to President Jackson in which he said, ... +"From my own observation, I am induced to believe that a number of +reservations have been paid for at some nominal price, and the principal +consideration has been whisky and homespun" ... (p. 104). Gen. J. W. A. +Sandford, sent by President Jackson to the Creek country to investigate +the charges of fraud, wrote, on March 1, 1834, to the War Department, +... "It is but very recently that the Indian has been invested with an +individual interest in land, and the great majority of them appear +neither to appreciate its possession, nor to economize the money for +which it is sold; the consequence is, that the white man rarely suffers +an opportunity to pass by without swindling him out of both".... (p. +110). + +The records show that the principal beneficiaries of these swindles were +some of the most conspicuous planters, mercantile firms and politicians +in the South. Frequently, they employed dummies in their operations. + +[94] Reports of House Committees, Second Session, 26th Congress, +1840-41, Report No. 1. + +[95] Ibid., 1 and 2. + +[96] Executive Documents, First Session, 23rd Congress, 1833-34, Doc. +No. 132. + +[97] Senate Documents, First Session, 22nd Congress, 1831-33, Vol. iii, +Doc. No. 139. + +[98] "No inventor," reported the United States Commissioner of Patents +in 1858, "probably has ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so +plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the +parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase as 'pirates.' The +spoliation of their incessant guerilla upon his defenseless rights have +unquestionably amounted to millions." + +[99] Doc. No. 134, Twenty-fourth Congress, 2d Session, Vol. ii. + +[100] Doc. 129, State Papers, 1819-21, Vol. ii. + +[101] See Part I, Chapter II. + +[102] "Allowed itself." The various New York legislatures from the end +of the eighteenth century on were hotbeds of corruption. Time after time +members were bribed to pass bills granting charters for corporations or +other special privileges. (See the numerous specific instances cited in +the author's "History of Tammany Hall," and subsequently in this work.) +The Legislature of 1827 was notoriously corrupt. + +[103] Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1815:216--Journal of the [New +York] Assembly, 1818:261; Journal of the Assembly, 1819. Also "A +Statement and Exposition of The Title of John Jacob Astor to the Lands +Purchased by him from the surviving children of Roger Morris and Mary, +his Wife"; New York, 1827. + +[104] MSS. Minutes of the (New York City) Common Council, xvi:239-40 and +405. + +[105] Ibid., xx: 355-356. + +[106] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xiii: 118 and 185. + +[107] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xvii: 141-144. See also Annual +Report of Controller for 1849, Appendix A. + +[108] MSS. Minutes of the Common Council, xviii: 411-414. + +[109] Doc. No. 33, Documents of the Board of Aldermen, xxii:26. + +[110] Proceedings of the Board of Aldermen, 1832-33, iv: 416-418. + +[111] Controller's Reports for 1831:7. Also Ibid. for 1841:28. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +Astor flourished at that precise time when the traders and landowners, +flushed with revenues, reached out for the creation and control of the +highly important business of professionally dealing in money, and of +dictating, personally and directly, what the supply of the people's +money should be. + +This signalized the next step in the aggrandizement of individual +fortunes. The few who could center in themselves, by grace of +Government, the banking and manipulation of the people's money and the +restricting or inflating of money issues, were immediately vested with +an extraordinary power. It was a sovereign power at once coercive and +proscriptive, and a mighty instrument for transferring the produce of +the many to a small and exclusive coterie. Not merely over the labor of +the whole working class did this gripping process extend, but it was +severely felt by that large part of the landowning and trading class +which was excluded from holding the same privileges. The banker became +the master of the master. In that fierce, pervading competitive strife, +the banks were the final exploiters. Sparsely organized and wholly +unprotected, the worker was in the complete power of the trader, +manufacturer and landowner; in turn, such of these divisions of the +propertied class as were not themselves sharers in the ownership of +banks were at the mercy of the banking institutions. + +At any time upon some pretext or other, the banks could arbitrarily +refuse the latter class credit or accommodation, or harass its victims +in other ways equally as destructive. As business was largely done in +expectations of payment, in other words, credit, as it is now, this was +a serious, often a desperate, blow to the lagging or embarrassed +brothers in trade. Banks were virtually empowered by law to ruin or +enrich any individual or set of individuals. As the banks were then +founded and owned by men who were themselves traders or landholders, +this power was crushingly used against competitors. Armed with the +strong power of law, the banks overawed the mercantile world, thrived on +the industry, misfortune or ruin of others, and swayed politics and +elections. The bank men loaned money to themselves at an absurdly low +rate of interest. But for loans of money to all others they demanded a +high rate of interest which, in periods of commercial distress, +overwhelmed the borrowers. Nominally banks were restricted to a certain +standard rate of interest; but by various subterfuges they easily evaded +these provisions and exacted usurious rates. + + +BANKS AND THEIR POWER. + +These, however, were far from being the worst features. The most +innocent of their great privileges was that of playing fast and loose +with the money confidingly entrusted to their care by a swarm of +depositors who either worked for it, or for the matter of that, often +stole it; bankers, like pawnbrokers, ask no questions. The most +remarkable of their vested powers was that of manufacturing money. The +industrial manufacturer could not make goods unless he had the plant, +the raw material and the labor. But the banker, somewhat like the +fabled alchemists, could transmute airy nothing into bank-note money, +and then, by law, force its acceptance. The lone trader or landholder +unsupported by a partnership with law could not fabricate money. But let +trader and landholder band in a company, incorporate, then persuade, +wheedle or bribe a certain entity called a legislature to grant them a +certain bit of paper styled a charter, and lo! they were instantly +transformed into money manufacturers. + + +A MANDATE TO PREY. + +The simple mandate of law was sufficient authorization for them to prey +upon the whole world outside of their charmed circle. With this scrap of +paper they could go forth on the highways of commerce and over the farms +and drag in, by the devious, absorbent processes of the banking system, +a great part of the wealth created by the actual producers. As it was +with taxation, so was it with the burdens of this system; they fell +largely upon the worker, whether in the shop or on the farm. When the +business man and the landowner were compelled to pay exorbitant rates of +interest they but apparently had to meet the demands. What these classes +really did was to throw the whole of these extra impositions upon the +working class in the form of increased prices for necessaries and +merchandise and in augmented rents. + +But how were these State or Government authorizations, called charters, +to be obtained? Did not the Federal Constitution prohibit States from +giving the right to banks to issue money? Were not private money +factories specifically barred by that clause of the Constitution which +declared that no State "shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make +anything but gold or silver a tender in payment of debts?" + +Here, again, the power of class domination of Government came into +compelling effect. The onward sweep of the trading class was not to be +balked by such a trifling obstacle as a Constitutional provision. At all +times when the Constitution has stood in the way of commercial aims it +has been abrogated, not by repeal nor violent overthrow, but by the +effective expedient of judicial interpretation. The trading class +demanded State created banks with power of issuing money; and, as the +courts have invariably in the long run responded to the interests and +decrees of the dominant class, a decision was quickly forthcoming in +this case to the effect that "bills of credit" were not meant to cover +banknotes. This was a new and surprising construction; but judicial +decision and precedent made it virtually law, and law a thousandfold +more binding than any Constitutional insertion. + + +COURTS AND CONSTITUTION. + +The trading class had already learned the importance of the principle +that while it was essential to control law-making bodies, it was +imperative to have as their auxiliary the bodies that interpreted law. +To a large extent the United States since then has lived not under +legislative-made law, but under a purely separate and extraneous form of +law which has superseded the legislature product, namely, court law. +Although nowhere in the United States Constitution is there even the +suggestion that courts shall make law, yet this past century and more +they have been gradually building up a formidable code of +interpretations which substantially ranks as the most commanding kind of +law. And these interpretations have, on the whole, consistently +followed, and kept pace with, the changing interests of the dominant +class, whether traders, slaveholders, or the present trusts. + +This decision of the august courts opened the way for the greatest orgy +of corruption and the most stupendous frauds. In New York, +Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and other States a +continuous rush to get bank charters ensued. Most of the legislatures +were composed of men who, while perhaps, not innately corrupt, were +easily seduced by the corrupt temptations held out by the traders. There +was a deep-seated hostility, in many parts of the country, on the part +of the middling tradesmen--the shopkeepers and the petty merchants--to +any laws calculated to increase the power and the privileges of the +superior traders and the landowners. Among the masses of workers, most +of whom were, however, disfranchised, any attempt to vest the rich with +new privileges, was received with the bitterest resentment. But the +legislatures were approachable; some members who were put there by the +rich families needed only the word as to how they should vote, while +others, representing both urban and rural communities, were swayed by +bribes. By one means or another the traders and landholders forced the +various legislatures into doing what was wanted. + +Omitting the records of other States, a few salient facts as to what +took place in New York State will suffice to give a clear idea of some +of the methods of the trading class in pressing forward their conquests, +in hurling aside every impediment, whether public opinion or law, and in +creating new laws which satisfied their extending plans for a +ramification of profit-producing interests. If forethought, an +unswerving aim and singleness of execution mean anything, then there +was something sternly impressive in the way in which this rising +capitalist class went forward to snatch what it sought, and what it +believed to be indispensable to its plans. There was no hesitation, nor +were there any scruples as to niceties of methods; the end in view was +all that counted; so long as that was attained, the means used were +considered paltry side-issues. And, indeed, herein lies the great +distinction of action between the world-old propertied classes and the +contending proletariat; for whereas the one have always campaigned +irrespective of law and particularly by bribery, intimidation, +repression and force, the working class has had to confine its movement +strictly to the narrow range of laws which were expressly prepared +against it and the slightest violation of which has called forth the +summary vengeance of a society ruled actually, if not theoretically, by +the very propertied classes which set at defiance all law. + + +THE BANKING FRAUDS BEGIN. + +The chartered monopoly held by the traders who controlled the United +States Bank was not accepted passively by others of the commercial +class, who themselves wanted financial engines of the same character. +The doctrine of State's rights served the purpose of these excluded +capitalists as well as it did that of the slaveholders. + +The States began a course of reeling out bank charters. By 1799 New York +City had one bank, the Bank of New York; this admixed the terrorism of +trade and politics so overtly that presently an opposition application +for a charter was made. This solitary bank was run by some of the old +landowning families who fully understood the danger involved in the +triumph of the democratic ideas represented by Jefferson; a danger far +overestimated, however, since win as democratic principles did, the +propertied class continued its victorious march, for the simple reason +that property was able to divert manhood suffrage to its own account, +and to aggrandize itself still further on the ruins of every subsequent +similar reform expedient. What the agitated masses, for the most part, +of that period could not comprehend was that they who hold the +possession of the economic resources will indubitably sway the politics +of a country, until such time as the proletariat, no longer divided but +thoroughly conscious, organized, and aggressive, will avail itself of +its majority vote to transfer the powers of government to itself. The +Bank of New York injected itself virulently into politics and fought the +spread of democratic ideas with sordid but effective weapons. If a +merchant dared support what it denounced as heretical doctrines, the +bank at once black-listed him by rejecting his notes when he needed cash +most. + +It was now that Aaron Burr, that adroit leader of the opposition party, +stepped in. Seconded or instigated by certain traders, he set out to get +one of those useful and invaluable bank charters for his backers. The +explanation of how he accomplished the act is thus given: Taking +advantage of the epidemic of yellow fever then desolating New York City, +he, with much preliminary of philanthropic motives, introduced a bill +for the apparent beneficent purpose of diminishing the future +possibility of the disease by incorporating a company, called the +Manhattan Company, to supply pure, wholesome water. Supposing that the +charter granted nothing more than this, the explanation goes on, the +Legislature passed the bill, and was most painfully surprised and +shocked when the fact came out that the measure had been so deftly +drawn, that it, in fact, granted an unlimited charter, conferring +banking powers on the company.[112] + +This explanation is probably shallow and deficient. It is much more +likely that bribery was resorted to, considering the fact that the +granting of every successive bank charter was invariably accompanied by +bribery. Six years later the Mercantile Bank received a charter for a +thirteen years' period--a charter which, it was openly charged by +certain members of the Assembly, was secured by bribery. These charges +were substantially proved by the testimony before a legislative +investigating committee.[113] In 1811 the Mechanics' Bank was chartered +with a time limit under circumstances indicating bribery. + +Indeed, so often was bribing done and so pronounced were charges of +corruption at frequent sessions of the Legislature, that in 1812, the +Assembly, in an heroic spasm of impressive virtue, passed a resolution +compelling each member to pledge himself that he had neither taken, nor +would take, "any reward or profit, direct or indirect, for any vote on +any measure."[114] This resolution was palpably intended to blind the +public; for, in that identical year, the Bank of America received a +charter amid charges of flagrant corruption. One Assemblyman declared +under oath that he had been offered the sum of $500, "besides, a +handsome present for his vote."[115] All of the banks, except the +Manhattan, had limited charters; measures for the renewal of these were +practically all put through by bribery.[116] Thus, in 1818, the charter +of the Merchants' Bank was renewed until 1832, and renewed after that. +The chartering of the Chemical Bank (that staid and most eminently +respectable and solid New York institution of to-day) was accomplished +by bribery. The Chemical Bank was an outgrowth of the Chemical +Manufacturing Company, the plant and business of which were bought +expressly as an excuse to get a banking auxiliary. The Goelet brothers +were among the founders of this bank. In fact, many of the great landed +fortunes were inseparably associated with the frauds of the banking +system; money from land was used to bribe legislatures, and money made +from the banks was employed in buying more land. The promoters of the +Chemical Bank set aside a considerable sum of money and $50,000 in stock +for the bribery fund.[117] No sooner had it received its charter than it +began to turn out reams of paper money, based upon no value, which paper +was paid as wages to its employees as well as circulated generally. So +year after year the bribery went on industriously, without cessation. + + +BRIBERY A CRIME IN NAME ONLY. + +Were the bribers ever punished, their illicitly gotten charters declared +forfeited, and themselves placed under the ban of virtuous society? +Far, very far, from it! The men who did the bribing were of the very +pinnacle of social power, elegance and position, or quickly leaped to +that height by reason of their wealth. They were among the foremost +landholders and traders of the day. By these and a wide radius of +similar means, they amassed wealth or greatly increased wealth already +accumulated. The ancestors of some of the most conspicuous +multimillionaire families of the present were deeply involved in the +perpetration of all of those continuous frauds and crimes--Peter Goelet +and his sons, Peter P. and Robert, for instance, and Jacob Lorillard, +who, for many years, was president of the Mechanics' Bank. No stigma +attached to these wealth-graspers. Their success as possessors of riches +at once, by the automatic processes of a society which enthroned wealth, +elevated them to be commanding personages in trade, politics, orthodoxy +and the highest social spheres. The cropped convict, released from +prison, was followed everywhere by the jeers and branding of a society +which gloated over his downfall and which forever reminded him of his +infamy. But the men who waded on to wealth through the muck of base +practices and by means of crimes a millionfold more insidious and +dangerous than the offense of the convict, were not only honored as +leading citizens, but they became the extolled and unquestioned +dictators of that supreme trading society which made modes, customs and +laws. + +It was a society essentially built upon money; consequently he who was +dexterous enough to get possession of the spoils, experienced no +difficulty in establishing his place among the elect and anointed. His +frauds were forgotten or ignored; only the fact that he was a rich man +was remembered. And yet, what is more natural than to seek, and accept, +the obeisance lavished upon property, in a scheme of society where +property is crowned as the ruling power? In the rude centuries +previously mankind exalted physical prowess; he who had the greatest +strength and wielded the deftest strokes became victor of the judicial +combat and gathered in laurels and property. But now we have arrived at +the time when the cunning of mind supplants the cunning of muscle; +bribery takes the place of brawn; the contestants fight with statutes +instead of swords. And this newer plan, which some have decried as +degenerate, is a great advance over the old, for thereby has brute force +been legally abandoned in personal quarrels at least, and that cunning +of mind which has held sway, is the first evidence of the reign of mind, +which from a low order, will universally develop noble and supereminent +qualities charged with the good, and that alone, of the human race. + + +ASTOR'S BANKING ACTIVITIES. + +With this preliminary sketch, we can now proceed to a consideration of +how Astor profited from the banking system. We see that constantly the +bold spirits of the trading class, with a part of the money made or +plundered in some direction or other, were bribing representative bodies +to give them exceptional rights and privileges which, in turn, were made +the fertile basis for further spoliation. Astor was a stockholder in at +least four banks, the charters of which had been obtained or renewed by +trickery and fraud, or both. He owned 1,000 shares of the capital stock +of the Manhattan Company; 1,000 of the Merchant's Bank; 500 of the Bank +of America; 1,604 of the Mechanic's Bank. He also owned at one time +considerable stock in the National Bank, the charter of which, it was +strongly suspected had been obtained by bribery. + +There is no evidence that he, himself, did the actual bribing or was in +any way concerned in it. In all of the legislative investigations +following charges of bribery, the invariable practice was to throw the +blame upon the wicked lobbyists, while professing the most naive +astonishment that any imputations should be cast upon any of the members +of the honorable Legislature. As for the bribers behind the scenes, +their names seldom or never were brought out or divulged. In brief, +these investigations were all of that rose-water order, generally termed +"whitewashing." But whether Astor personally bribed or not, he at any +rate consciously profited from the results of bribery; and, moreover, it +is not probable that his methods in the East were different, except in +form, from the debauching and exploitation that he made a system of in +the fur regions. It is not outside the realm of reasonable conjecture to +suppose that he either helped to debauch, or connived at the corruption +of legislatures, just as in another way he debauched Indian tribes. + +Furthermore his relations with Burr in one notorious transaction, are +sufficient to justify the conclusion that he held the closest business +relations with that political adventurer who lived next door to him at +No. 221 Broadway. This transaction was one which was partially the +outcome of the organization of the Manhattan Bank and was a source of +millions of dollars of profit to Astor and to his descendants. + +A century or more ago Trinity Church owned three times the extent of +even the vast real estate that it now holds. A considerable part of this +was the gift of that royal governor Fletcher, who, as has been set +forth, was such a master-hand at taking bribes. There long existed a +contention upon the part of New York State, a contention embodied in +numerous official records, that the land held for centuries by Trinity +Church was usurped; that Trinity's title was invalid and that the real +title vested in the people of the city of New York. In 1854-55 the Land +Commissioners of New York State, deeply impressed by the facts as +marshalled by Rutger B. Miller,[118] recommended that the State bring +suit. But with the filing of Trinity's reply, mysterious influences +intervened and the matter was dropped. These influences are frequently +referred to in aldermanic documents. + +To go back, however: In 1767 Trinity Church leased to Abraham Mortier, +for ninety-nine years, at a total annual rental of $269 a year, a +stretch of land comprising 465 lots in what is now the vicinity bounded +by Greenwich, Spring and Hudson streets. Mortier used it as a country +place until 1797 when the New York Legislature, upon the initiative of +Burr, developed a consuming curiosity as to how Trinity Church was +expending its income. This was a very ticklish question with the pious +vestrymen of Trinity, as it was generally suspected that they were +commingling business and piety in a way that might, if known, cause them +some trouble. The law, at that time, restricted the annual income of +Trinity Church from its property to $12,000 a year. A committee of +investigation was appointed; of this committee Burr was made chairman. + + +HOW ASTOR SECURED A LEASE. + +Burr never really made any investigation. Why? The reason soon came out, +when Burr turned up with a transfer of the Mortier lease to himself. He +at once obtained from the Manhattan Bank a $38,000 loan, pledging the +lease as security. When his duel with Hamilton forced Burr to flee the +country, Astor promptly came along and took the lease off his hands. +Astor, it was said, paid him $32,000 for it, subject to the Manhattan +Bank's mortgage. At any rate, Astor now held this extraordinarily +valuable lease.[119] He immediately released it in lots; and as the city +fast grew, covering the whole stretch with population and buildings, the +lease was a source of great revenue to him and to his heirs.[120] As a +Lutheran, Astor could not be a vestryman of Trinity Church. Anthony +Lispenard, however, it may be passingly noted, was a vestryman, and, as +such, mixed piety and business so well, that his heirs became possessed +of millions of dollars by the mere fact that in 1779, when a vestryman, +he got a lease, for eighty-three years of eighty-one Trinity lots +adjacent to the Astor leased land, at a total annual rental of +$177.50.[121] + +It was by the aid of the banking system that the trading class was +greatly enabled to manipulate the existing and potential resources of +the country and to extend invaluable favors to themselves. In this +system Astor was a chief participant. For many years the banks, +especially in New York State, were empowered by law to issue paper money +to the extent of three times the amount of their capital. The actual +specie was seized hold of by the shippers, and either hoarded, or +exported in quantities to Asia or Europe which, of course, would not +handle paper money. By 1819 the banks in New York had issued +$12,500,000, and the total amount of specie to redeem this fiat stuff +amounted to only $2,000,000. These banknotes were nothing more or less +than irresponsible promises to pay. What became of them? + + +WHAT THE WORKER GOT AS WAGES. + +What, indeed, became of them? They were imposed upon the working class +as payment for labor. Although these banknotes were subject to constant +depreciation, the worker had to accept them as though they were full +value. But when the worker went to buy provisions or pay rent, he was +compelled to pay one-third, and often one-half, as much as the value +represented by those banknotes. Sometimes, in crises, he could not get +them cashed at all; they became pitiful souvenirs in his hands. This +fact was faintly recognized by a New York Senate Committee when it +reported in 1819 that every artifice in the wit of man had been devised +to find ways of putting these notes into circulation; that when the +merchant got this depreciated paper, he "saddled it upon the departments +of productive labor." "The farmer and the mechanic alike," went on the +report, "have been invited to make loans and have fallen victims to the +avarice of the banker. The result has been the banishment of metallic +currency, the loss of commercial confidence, fictitious capital, +increase of civil prosecutions and multiplication of crimes."[122] What +the committee did not see was that by this process those in control of +the banks had, with no expenditure, possessed themselves of a +considerable part of the resources of the country and had made the +worker yield up twice and three times as much of the produce of his +labor as he had to give before the system was started. + +The large amount of paper money, without any basis of value whatever, +was put out at a heavy rate of interest. When the merchant paid his +interest, he charged it up as extra cost on his wares; and when the +worker came to buy these same wares which he or some fellow-worker had +made, he was charged a high price which included three things all thrown +upon him: rent, interest and profit. The banks indirectly sucked in a +large portion of these three factors. And so thoroughly did the banks +control legislation that they were not content with the power of issuing +spurious paper money; they demanded, and got through, an act exempting +bank stock from taxation. + +Thus year after year this system went on, beggaring great numbers of +people, enriching the owners of the banks and virtually giving them a +life and death power over the worker, the farmer and the floundering, +struggling small business man alike. The laws were but slightly +altered. "The great profits of the banks," reported a New York Senate +Committee on banks and insurance in 1834, "arise from their issues. It +is this privilege which enables them, in fact, to coin money, to +substitute their evidences of debt for a metallic currency and to loan +more than their actual capitals. A bank of $100,000 capital is permitted +to loan $250,000; and thus receive an interest on twice and a half the +amount actually invested."[123] + + +THE WORKINGMEN'S PARTY PROTEST. + +It cannot be said that all of the workingmen were apathetic, or that +some did not see through the fraud of the system. They had good reason +for the deepest indignation and exasperation. The terrible injustices +piled upon them from every quarter--the low wages that they were forced +to accept, often in depreciated or worthless banknotes, the continually +increasing exactions of the landlords, the high prices squeezed out of +them by monopolies, the arbitrary discriminations of law--these were not +without their effect. The Workingmen's Party, formed in 1829 in New York +City, was the first and most ominous of these proletarian uprisings. Its +resolutions read like a proletarian Declaration of Independence, and +would unquestionably have resulted in the most momentous agitation, had +it not been that it was smothered by its leaders, and also because the +slavery issue long obscured purely economic questions. "Resolved," ran +its resolutions adopted at Military Hall, Oct. 19, 1829, + + in the opinion of this meeting, that the first appropriation of + the soil of the State to private and exclusive possession was + eminently and barbarously unjust. That it was substantially feudal + in its character, inasmuch as those who received enormous and + unequal possessions were _lords_ and those who received little or + nothing were _vassals_. That hereditary transmission of wealth on + the one hand and poverty on the other, has brought down to the + present generation all the evils of the feudal system, and that, + in our opinion, is the prime source of all our calamities. + +After declaring that the Workingmen's Party would oppose all exclusive +privileges, monopolies and exemptions, the resolutions proceeded: + + We consider it an exclusive privilege for one portion of the + community to have the _means of education in colleges_, while + another is restricted to common schools, or, perhaps, by extreme + poverty, even deprived of the limited education to be acquired in + those establishments. Our voice, therefore, shall be raised in + favor of a system of education which shall be equally open to + _all_, as in a real republic, it should be. + +Finally the resolutions told what the Workingmen's Party thought of the +bankers and the banking system. The bankers were denounced as "the +greatest knaves, impostors and paupers of the age." The resolutions went +on: + + As banking is now conducted, the owners of the banks receive + annually of the people of the State not less than two millions of + dollars in their paper money (and it might as well be pewter + money) for which there is and can be nothing provided for its + redemption on demand.... + +The mockery that went up from all that was held influential, respectable +and stable when these resolutions were printed, was echoed far and wide. +They were looked upon first as a joke, and then, when the Workingmen's +Party began to reveal its earnestness and strength, as an insolent +challenge to constituted authority, to wealth and superiority, and as a +menace to society. + + +RADICALISM VERSUS RESPECTABILITY. + +The "Courier and Enquirer," owned by Webb and Noah, in the pay of the +United States Bank, burst out into savage invective. It held the +Workingmen's Party up to opprobrium as an infidel crowd, hostile to the +morals and the institutions of society, and to the rights of property. +Nevertheless the Workingmen's Party proceeded with an enthusiastic, +almost ecstatic, campaign and polled 6,000 votes, a very considerable +number compared to the whole number of voters at the time. + +By 1831, however, it had gone out of existence. The reason was that it +allowed itself to be betrayed by the supineness, incompetence, and as +some said, the treachery, of its leaders, who were content to accept +from a Legislature controlled by the propertied interests various +mollifying sops which slightly altered certain laws, but which in no +great degree redounded to the benefit of the working class. For a few +bits of counterfeit, this splendid proletarian uprising, glowing with +energy, enthusiasm and hope, allowed itself to be snuffed out of +existence. + +What a tragedy was there! And how futile and tragic must inevitably be +the fate of any similar movement which depends not upon itself, not upon +its own intrinsic, collective strength and wisdom, but upon the say-so +of leaders who come forward to assume leadership. Representing only +their own timidity of thought and cowardice of action, they often end by +betraying the cause placed confidingly in their charge. That class which +for these immemorial generations has done the world's work, and as long +has been plundered and oppressed and betrayed, thus had occasion to +learn anew the bitter lesson taught by the wreckage of the past, that it +is from itself that the emancipation must come; that it is itself which +must essentially think, act and strike; that its forces, long torn +asunder and dispersed, must be marshalled in invulnerable compactness +and iron discipline; and so that its hosts may not again be routed by +strategy, no man or set of men should be entrusted with the irrevocable +power of executing its decrees, for too often has the courage, boldness +and strength of the many been shackled or destroyed by the compromising +weakness of the leaders. + + +THE PANIC OF 1837. + +Passing over the Equal Rights movement in 1834, which was a diluted +revival of the Workingmen's Party, and which, also, was turned into +sterility by the treachery of its leaders, we arrive at the panic of +1837, the time when Astor, profiting from misfortune on every side, +vastly increased his wealth. + +The panic of 1837 was one of those periodic financial and industrial +convulsions resulting from the chaos of capitalist administration. No +sooner had it commenced, than the banks refused to pay out any money, +other than their worthless notes. For thirty-three years they had not +only enjoyed immense privileges, but they had used the powers of +Government to insure themselves a monopoly of the business of +manufacturing money. In 1804 the Legislature of New York State had +passed an extraordinary law, called the restraining act. This +prohibited, under severe penalties, all associations and individuals not +only from issuing notes, but "from receiving deposits, making discounts +or transacting any other business which incorporated banks may or do +transact." Thus the law not only legitimatized the manufacture of +worthless money, but guaranteed a few banks a monopoly of that +manufacture. Another restraining act was passed in 1818. The banks were +invested with the sovereign privilege of depreciating the currency at +their discretion, and were authorized to levy an annual tax upon the +country, nearly equivalent to the interest on $200,000,000 of deposits +and circulation. On top of these acts, the Legislature passed various +acts compelling the public authorities in New York City to deposit +public money with the Manhattan Company. This company, although, as we +have seen, expressly chartered to supply pure water to the city of New +York, utterly failed to do so; at one stage the city tried to have its +charter revoked on the ground of failure to carry out its chartered +function, but the courts decided in the company's favor.[124] + +At the outbreak of the panic of 1837, the New York banks held more than +$5,500,000 of public money. When called upon to pay only about a million +of that sum, or the premium on it, they refused. But far worse was the +experience of the general public. When they frantically besieged the +banks for their money, the bank officials filled the banks with heavily +armed guards and plug-uglies with orders to fire on the crowd in case a +rush was attempted.[125] + +In every State conditions were the same. In May, 1837, not less than +eight hundred banks in the United States suspended payment, refusing a +single dollar to the Government whose deposits of $30,000,000 they held, +and to the people in general who held $120,000,000 of their notes. No +specie whatever was in circulation. The country was deluged with small +notes, colloquially termed shinplasters. Of every form and every +denomination from the alleged value of five cents to that of five +dollars, they were issued by every business individual or corporation +for the purpose of paying them off as wages to their employees. The +worker was forced to take them for his labor or starve. Moreover, the +shinplasters were so badly printed that it was not hard to counterfeit +them. The counterfeiting of them quickly became a regular business; +immense quantities of the stuff were issued. The worker never knew +whether the bills paid him for his work were genuine or counterfeit, +although essentially there was not any great difference in basic value +between the two.[126] + + +THE RESULTING WIDESPREAD DESTITUTION. + +Now the storm broke. Everywhere was impoverishment, ruination and +beggary. Every bank official in New York City was subject to arrest for +the most serious frauds and other crimes, but the authorities took no +action. On the contrary, so complete was the dominance of the banks over +Government,[127] that they hurriedly got the Legislature to pass an act +practically authorizing a suspension of specie payments. The +consequences were appalling. "Thousands of manufacturing, mercantile, +and other useful establishments in the United States," reported a New +York Senate Committee, "have been broken down or paralyzed by the +existing crisis.... In all our great cities numerous individuals, who, +by a long course of regular business, had acquired a competency, have +suddenly been reduced, with their families to beggary."[128] New York +City was filled with the homeless and unemployed. In the early part of +1838 one-third of all the persons in New York City who subsisted by +manual labor, were wholly or substantially without employment. Not less +than 10,000 persons were in utter poverty, and had no other means of +surviving the winter than those afforded by the charity of neighbors. +The almshouses and other public and charitable institutions overflowed +with inmates, and 10,000 sufferers were still uncared for. + +The prevailing system, as was pointed out even by the conventional and +futile reports of legislative committees, was one inevitably calculated +to fill the country with beggars, vagrants and criminals. This important +fact was recognized, although in a remote way, by De Beaumont and De +Tocqueville who, however, had no fundamental understanding of the deep +causes, nor even of the meaning of the facts which they so accurately +gathered. In their elaborate work on the penitentiary system in the +United States, published in 1833, they set forth that it was their +conclusion that in the four States, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut +and Pennsylvania, the prison system of which they had fully +investigated, almost all of those convicted for crimes from 1800 to 1830 +were convicted for offenses against property. In these four States, +collectively, with a population amounting to one-third of that of the +Union, not less than 91.29 out of every 100 convictions were for crimes +against property, while only 8.66 of every 100 were for crimes against +persons, and 4.05 of every 100 were for crimes against morals. In New +York State singly, 93.56 of every 100 convictions were for crimes +against property and 6.26 for crimes against persons.[129] + + +PROPERTY AND CRIME. + +Thus we see from these figures filled with such tragic eloquence, the +economic impulse working at bottom, and the property system corrupting +every form of society. But here a vast difference is to be noted. Just +as in England the aristocracy for centuries had made the laws and had +enforced the doctrine that it was they who should wield the police power +of the State, so in the United States, to which the English system of +jurisprudence had been transplanted, the propertied interests, +constituting the aristocracy, made and executed the laws. De Beaumont +and De Tocqueville passingly observed that while the magistrates in the +United States were plebeian, yet they followed out the old English +system; in other words, they enforced laws which were made for, and by, +the American aristocracy, the trading classes. + +The views, aims and interests of these classes were so thoroughly +intrenched in law that the fact did not escape the keen notice of these +foreign investigators. "The Americans, descendants of the English," they +wrote, "have provided in every respect for the rich and hardly at all +for the poor.... In the same country where the complainant is put in +prison, the thief remains at liberty, if he can find bail. Murder is the +only crime whose authors are not protected[130].... The mass of lawyers +see in this nothing contrary to their ideas of justice and injustice, +nor even to their democratic institutions."[131] + + +THE SYSTEM--HOW IT WORKED. + +The system, then, frequently forced the destitute into theft and +mendicancy. What resulted? Laws, inconceivably harsh and brutal, enacted +by, and in behalf of, property rights were enforced with a rigor which +seems unbelievable were it not that the fact is verified by the records +of thousands of cases. Those convicted for robbery usually received a +life sentence; they were considered lucky if they got off with five +years. The ordinary sentence for burglary was the same, with variations. +Forgery and grand larceny were punishable with long terms, ranging from +five to seven years. These were the laws in practically all of the +States with slight differences. But they applied to whites only. The +negro slave criminal had a superior standing in law, for the simple +reason that while the whites were "free" labor, negroes were property, +and, of course, it did not pay to send slaves to prison. In Maryland and +in most Southern States, where the slaveholders were both makers and +executors of law, the slaves need have no fear of prison. "The slaves, +as we have seen before, are not subject to the Penal Code of the +whites; they are hardly ever sent to prison. Slaves who commit grave +crimes are hung; those who commit heinous crimes not punishable with +death are sold out of the State. In selling him care is taken that his +character and former life are not known, _because it would lessen his +price_." Thus wrote De Beaumont and De Tocqueville; and in so writing +they handed down a fine insight into the methods of that Southern +propertied class which assumed so exalted an opinion of its honor and +chivalry. + +But the sentencing of the criminal was merely the beginning of a weird +life of horror. It was customary at that period to immure prisoners in +solitary confinement. There, in their small and reeking cells, filled +with damps and pestilential odors, they were confined day after day, +year after year, condemned to perpetual inactivity and silence. If they +presumed to speak, they were brutally lashed with the whip. They were +not allowed to write letters, nor to communicate with any member of +their family. But the law condescended to allow a minister to visit them +periodically in order to awaken their religious thoughts and preach to +them how bad a thing it was to steal! Many were driven stark mad or died +of disease; others dashed their brains out; while others, when finally +released, went out into the world filled with an overpowering hatred of +Society, and all its institutions, and a long-cherished thirst for +vengeance against it for having thus so cruelly misused them. + +Such were the laws made by the propertied classes. But they were not +all. When a convict was released, the law allowed only three dollars to +be given him to start anew with. "To starve or to steal is too often the +only alternative," wrote John W. Edmonds, president of the New York +board of prison inspectors in 1844.[132] If the released convict did +steal he was nearly always sent back to prison for life. + +Equally severe in their way were the laws applying to mendicants and +vagrants. Six months or a year in the penitentiary or workhouse was the +usual sentence. After the panic of 1837, crime, mendicancy, vagrancy and +prostitution tremendously increased, as they always do increase after +two events: war, which, when over, turns into civil life a large number +of men who cannot get work; and panics which chaotically uproot +industrial conditions and bring about widespread destitution. Although +undeniably great frauds had been committed by the banking class, not a +single one of that class went to jail. But large numbers of persons +convicted of crimes against property, and great batches of vagrants were +dispatched there, and also many girls and women who had been hurled by +the iron force of circumstances into the horrible business of +prostitution. + +These were some of the conditions in those years. Let it not, however, +be supposed that the traders, bankers and landowners were impervious to +their own brand of sensibilities. They dressed fastidiously, went to +church, uttered hallelujahs, gave dainty receptions, formed associations +to dole out alms and--kept up prices and rents. Notwithstanding the +general distress, rents in New York City were greater than were paid in +any other city or village upon the globe.[133] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[112] Hammond's "Political History of the State of New York," 1:129-130. + +[113] Journal of the [New York] Senate and Assembly, 1803:351 and 399. + +[114] Ibid., 1812:134. + +[115] Ibid., 1812:259-260. Frequently, in those days, the giving of +presents was a part of corrupt methods. + +[116] "The members [of the Legislature] themselves sometimes +participated in the benefits growing out of charters created by their +own votes; ... if ten banks were chartered at one session, twenty must +be chartered the next, and thirty the next. The cormorants could never +be gorged. If at one session you bought off a pack of greedy lobby +agents ... they returned with increased numbers and more voracious +appetite."--Hammond, ii:447-448. + +[117] Journal of the [New York] Senate, 1824:1317-1350. See also Chap. +VIII, Part II of this work. + +[118] "Letter and Authentic Documentary Evidence in Relation to the +Trinity Church Property," etc., Albany, 1855. Hoffman, the best +authority on the subject, says in his work published forty-five years +ago: "Very extensive searches have proved unavailing to enable me to +trace the sources of the title to much of this upper portion of Trinity +Church property."--"State and Rights of the Corporation of New York," +ii:189. + +[119] In all of the official communications of Trinity Church up to 1867 +this lease is referred to as the "Burr or Astor Lease."--"The +Communication of the Rector, Church Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity +Church in the city of New York in reply to a resolution of the House, +passed March 4, 1854"; Document No. 130, Assembly Docs. 1854. Also +Document No. 45, Senate Docs. 1856. Upon returning from exile Burr tried +to break his lease to Astor, but the lease was so astutely drawn that +the courts decided in Astor's favor. + +[120] In his descriptive work on New York City of a half century ago, +Matthew Hale Smith, in "Sunshine and Shadow in New York" (pp. 121-122), +tells this story: "The Morley [Mortier] lease was to run until 1867. +Persons who took the leases supposed that they took them for the full +term of the Trinity lease. [John Jacob] Astor was too far-sighted and +too shrewd for that. Every lease expired in 1864, leaving him [William +B. Astor, the founder's heir] the reversion for three years, putting him +in possession of all the buildings, and all of the improvements made on +the lots, and giving him the right of renewal." Smith's account is +faulty. Most of the leases expired in 1866. The value of the reversions +was very large. + +[121] Docs. No. 130 [New York] Assembly Docs., 1854:22-23. + +[122] Journal of the [New York] Senate, Forty-second Session, +1819:67-70. + +[123] Doc. No. 108, [New York] Senate Documents, 1834, Vol. ii. The +committee stated that banks in the State outside of New York City, after +paying all expenses, divided 11 per cent. among the stockholders in 1833 +and had on hand as surplus capital 16 per cent. on their capital. New +York City banks paid larger dividends. + +[124] People of the State of New York vs. Manhattan Co.--Doc. No. 62, +Documents of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, 1832-33, Vol. ii. + +[125] Doc. No. 68 [New York] Senate Docs., 1838, Vol. ii. + +[126] Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, +xiii:426-427. + +[127] In the course of this work, the word Government is frequently used +to signify not merely the functions of the National Government, but +those of the totality of Government, State and municipal, not less than +National. + +[128] Doc. No. 49 [New York] Senate Docs., 1838, Vol. ii. + +[129] "On the Penitentiary System in the United States," etc., by G. De +Beaumont and A. De Tocqueville, Appendix 17, Statistical Notes: 244-245. + +[130] A complete error. Walling, for more than thirty years +Superintendent of Police of New York City, says in his "Memoirs" that he +never knew an instance of a rich murderer who was hanged or otherwise +executed. And have we all not noted likewise? + +[131] "On the Penitentiary System," etc., 184-185. + +[132] Prison Association of New York, Annual Reports, 1844-46. It is +characteristic of the origin of all of these charity associations, that +many of the founders of this prison association were some of the very +men who had profited by bribery and theft. Horace Greeley was actuated +by pure humanitarian motives, but such incorporators as Prosper Wetmore, +Ulshoeffer, and others were, or had been, notorious in lobbying by +bribing bank charters through the New York Legislature. + +[133] "The New Yorker," Feb. 17, 1838. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MOMENTUM OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +It was at this identical time, in the panic of 1837, that Astor was +phenominally active in profiting from despair. "He added immensely to +his riches," wrote a contemporaneous narrator, "by purchases of State +stocks, bonds and mortgages in the financial crisis of 1836-37. He was a +willing purchaser of mortgages from needy holders at less than their +face; and when they became due, he foreclosed on them, and purchased the +mortgaged property at the ruinous prices which ranged at that +time."[134] + +If his seven per cent was not paid at the exact time, he inflexibly made +use of every provision of the law and foreclosed mortgages. The courts +quickly responded. To lot after lot, property after property, he took +full title. The anguish of families, the sorrow and suffering of the +community, the blank despair and ruination which drove many to beggary +and prostitution, others to suicide, all had no other effect upon him +than to make him more eagerly energetic in availing himself of the +misfortunes and the tragedies of others. + +Now was observable the operation of the centripetal principle which +applied to every recurring panic, namely, that panics are but the easy +means by which the very rich are enabled to get possession of more and +more of the general produce and property. The ranks of petty landowners +were much thinned out by the panic of 1837 and the number of independent +business men was greatly reduced; a considerable part of both classes +were forced down into the army of wageworkers. + + +ASTOR'S WEALTH MULTIPLIES. + +Within a few years after the panic of 1837 Astor's wealth multiplied to +an enormous extent. Business revived, values increased. It was now that +immigration began to pour in heavily. In 1843 sixty thousand immigrants +entered the port of New York. Four years later the number was 129,000 a +year. Soon it rose to 300,000 a year; and from that time on kept on ever +increasing. A large portion of these immigrants remained in New York +City. Land was in demand as never before; fast and faster the city grew. +Vacant lots of a few years before became congested with packed humanity; +landlordism and slums flourished side by side, the one as a development +of the other. The outlying farm, rocky and swamp lands of the New York +City of 1812, with its 100,000 population became the thickly-settled +metropolis of 1840, with 317,712 inhabitants and the well-nigh +half-million population of 1850. Hard as the laborer might work, he was +generally impoverished for the reason that successively rents were +raised, and he had to yield up more and more of his labor for the simple +privilege of occupying an ugly and cramped habitation. + +Once having fastened his hold upon the land, Astor never sold it. From +the first, he adopted the plan, since religiously followed, for the most +part, by his descendants, of leasing the land for a given number of +years, usually twenty-one. Large tracts of land in the heart of the +city he let lie unimproved for years while the city fast grew up all +around them and enormously increased their value. He often refused to +build, although there was intense pressure for land and buildings. His +policy was to wait until the time when those whom necessity drove to use +his land should come to him as supplicants and accept his own terms. For +a considerable time no one cared to take his land on lease at his +onerous terms. But, finally, such was the growth of population and +business, that his land was indispensable and it was taken on +leaseholds. + +Astor's exactions for leaseholds were extraordinarily burdensome. But he +would make no concessions. The lessee was required to erect his dwelling +or business place at his own expense; and during the period of the +twenty-one years of the lease, he not only had to pay rent in the form +of giving over to Astor five or six per cent of the value of the land, +but was responsible for all taxes, repairs and all other charges. When +the ground lease expired the buildings became Astor's absolute property. +The middleman landlord, speculative lessee or trading tenant who leased +Astor's land and put up tenements or buildings, necessarily had to +recoup himself for the high tribute that he had to pay to Astor. He did +this either by charging the worker exorbitant rents or demanding +excessive profits for his wares; in both of which cases the producers +had finally to foot the bill. + + +EVASION OF ASSESSMENTS BY THE LANDLORDS. + +The whole machinery of the law Astor, in common with all other +landlords, used ruthlessly in enforcing his rights as landlord or as +lessor or lessee. Not a single instance has come down of any act of +leniency on Astor's part in extending the time of tenants in arrears. +Whether sickness was in the tenant's family or not, however dire its +situation might be, out it was summarily thrown into the streets, with +its belongings, if it failed in the slightest in its obligations. + +While he was availing himself of the rigors of the law to oust tenants +in arrears, he was constantly violating the law in evading assessments. +But this practice was not by any means peculiar to Astor. Practically +the whole propertied class did it, not merely once, but so continually +that year after year official reports adverted to the fact. An +Aldermanic report on taxation in 1846 showed that thirty million dollars +worth of assessable property escaped taxation every year, and that no +bona fide efforts were made by the officials to remedy that state of +affairs.[135] The state of morality among the propertied classes--those +classes which demanded such harsh laws for the punishment of vagrants +and poor criminals--is clearly revealed by this report made by a +committee of the New York Board of Aldermen in 1847: + + For several years past the evasion of taxation on the part of + those engaged in the business of the city, and enjoying the + protection and benefits of its municipal government and its great + public improvements, has engaged the attention of the city + authorities, called forth reports of committees and caused + application to the Legislature for relief, but the demands of + justice and the dictates of sound policy have hitherto been + entirely unheeded. + +Necessarily they were unheeded, for the very obvious reason that it was +this same class which controlled the administration of government. This +class distorted the powers of government by calling either for the +drastic enforcement of laws operating for its interests, or for the +partial or entire immunity from other laws militating against its +interests and profit. The report thus continued: + + Our rich merchants and heavy capitalists ... find excuses to + remove their families to nearby points and thus escape all + taxation whatever, except for the premises that they occupy. _More + than 2,000 firms engaged in business_ in New York, whose capital + is invested and used in New York, and with an aggregate personal + property of $30,000,000, thus escape taxation.[136] + + +DEFRAUDING A FINE ART. + +The committee pointed out that at the taxable rate of 1 per cent the +city was, in that way, being cheated out of the sum of $225,000 or +$300,000 a year. These two thousand firms who every year defrauded the +city were the eminently respectable and influential merchants of the +city; most of them were devout church members; many were directors or +members of charitable societies to relieve the poor; and all of them, +with vast pretensions of superior character and ability, joined in +opposing any movement of the working classes for better conditions and +in denouncing those movements as hostile to the security of property and +as dangerous to the welfare of society. Each of these two thousand firms +year after year defrauded the city out of an average of $150 annually in +that one item, not to mention other frauds. Yet not once was the law +invoked against them. The taxation that they shirked fell upon the +working class in addition to all of those other myriad forms of indirect +taxation which the workers finally had to bear. Yet, as we have noted +before, if a poor man or woman stole property of the value of $25 or +more, conviction carried with it a long term in prison for grand +larceny. In every city--in Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Baltimore, +New Orleans and in every other place--the same, or nearly the same, +conditions prevailed. The rich evaded taxation; and if in the process it +was necessary to perjure themselves, they committed perjury with +alacrity. Astor was far from being an exception. He was but an +illustrious type of the whole of his class. + +But, how, in a Government theoretically democratic and resting on +popular suffrage, did the propertied interests get control of Government +functions? How were they able to sway the popular vote and make, or +evade, laws? + +By various influences and methods. In the first place, the old English +ideas of the superiority of aristocracy had a profound effect upon +American thought, customs and laws. For centuries these ideas had been +incessantly disseminated by preachers, pamphleteers, politicians, +political economists and editors. Where in England the concept applied +mainly to rank by birth, in America it was adapted to the native +aristocracy, the traders and landowners. In England it was an admixture +of rank and property; in America, where no titles of nobility existed, +it became exclusively a token of the propertied class. The people were +assiduously taught in many open and subtle ways to look up to the +inviolability of property, just as in the old days they had been taught +to look humbly up to the majesty of the king. Propertied men, it was +preached and admonished, represented the worth, stability, virtue and +intelligence of the community. They were the solid, substantial men. +What importance was to be attached to the propertyless? They, forsooth, +were regarded as irresponsible and vulgar; their opinions and +aspirations were held of small account. + + +HOW PUBLIC OPINION WAS MADE. + +The churches professed to preach to all; yet they depended largely upon +men of property for contributions; and moreover the clergy, at least the +influential of them, were propertied men themselves. The preachings of +the colleges and the doctrines of the political economists corresponded +precisely to the views the trading interests at different periods wanted +taught. Many of the colleges were founded with funds contributed or +bequeathed by traders. The newspapers were supported by the +advertisements of the propertied class. The various legislative bodies +were mainly, and the judicial benches wholly, recruited from the ranks +of the lawyer class; these lawyers either had, or sought to have, the +rich as clients;[137] few attorneys are overzealous for poor men's +cases. Still further, the lawyers were deeply impregnated, not with the +conception of law as it might be, but as it had been handed down through +the centuries. Encrusted creatures of precedent and self-interest, they +thoroughly accepted the doctrine that in the making and enforcement of +law their concern should be for the propertied interests. With few +exceptions they were aligned with the propertied. + +So that here were many influences all of which conspired to spread on +every hand, and drill deep in the minds of all classes, often even of +those who suffered so keenly by prevalent conditions, the idea that the +propertied men were the substantial element. Consequently with this idea +continuously driven into every stratum of society, it was not surprising +that it should be embodied in thoughts, customs, laws and tendencies. +Nor was it to be wondered at that when occasionally a proletarian +uprising enunciated radical principles, these principles should seem to +be abnormally ultra-revolutionary. All society, for the most part, +except a fragment of the working class, was enthralled by the spell of +property. + + +THE SANCTITY OF PROPERTY. + +Out of this prevailing idea grew many of the interpretations and partial +enforcements. A legislator, magistrate or judge might be the very +opposite of venal, and yet be irresistibly impelled by the force of +training and association to take the current view of the unassailable +rights and superiority of property. It would be biassed, in fact, +ridiculous to say that the privileges and exemptions enjoyed by the rich +were altogether the outcome of corruption by bribes. There is a much +more subtle and far more effective and dangerous form of corruption. +This is corruption of the mind. For innumerable centuries all government +had proceeded, perhaps not avowedly, but in reality, upon the settled +and consistent principle that the sanctity of property was superior to +considerations of human life, and that a man of property could not very +well be a criminal and a peril to the community. Under various disguises +church, college, newspaper, politician, judge, all were expositors of +this principle. + +The people were drugged with laudations of property. But these teachings +were supplemented by other methods which added to their effectiveness. +We have seen how after the Revolution the propertied classes withheld +suffrage from those who lacked property. They feared that property would +no longer be able to dominate Government. Gradually they were forced to +yield to the popular demand and allow manhood suffrage. This seemed to +them a new and affrighting force; if votes were to determine the +personnel and policy of Government, then the propertyless, being in the +majority, would overwhelm them eventually and pass an entirely new code +of laws. + +In one State after another, the propertied class were driven, after a +prolonged struggle, to grant citizens a vote, whether they had property +or not. In New York State unqualified manhood suffrage was adopted in +1822, but in other States it was more difficult to bring about this +revolutionary change. The fundamental suffrage law of New Jersey, for +instance, remained, for more than sixty years after the adoption of the +Declaration of Independence, in accordance with an act passed by the +Provincial Congress of New Jersey on July 2, 1776, two days before the +adoption of the Declaration of Independence, or according to some +authorities, on the very day of its adoption. Among other requirements +this act (1 Laws, N. J. p. 4.) decreed that the voter must be "worth L50 +proclamation money, clear estate within the colony." The fourth section +of an act passed by the New Jersey Legislature in June, 1820 (1 Laws +N. J. p. 741), expressly reenacted this same property qualification. By +about the year 1840, however, nearly all the States had adopted manhood +suffrage, so far as it applied to whites. The severest and most dramatic +conflict took place in Rhode Island. In 1762 an act had been passed +declaring that the possession of L40 was necessary to become qualified +as a voter. This law continued in force in Rhode Island for more than +eighty years. In the years 1811, 1819, 1824, 1829, 1832 and 1834 the +workingmen (or the mechanics, as the official reports styled them), made +the most determined efforts to have this property qualification +abolished, but the propertied classes, holding the legislative power, +declined to make any change. Under such a law it was easy for one-third +of the total number of resident male adults to have the exclusive +decisions in elections; the largest vote ever polled in Rhode Island, +was in the Presidential election of 1840, when 8,662 votes were cast, in +a total adult male population of permanent resident citizens of about +24,000. The result of this hostility of the propertied classes was a +rising in 1840 of the workingmen in what is slurringly misdescribed in +conventional history as "Dorr's Rebellion,"--an event the real history +of which has not as yet been told. This movement eventually compelled +the introduction in Rhode Island of suffrage without the property +qualification. + +How did the propertied classes meet this extension of suffrage +throughout the United States? + + +CORRUPTION AT THE POLLS. + +A systematic corruption of the voters was now begun. The policy of +bribing certain legislators to vote for bank, railroad, insurance +company and other charters was extended to reach down into ward +politics, and to corrupt the voters at the springs of power. With a +part of the money made in the frauds of trade or from exactions for +land, the propertied interests, operating at first by personal entry +into politics and then through the petty politicians of the day, packed +caucuses and primaries and bought votes at the polls. This was equally +true of both city and rural communities. In many of the rural sections +the morals of the people were exceedingly low, despite their +church-going habits. The cities contained, as they always do contain, a +certain quota of men, products of the industrial system, men of the +slums and alleyways, so far gone in destitution or liquor that they no +longer had manhood or principle. Along came the election funds of the +traders, landholders and bankers to corrupt these men still further by +the buying of their votes and the inciting of them to commit the crime +of repeating at the polls. Exalted society and the slums began to work +together; the money of the one purchased the votes of the other. Year +after year this corruption fund increased until in the fall of 1837 the +money raised in New York City by the bankers alone amounted to $60,000. +Although this sum was meager compared to the enormous corruption funds +which were employed in subsequent years, it was a sum which, at that +time, could do great execution. Ignorant immigrants were persuaded by +offerings of money to vote this way or that and to repeat their votes. +Presently the time came when batches of convicts were brought from the +prisons to do repeating, and overawe the polls in many precincts.[138] + +As for that class of voters who could not be bribed and who voted +according to their conceptions of the issues involved, they were +influenced in many ways:--by the partisan arguments of newspapers and of +political speech-makers. These agencies of influencing the body politic +were indirectly controlled by the propertied interests in one form or +another. A virtual censorship was exercised by wealth; if a newspaper +dared advocate any issue not approved by the vested interests, it at +once felt the resentment of that class in the withdrawal of +advertisements and of those privileges which banks could use or abuse +with such ruinous effect. + + +POLITICAL SUBSERVIENCY. + +Finally, both of the powerful political parties were under the +domination of wealth; not, to be sure, openly so, but insidiously. +Differences of issue there assuredly were, but these issues did not in +any way affect the basic structure of society, or threaten the overthrow +of any of the fundamental privileges held by the rich. The political +campaigns, except that later contest which decided the eventual fate of +chattel slavery, were, in actuality, sham battles. Never were the masses +so enthusiastic since the campaign of 1800 when Jefferson was elected, +as they were in 1832 when they sided with President Jackson in his fight +against the United States Bank. They considered this contest as one +between the people, on the one side, and, on the other, the monied +aristocracy of the country. The United States Bank was effaced; but the +State banks promptly took over that share of the exploitative process so +long carried on by the United States Bank and the people, as has already +been explained, were no better off than they were before. One set of +ruling capitalists had been put down only to make way for another. + +Both parties received the greater part of their campaign funds from the +men of large property and from the vested corporations or other similar +interests. Astor, for example, was always a liberal contributor, now to +the Whig party and again to the Democratic. In return, the politicians +elected by those parties to the legislature, the courts or to +administrative offices usually considered themselves under obligations +to that element which financed its campaigns and which had the power of +defeating their reelection by the refusal of funds or by supporting the +opposite party. The masses of the people were simply pawns in these +political contests, yet few of them understood that all the excitement, +partisan activity and enthusiasm into which they threw themselves, +generally had no other significance than to enchain them still faster to +a system whose beneficiaries were continuously getting more and more +rights and privileges for themselves at the expense of the people, and +whose wealth was consequently increasing by precipitate bounds. + + +ASTOR BECOMES AMERICA'S RICHEST MAN. + +Astor was now the richest man in America. In 1847 his fortune was +estimated at fully $20,000,000. In all the length and breadth of the +United States there was no man whose fortune was within even +approachable distance of his. With wonderment his contemporaries +regarded its magnitude. How great it ranked at that period may be seen +by a contrast with the wealth of other men who were considered very +rich. + +In 1847 and 1852 a pamphlet listing the number of rich men in New York +was published under the direction of Moses Yale Beach, publisher of the +"New York Sun." The contents of this pamphlet were vouched for as +strictly accurate.[139] The pamphlet showed that there were at that time +perhaps twenty-five men in New York City who were ranked as +millionaires. The most prominent of these were Peter Cooper with an +accredited fortune of $1,000,000; the Goelets, $2,000,000; the +Lorillards, $1,000,000; Moses Taylor, $1,000,000; A. T. Stewart, +$2,000,000; Cornelius Vanderbilt, $1,500,000, and William B. Crosby, +$1,500,000. There were a few fortunes of $500,000 each, and several +hundred ranging from $100,000 to $300,000. The average fortunes graded +from $100,000 to $200,000. A similar pamphlet published in Philadelphia +showed that that city contained a bevy of nine millionaires, only two of +whose individual fortunes exceeded $1,000,000.[140] No facts are +available as to the private fortunes in Boston and other cities. +Occasionally the briefest mention would appear in the almanacs of the +period of the death of this or that rich man. There is a record of the +death of Alexander Milne, of New Orleans, in 1838 and of his bequest of +$200,000 to charitable institutions, and of the death of M. Kohne, of +Charleston, S. C., in the same year with the sole fact that he left +$730,000 in charitable bequests. In 1841 there appeared a line that +Nicholas Girod, of New Orleans, died leaving $400,000 to "various +objects," and a scant notice of the death of William Bartlett, of +Newburyport, Mass., coupled with the fact that he left $200,000 to +Andover Seminary. It is entirely probable that none of these men were +millionaires; otherwise the fact would have been brought out +conspicuously. Thus, when Pierre Lorillard, a New York snuff maker, +banker, and landholder, died in 1843, his fortune of $1,000,000 or so, +was considered so unusual that the word millionaire, newly-coined, was +italicized in the rounds of the press. Similarly in the case of Jacob +Ridgeway, a Philadelphia millionaire, who died in the same year. + +The passing away now of a man worth a mere million, calls forth but a +trifling, passing notice. Yet when Henry Brevoort died in New York City +in 1848, his demise was accounted an event in the annals of the day. His +property was estimated at a valuation of about $1,000,000, the chief +source of which came from the ownership of eleven acres of land in the +heart of the city. Originally his ancestors cultivated a truck farm and +ran a dairy on this land, and daily in the season carried vegetables, +butter and milk to market. Brevoort, the newspaper biography read, was a +"man of fine taste in painting, literature and intellectual pursuits of +every kind. He owned a large property in the fashionable part of the +city, where he erected a splendid house, elegantly adorned and furnished +in the Italian style; for he was quite a connoisseur in the arts." + +It can be at once seen in what transcendent degree Astor's wealth +towered far above that of every other rich man in the United States. + + +ASTOR'S TOWERING WEALTH. + +His fortune was the colossus of the times; an object of awe to all +wealth-strivers. Necessary as manufactures were in the social and +industrial system, they, as yet, occupied a strikingly subordinate and +inferior position as an agency in accumulating great fortunes. +Statistics issued in 1844 of manufactures in the United States showed a +total gross amount of $307,196,844 invested. Astor's wealth, then, was +one-fifteenth of the whole amount invested throughout the territory of +the United States in cotton and wool, leather, flax and iron, glass, +sugar, furniture, hats, silks, ships, paper, soap, candles, wagons--in +every kind of goods which the demands of civilization made +indispensable. + +The last years of this magnate were passed in an atmosphere of luxury, +laudation and power. On Broadway, by Prince street, he built a +pretentious mansion, and adorned it with works of art which were more +costly than artistic. Of medium height, he was still quite stout, but +his once full, heavy face and his deep set eyes began to sag from the +encroachments of extreme advanced age. He could be seen every weekday +poring over business reports at his office on Prince street--a +one-story, fireproof brick building, the windows of which were guarded +by heavy iron bars. The closing weeks of his life were passed at his +country seat at Eighty-eighth street and the East River. Infirm and +debilitated, so weak and worn that he was forced to get his nourishment +like an infant at a woman's breast, and to have exercise administered by +being tossed in a blanket, he yet retained his faculty of vigilantly +scrutinizing every arrear on the part of tenants, and he compelled his +agent to render daily accounts. Parton relates this story: + + One morning this gentleman [the agent] chanced to enter his room + while he was enjoying his blanket exercise. The old man cried out + from the middle of his blanket: + + "Has Mrs. ---- paid that rent yet?" + + "No," replied the agent. + + "Well, but she must pay it," said the poor old man. + + "Mr. Astor," rejoined the agent, "she can't pay it now; she has + had misfortunes, and we must give her time." + + "No, no," said Astor; "I tell you she can pay it and she will pay + it. You don't go the right way to work with her." + + The agent took leave, and mentioned the anxiety of the old + gentleman with regard to this unpaid rent to his son, who counted + out the requisite sum, and told the agent to give it to the old + man, as if he had received it from the tenant. + + "There," exclaimed Mr. Astor when he received the money. "I told + you that she would pay it if you went the right way to work with + her."[141] + + +THE DEATH OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR. + +So, to the last breath, squeezing arrears out of tenants; his mind +focused upon those sordid methods which had long since become a religion +to him; contemplating the long list of his possessions with a radiant +exaltation; so Astor passed away. He died on March 29, 1848, aged +eighty-four years, four months; and almost as he died, the jubilant +shouts of the enthusiastic workingmen's processions throughout the city +resounded high and often. They were celebrating the French Revolution of +1848, intelligence of which had just arrived;--a Revolution brought +about by the blood of the Parisian workingmen, only to be subsequently +stifled by the stratagems of the bourgeoisie and turned into the +corrupt despotism of Napoleon III. + +The old trader left an estate valued at about $20,000,000. The bulk of +this descended to William B. Astor. The extent of wealth disclosed by +the will made a profound impression. Never had so rich a man passed +away; the public mind was not accustomed to the sight of millions of +dollars being owned by one man. One New York newspaper, the "Journal," +after stating that Astor's personal estate amounted to seven or nine +million dollars, and his real estate to perhaps more, observed: "Either +sum is quite out of our small comprehension; and we presume that with +most men, the idea of one million is about as large an item as that of +any number of millions." An entirely different and exceptional view was +taken by James Gordon Bennett, owner and editor of the New York +"Herald;" Bennett's comments were the one distinct contrast to the mass +of flowery praise lavished upon Astor's memory and deeds. He thus +expressed himself in the issue of April 5, 1848: + + We give in our columns an authentic copy of one of the greatest + curiosities of the age--the will of John Jacob Astor, disposing of + property amounting to about twenty million dollars, among his + various descendants of the first, second, third, and fourth + degrees.... If we had been an associate of John Jacob Astor ... + the first idea that we should have put into his head would have + been that _one-half of his immense property--ten millions at + least--belonged to the people of the city of New York_. During the + last fifty years of the life of John Jacob Astor, his property has + been augmented and increased in value by the aggregate + intelligence, industry, enterprise and commerce of New York, fully + to the amount of one-half its value. The farms and lots of ground + which he bought forty, twenty and ten and five years ago, have all + increased in value entirely by the industry of the citizens of New + York. Of course, it is plain as that two and two make four, that + the half of his immense estate, in its actual value, has accrued + to him by the industry of the community. + + +THE WONDER OF THE AGE. + +The analyst might well be tempted to smile at the puerility of this +logic. If Astor was entitled to one-half of the value created by the +collective industry of the community, why was he not entitled to all? +Why make the artificial division of one-half? Either he had the right to +all or to none. But this editorial, for all its defects of reasoning, +was an unusual expression of newspaper opinion, although of a single +day, and was smothered by the general course of that same newspaper in +supporting the laws and institutions demanded by the commercial +aristocracy. + +So the arch multimillionaire passed away, the wonder and the emulation +of the age. His friends, of whom he had a few, deeply mourned him, and +his bereaved family suffered a deep loss, for, it is related, he was a +kind and indulgent husband and father. He left a legacy of $400,000 for +the establishment of the Astor Library; for this and this alone his +memory has been preserved as that of a philanthropist. The announcement +of this legacy was hailed with extravagant joy; yet such is the value of +meretricious glory and the ideals of present society, that none has +remarked that the proceeds of one year's pillage of the Indians were +more than sufficient to found this much-praised benevolence. Thus does +society blind itself to the origin of the fortunes, a fraction of which +goes to gratify it with gifts. The whole is taken from the collective +labor of the people, and then a part is returned in the form of +institutional presents which are in reality bits of charity bestowed +upon the very people from whose exploitation the money has come. Astor, +no doubt, thought that, in providing for a public library, he was doing +a service to mankind; and he must be judged, not according to the +precepts and demands of the scarcely heard working class of his day with +its altruistic aspirations, nor of more advanced present ideas, but by +the standards of his own class, that commercial aristocracy which +arrogated to itself superiority of aims and infallibility of methods. + +He died the richest man of his day. But vast fortunes could not be +heaped up by him and his contemporaries without having their +corresponding effect upon the mass of the people. What was this effect? +At about the time that he died there was in New York City one pauper to +every one hundred and twenty-five inhabitants and one person in every +eighty-three of the population had to be supported at the public +expense.[142] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[134] "Reminiscences of John Jacob Astor," New York "Herald," March 31, +1848. + +[135] Doc. No. 24, Proceedings of the [New York City] Board of Assistant +Aldermen, xxix. The Merchant's Bank, for instance, was assessed in 1833 +at $6,000; it had cost that sum twenty years before and in 1833 was +worth three times as much. + +[136] Proceedings of the [New York City] Board of Assistant Aldermen, +xxix, Doc. No. 18. + +[137] Many eminent lawyers, elected or appointed to high official or +judicial office, were financially interested in corporations, and very +often profited in dubious ways. The case of Roger B. Taney, who, from +1836, was for many years, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the +United States, is a conspicuous example. After he was appointed United +States Secretary of the Treasury in 1833, the United States Senate +passed a resolution inquiring of him whether he were not a stockholder +in the Union Bank of Maryland, in which bank he had ordered public funds +deposited. He admitted that he was, but asserted that he had obtained +the stock before he had selected that bank as a depository of public +funds. (See Senate Docs., First Session, 23rd Congress, Vol. iii, Doc. +No. 238.) It was Taney, who as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the +United States, handed down the decision, in the Dred Scott case, that +negro slaves, under the United States Constitution, were not eligible to +citizenship and were without civil rights. + +[138] These frauds at the polls went on, not only in every State but +even in such newly-organized Territories as New Mexico. Many facts were +brought out by contestants before committees of Congress. (See +"Contested Elections," 1834 to 1865, Second Session, 38th Congress, +1864-65, Vol. v, Doc. No. 57.) In the case of Monroe vs. Jackson, in +1848, James Monroe claimed that his opponent was illegally elected by +the votes of convicts and other non-voters brought over from Blackwell's +Island. The majority of the House Elections Committee reported favoring +Monroe's being seated. Aldermanic documents tell likewise of the same +state of affairs in New York. (See the author's "History of Tammany +Hall.") Similar practices were common in Philadelphia, Baltimore and +other cities, and in country townships. + +[139] "The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the City of +New York." By Moses Yale Beach. + +[140] "Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of Philadelphia." By +a Member of the Philadelphia Bar, 1845. + +The misconception which often exists even among those who profess the +deepest scholarship and the most certainty of opinion as to the +development of men of great wealth was instanced by a misstatement of +Dr. Felix Adler, leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. In +an address on "Anti-Democratic Tendencies in American Life" delivered +some years ago, Dr. Adler asserted: "Before the Civil War there were +three millionaires; now there are 4,000." The error of this assertion is +evident. + +[141] Parton's "Life of John Jacob Astor":80-81. + +[142] Proceedings of the Board of Assistant Aldermen, xxix, Doc. No. 24. +This poverty was the consequence, not of any one phase of the existing +system, nor of the growth of any one fortune, but resulted from the +whole industrial system. The chief form of the exploitation of the +worker was that of his capacity as a producer; other forms completed the +process. A considerable number of the paupers were immigrants, who, +fleeing from exploitation at home, were kept in poverty in America, "the +land of boundless resources." The statement often made that there were +no tramps in the United States before the Civil War is wholly incorrect. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE PROPULSION OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +At the time of his father's death, William B. Astor, the chief heir of +John Jacob Astor's twenty million dollars, was fifty-six years old. A +tall, ponderous man, his eyes were small, contracted, with a rather +vacuous look, and his face was sluggish and unimpressionable. Extremely +unsocial and taciturn, he never betrayed emotion and generally was +destitute of feeling. He took delight in affecting a carelessly-dressed, +slouchy appearance as though deliberately notifying all concerned that +one with such wealth as he was privileged to ignore the formulas of +punctilious society. In this slovenly, stoop-shouldered man with his +cold, abstracted air no one would have detected the richest man in +America. + +Acquisitiveness was his most marked characteristic. Even before his +father's death he had amassed a fortune of his own by land speculations +and banking connections, and he had inherited $500,000 from his uncle +Henry, a butcher on the Bowery. It was said in 1846 that he possessed an +individual fortune of $5,000,000. During the last years of his father he +had been president of the American Fur Co., and he otherwise knew every +detail of his father's multifarious interests and possessions. + + +WILLIAM B. ASTOR'S PARSIMONY. + +He lived in what was considered a fine mansion on Lafayette place, +adjoining the Astor Library. The sideboards were heaped with gold plate, +and polyglot servants in livery stood obediently by at all times to +respond to his merest nod. But he cared little for this show, except in +that it surrounded him with an atmosphere of power. His frugality did +not arise from wise self-control, but from his parsimonious habits. He +scanned and revised the smallest item of expense. Wine he seldom +touched, and the average merchant spent more for his wardrobe than he +did. At a time when the rich despised walking and rode in carriages +drawn by fast horses, he walked to and from his business errands. This +severe economy he not only practiced in his own house, but he carried it +into every detail of his business. Arising early in the morning, he +attended to his private correspondence before breakfast. This meal was +served punctually at 9 o'clock. Then he would stride to his office on +Prince street. A contemporary writer says of him: + + He knew every inch of real estate that stood in his name, every + bond, contract and lease. He knew what was due when leases + expired, and attended personally to the matter. No tenants could + expend a dollar, or put in a pane of glass without his personal + inspection. His father sold him the Astor House [an hotel] for the + sum of one dollar. The lessees were not allowed to spend one cent + on the building, without his supervision and consent, unless they + paid for it themselves. + + In the upper part of New York hundreds of lots can be seen + enclosed by dilapidated fences, disfigured by rocks and waste + material, or occupied as [truck] gardens. They are eligibly + located, many of them surrounded by a fashionable population.... + Mr. Astor owned most of these corner lots but kept the corners for + a rise. He would neither sell nor improve them.... He knew that no + parties can improve the center of a block without benefiting the + corners. + + He was sombre and solitary, dwelt alone, mixed little with general + society, gave little and abhorred beggars.[143] + +It was a common saying of him "when he paid out a cent he wanted a cent +in return;" and as to his abject meannesses we forbear relating the many +stories of him. He pursued, in every respect, his father's methods in +using the powers of city government to obtain valuable water grants for +substantially nothing, and in employing his surplus wealth for further +purchases of land and in investments in other profitable channels. No +scruples of any kind did he allow to interfere with his constant aim of +increasing his fortune. His indifference to compunctions was shown in +many ways, not the least in his open support of notoriously corrupt city +and State administrations. + +This corruption was by no means one existing despite him and his class, +and one that was therefore accepted grudgingly as an irremediable evil. +Far from it. Corrupt government was welcomed by the landholding, trading +and banking class, for by it they could secure with greater facility the +perpetual rights, franchises, privileges and the exemptions which were +adapted to their expanding aims and riches. By means of it they were not +only enabled to pile up greater and greater wealth, but to set +themselves up in law as a conspicuously privileged body, distinct from +the mass of the people. + + +THE PURCHASE OF LAWS. + +Publicly they might pretend a proper and ostentatious horror of +corruption. Secretly, however, they quickly dispensed with what were to +them idle dronings of political cant. As capitalists they ascribed their +success to a rigid application and practicality; and being practical +they went about purchasing laws by the most short-cut and economical +method. They had the money; the office-holders had the votes and +governmental power; consequently the one bought the other. It was a +systematic corruption springing entirely from the propertied classes; +they demanded it, were responsible for it and kept it up. It worked like +an endless chain; the land, charters, franchises and privileges +corruptly obtained in one set of years yielded vast wealth, part of +which was used in succeeding years in getting more law-created sources +of wealth. If professional politicians had long since got into the habit +of expecting to be bought, it was because the landholders, traders and +bankers had accustomed them to the lucrative business of getting bribes +in return for extraordinary laws. + +Since the men of wealth, or embryo capitalists who by hook or crook +raised the funds to bribe, were themselves ready at all times to buy +laws in common councils, legislatures and in Congress, it naturally +followed that each of them was fully as eager to participate in the +immense profits accruing from charters, franchises or special grants +obtained by others of their own class. They never questioned the means +by which these laws were put through. They did not care. The mere fact +that a franchise was put through by bribery was a trite, immaterial +circumstance. The sole, penetrating question was whether it were a +profitable project. If it were, no man of wealth hesitated in investing +his money in its stock and in sharing its revenue. It could not be +expected that he would feel moral objections, even the most attenuated, +for the chances were that while he might not have been a party to the +corrupt obtaining of this or that particular franchise, yet he was +involved in the grants of other special endowments. Moreover, money +making was not built on morality; its whole foundation and impetus lay +in the extraction of profits. Society, it is true, professed to move on +lofty moral planes, but this was a colossal pretension and nothing less. + + +THE INVERTED NATURE OF SOCIETY. + +Society--and this is a truth which held equally strong of succeeding +decades--was incongruously inverted. In saying this, the fact should not +be ignored that the capitalist, as applied to the man who ran a factory +or other enterprise, was an indigenous factor in that period, even +although the money or inventions by which he was able to do this, were +often obtained by fraud. Every needed qualification must be made for the +time and the environment, and there should be neither haste in +indiscriminately condemning nor in judging by the standards or maturity +of later generations. + +Yet, viewing society as a whole and measuring the results by the +standards and ideas then prevailing, it was undoubtedly true that those +who did the world's real services were the lowly, despoiled and much +discriminated-against mass of mankind. Their very poverty was a crime, +for after they were plundered and expropriated, either by the ruling +classes of their own country or of the United States, the laws regarded +them as semi-criminals, or, at best, as excrescences to whom short +shrift was to be given. They made the clothes, the shoes, hats, shirts, +underwear, tools, and all the other necessities that mankind required; +they tilled the ground and produced its food. Curiously enough, those +who did these indispensable things were condemned by the encompassing +system to live in the poorest and meanest habitations and in the most +precarious uncertainty. When sick, disabled or superannuated they were +cast aside by the capitalist class as so much discarded material to eke +out a prolonged misery of existence, to be thrown in penal institutions +or to starve. Substantially everywhere in the United States, vagrancy +laws were in force which decreed that an able-bodied man out of work and +homeless must be adjudged a vagrant and imprisoned in the workhouse or +penetentiary. The very law-making institutions that gave to a privileged +few the right to expropriate the property of the many, drastically +plunged the many down still further after this process of spoliation, +like a man who is waylaid and robbed and then arrested and imprisoned +because he has been robbed. + +On the other hand, the class which had the money, no matter how that +money was gotten, irrespective of how much fraud or sacrifice of life +attended its amassing, stood out with a luminous distinctness. It +arrogated to itself all that was superior, and it exacted, and was +invested with, a lordly deference. It lived in the finest mansions and +laved in luxuries. Surrounded with an indescribably pretentious air of +importance, it radiated tone, command and prestige. + +But, such was the destructive, intestinal character of competitive +warfare, that even this class was continually in the throes of +convulsive struggles. Each had to fight, not merely to get the wealth of +others, but to keep what he already possessed. If he could but frustrate +the attempts of competitors to take what he had, he was fortunate. As he +preyed upon the laborer, so did the rest of his class seek to prey upon +him. If he were less able, less cunning, or more scrupulous than they, +his ruination was certain. It was a system in which all methods were +gauged not by the best but by the worst. Thus it was that many +capitalists, at heart good men, kindly disposed and innately opposed to +duplicity and fraud, were compelled to adopt the methods of their more +successful but thoroughly unprincipled competitors. And, indeed, +realizing the impregnating nature of example and environment, one cannot +but conclude that the tragedies of the capitalist class represented so +many victims of the competitive system, the same as those among the +wageworkers, although in a very different way. Yet in this bewildering +jumble of fortune-snatching, an extraordinary circumstance failed to +impress itself upon the class which took over to itself the claim to +superior intelligence and virtue. The workers, for the most part, +instinctively, morally and intellectually, knew that this system was +wrong, a horror and a nightmare. But even the capitalist victims of the +competitive struggle, which awarded supremacy to the knave and the +trickster, went to their doom praising it as the only civilized, +rational system and as unchangeable and even divinely ordained. + + +THE PREVAILING CORRUPTION. + +If corruption was flagrant in the early decades of the nineteenth +century, it was triply so in the middle decades. This was the period of +all periods when common councils all over the country were being bribed +to give franchises for various public utility systems, and legislatures +and Congress for charters, land, money, and laws for a great number of +railroad and other projects. The numerous specific instances cannot be +adverted to here; they will be described more appropriately in +subsequent parts of this work. For the present, let this general and +sweeping observation suffice. + +The important point which here obtrudes itself is that in every case, +without an exception, the wealth amassed by fraud was used in turn to +put through more frauds, and that the net accumulation of these +successive frauds is seen in the great private fortunes of to-day. We +have seen how the original Astor fortune was largely derived by the use +of both force and fraud among the Indians, and by the exercise of +cunning and corruption in the East. John Jacob Astor's immense wealth +descends mostly to William B. Astor. In turn, one of the third +generation, John Jacob Astor, Jr., representing his father, William B. +Astor, uses a portion of this wealth in becoming a large stockholder in +the New York Central Railroad, and in corrupting the New York +Legislature still further to give enormously valuable grants and special +laws with incalculably valuable exemptions to that railroad. John Jacob +Astor, Jr., never built a railroad in his life; he knew nothing about +railroads; but by virtue of the possession of large surplus wealth, +derived mainly from rents, he was enabled to buy enough of the stock to +make him rank as a large stockholder. And, then, he with the other +stockholders, bribed the Legislature for the passage of more laws which +enormously increased the value of their stock. + +It is altogether clear from the investigations and records of the time +that the New York Central Railroad was one of the most industrious +corrupters of legislatures in the country, although this is not saying +much in dealing with a period when every State Legislature, none +excepted, was making gifts of public property and of laws in return for +bribes, and when Congress, as was proved in official investigations, was +prodigal in doing likewise.[144] + +In the fourteen years up to 1867, the New York Central Railroad +had spent upward of a half million dollars in buying laws at Albany and +in "protecting its stockholders against injurious legislation." As one +of the largest stockholders in the road John Jacob Astor, Jr., certainly +must have been one of the masked parties to this continuous saturnalia +of corruption. But the corruption, bad as it was, that took place before +1867, was rather insignificant compared to the eruption in the years +1868 and 1869. And here is to be noted a significant episode which fully +reveals how the capitalist class is ever willing to turn over the +managing of its property to men of its own class who have proved +themselves masters of the art either of corrupting public bodies, or of +making that property yield still greater profits. + + +BRIBERY AND BUSINESS. + +In control of the New York and Harlem Railroad, Cornelius Vanderbilt had +showed what a remarkably successful magnate he was in deluging +legislatures and common councils with bribe money and in getting corrupt +gifts of franchises and laws worth many hundreds of millions of dollars. +For a while the New York Central fought him; it bribed where he bribed; +when he intimidated, it intimidated. But Vanderbilt was, by far, the +abler of the two contending forces. Finally the stockholders decided +that he was the man to run their system; and on Nov. 12, 1867, John +Jacob Astor, Jr., Edward Cunard, John Steward and others, representing +more than thirteen million dollars of stock, turned the New York Central +over to Vanderbilt's management on the ground, as their letter set +forth, that the change would result in larger dividends to the +stockholders and (this bit of cant was gratuitously thrown in) "greatly +promote the interests of the public." In closing, they wrote to +Vanderbilt of "your great and acknowledged abilities." No sooner had +Vanderbilt been put in control than these abilities were preeminently +displayed by such an amazing reign of corruption and exaction, that even +a public cynically habituated to bribery and arbitrary methods, was +profoundly stirred.[145] + +It was in these identical years that the Astors, the Goelets, the +Rhinelanders and many other landholders and merchants were getting more +water grants by collusion with the various corrupt city administrations. +On June 14, 1850, William B. Astor gets a grant of land under water for +the block between Twelfth and Thirteenth streets, on the Hudson River, +at the ridiculous price of $13 per running foot.[146] William E. Dodge +likewise gets a grant on the Hudson River. Public opinion severely +condemned this practical giving away of city property, and a special +committee of the Board of Councilmen was moved to report on May 15, +1854, that "the practice of selling city property, except where it is in +evidence that it cannot be put to public use, is an error in finance +that has prevailed too frequently; indeed the experience of about eleven +years has demonstrated that sales of property usually take place about +the time it is likely to be needed for public uses, or on the eve of a +rise in value. Every pier, bulkhead and slip should have continued to be +the property of the city...."[147] + + +WATER GRANTS FROM TWEED. + +But when the Tweed "ring" came into complete power, with its unbridled +policy of accommodating anyone who could pay bribes enough, the +landowners and merchants rushed to get water grants among other special +privileges. On Dec. 27, 1865, William C. Rhinelander was presented with +a grant of land under water from Ninety-first to Ninety-fourth street, +East River.[148] On March 21, 1867, Peter Goelet obtained from the +Sinking Fund Commissioners a grant of land under water on the East River +in front of land owned by him between Eighty-first street and +Eighty-second street. The price asked was the insignificant one of $75 a +running foot.[149] The officials who made this grant were the +Controller, Richard B. Connolly, and the Street Commissioner, George W. +McLean, both of whom were arch accomplices of William M. Tweed and were +deeply involved in the gigantic thefts of the Tweed ring. The same band +of officials gave to Mrs. Laura A. Delano, a daughter of William B. +Astor, a grant from Fifty-fifth to Fifty-seventh street, Hudson River, +at $200 per running foot, and on May 21, 1867, a grant to John Jacob +Astor, Jr., of lands under water between Forty-ninth and Fifty-first +streets, Hudson River, for the trivial sum of $75 per running foot. Many +other grants were given at the same time. The public, used as it was to +corrupt government, could not stomach this granting of valuable city +property for virtually nothing. The severe criticism which resulted +caused the city officials to bend before the storm, especially as they +did not care to imperil their other much greater thefts for the sake of +these minor ones. Many of the grants were never finally issued; and +after the Tweed "ring" was expelled from power, the Commissioners of the +Sinking Fund on Feb. 28, 1882, were compelled by public agitation to +rescind most of them.[150] The grant issued to Rhinelander in 1865, +however, was one of those which was never rescinded. + +During its control of the city administration from 1868 to 1871 alone, +the Tweed "ring" stole directly from the city and county of New York a +sum estimated from $45,000,000 to $200,000,000. Henry F. Taintor, the +auditor employed by Andrew H. Green to investigate Controller Connolly's +books, testified before the special Aldermanic Committee in 1877, that +he had estimated the frauds during those three and a half years at from +$45,000,000 to $50,000,000.[151] The committee, however, evidently +thought that the thefts amounted to $60,000,000; for it asked Tweed +during the investigation whether they did not approximate that sum, to +which question he gave no definite reply. But Mr. Taintor's estimate, as +he himself admitted, was far from complete even for the three and a half +years. Matthew J. O'Rourke, who was responsible for the disclosures, and +who made a remarkably careful study of the "ring's" operations, gave it +as his opinion that from 1869 to 1871 the "ring" stole about $75,000,000 +and that he thought the total stealings from about 1865 to 1871, +counting vast issues of fraudulent bonds, amounted to $200,000,000. + + +PROFITING FROM GIGANTIC THEFTS. + +Every intelligent person knew in 1871 that Tweed, Connolly and their +associates were colossal thieves. Yet in that year a committee of New +York's leading and richest citizens, composed of John Jacob Astor, Jr., +Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, E. D. Brown, George K. Sistare and +Edward Schell, were induced to make an examination of the controller's +books and hand in a most eulogistic report, commending Connolly for his +honesty and his faithfulness to duty. Why did they do this? Because +obviously they were in underhand alliance with those political bandits, +and received from them special privileges and exemptions amounting in +value to hundreds of millions of dollars. We have seen how Connolly made +gifts of the city's property to this class of leading citizens. +Moreover, a corrupt administration was precisely what the rich wanted, +for they could very conveniently make arrangements with it to evade +personal property taxation, have the assessments on their real estate +reduced to an inconsiderable sum, and secure public franchises and +rights of all kinds. + +There cannot be the slightest doubt that the rich, as a class, were +eager to have the Tweed regime continue. They might pose as fine +moralists and profess to instruct the poor in religion and politics, but +this attitude was a fraud; they deliberately instigated, supported, and +benefited by, all of the great strokes of thievery that Tweed and +Connolly put through. Thus to mention one of many instances, the +foremost financial and business men of the day were associated as +directors with Tweed in the Viaduct Railroad. This was a project to +build a railroad on or above the ground _on any New York City street_. +One provision of the bill granting this unprecedentedly comprehensive +franchise compelled the city to take $5,000,000 of stock; another +exempted the company property from taxes or assessments. Other +subsidiary bills allowed for the benefit of the railroad the widening +and grading of streets which meant a "job" costing from $50,000,000 to +$60,000,000.[152] This bill was passed by the Legislature and signed by +Tweed's puppet Governor Hoffman; and only the exposure of the Tweed +regime a few months later prevented the complete consummation of this +almost unparalleled steal. + +Considering the fact that the richest and most influential and +respectable men were direct allies of the Tweed clique, it was not +surprising that men such as John Jacob Astor, Jr., Moses Taylor, Edward +Schell and company were willing enough to sign a testimonial certifying +to Controller Connolly's honesty. The Tweed "ring" supposed that a +testimonial signed by these men would make a great impression upon the +public. Yet, stripping away the halo which society threw about them +simply because they had wealth, these rich citizens themselves were to +be placed in even a lower category than Tweed, on the principle that the +greater the pretension, the worst in its effect upon society is the +criminal act. The Astors cheated the city out of enormous sums in real +estate and personal property taxation; Moses Taylor likewise did so, as +was clearly brought out by a Senate Investigating Committee in 1890; +Roberts had been implicated in great swindles during the Civil War; and +as for Edward Schell, he, by collusion with corrupt officials, compelled +the city to pay exorbitant sums for real estate owned by him and which +the city needed for public purposes. And further it should be pointed +out that Tweed, Connolly and Sweeny were but vulgar political thieves +who retained only a small part of their thefts. Tweed died in prison +quite poor; even the very extensive area of real estate that he bought +with stolen money vanished, one part of it going in lieu of counsel fees +to one of his lawyers, Elihu Root, United States Secretary of State +under Roosevelt.[153] Connolly fled abroad with $6,000,000 of loot and +died there, while Sweeny settled with the city for an insignificant sum. +The men who really profited directly or indirectly by the gigantic +thefts of money and the franchise, tax-exemption, and other measures put +through the legislature or common council were men of wealth in the +background, who thereby immensely increased their riches and whose +descendants now possess towering fortunes and bear names of the highest +"respectability."[154] + +The original money of the landholders came from trade; and then by a +combination of cunning, bribery, and a moiety of what was considered +legitimate investment, they became the owners of immense tracts of the +most valuable city land. The rentals from these were so great that +continuously more and more surplus wealth was heaped up. This surplus +wealth, in slight part, went to bribe representative bodies for special +laws giving them a variety of exclusive property, and another part was +used in buying stock in various enterprises the history of which reeked +with corruption. + +From being mere landholders whose possessions were confined mainly to +city land, they became part owners of railroad, telegraph, express and +other lines reaching throughout the country. So did their holdings and +wealth-producing interests expand by a cumulative and ever-widening +process. The prisons were perennially filled with convicts, nearly all +of whom had committed some crime against property, and for so doing were +put in chains behind heavy bars, guarded by rifles and great stone +walls. But the men who robbed the community of its land and its +railroads (most of which latter were built with _public_ land and money) +and who defrauded it in a thousand ways, were, if not morally +exculpated, at least not molested, and were permitted to retain their +plunder, which, to them, was the all-important thing. This plunder, in +turn, became the basis for the foundation of an aristocracy which in +time built palaces, invented impressive pedigrees and crests and +coats-of-arms, intermarried with European titles, and either owned or +influenced newspapers and journals which taught the public how it should +think and how it should act. It is one thing to commit crimes against +property, and a vastly different thing to commit crimes _in behalf_ of +property. Such is the edict of a system inspired by the sway of +property. + + +RENTALS FROM DISEASE AND DEATH. + +But the sources of the large rentals that flowed into the exchequers of +the landlords--what were they? Where did these rents, the volume of +which was so great that the surplus part of them went into other forms +of investments, come from? Who paid them and how did the tenants of +these mammoth landlords live? + +A considerable portion came from business buildings and private +residences on much of the very land which New York City once owned and +which was corruptly squirmed out of municipal ownership. For the large +rentals which they were forced to pay, the business men recouped +themselves by marking up the prices of all necessities. Another, and a +very preponderate part, came from tenement houses. Many of these were +also built on land filched from the city. And such habitations! Never +before was anything seen like them. The reports of the Metropolitan +Board of Health for 1866, 1867 and succeeding years revealed the fact +that miles upon miles of city streets were covered with densely +populated tenements, where human beings were packed in vile rooms, many +of which were dark and unventilated and which were pestilential with +disease and overflowed with deaths. In its first report, following its +organization, the Metropolitan Board of Health pointed out: + + The first, and at all times the most prolific cause of disease, + was found to be the very insalubrious condition of most of the + tenement houses in the cities of New York and Brooklyn. These + houses are generally built without any reference to the health and + comfort of the occupants, but simply with a view to economy and + profit to the owner. They are almost invariably overcrowded, and + ill-ventilated to such a degree as to render the air within them + constantly impure and offensive. + +Here follows a mass of nauseating details which for the sake of not +overshocking the reader we shall omit. The report continued: + + The halls and stairways are usually filthy and dark, and the walls + and banisters foul and damp, while the floors were not + infrequently used ... [for purposes of nature] ... for lack of + other provisions. The dwelling rooms are usually very inadequate + in size for the accommodation of their occupants, and many of the + sleeping rooms are simply closets, without light or ventilation + save by means of a single door.... Such is the character of a vast + number of tenement houses, especially in the lower part of the + city and along the eastern and western border. Disease especially + in the form of fevers of a typhoid character are constantly + present in these dwellings and every now and then become an + epidemic.[155] + +"Some of the tenements," added the report, "are owned by persons of the +highest character, but they fail to appreciate the responsibility +resting on them." This sentence makes it clear that landlords could +own, and enormously profit from, pig-sty human habitations which killed +off a large number of the unfortunate tenants, and yet these landlords +could retain, in nowise diminished, the lustre of being men "of the +highest character." Fully one-third of the deaths in New York and +Brooklyn resulted from zymotic diseases contracted in these tenements, +yet not even a whisper was heard, not the remotest suggestion that the +men of wealth who thus deliberately profited from disease and death, +were criminally culpable, although faint and timorous opinions were +advanced that they might be morally responsible. + + +HUMANITY OF NO CONSEQUENCE. + +Human life was nothing; the supremacy of the property idea dominated all +thought and all laws, not because mankind was callous to suffering, +wretchedness and legalized murder, but because thought and law +represented what the propertied interests demanded. If the proletarian +white population had been legal slaves, as the negroes in the South had +been, much consideration would have been bestowed upon their gullets and +domiciles, for then they would have been property; and who ever knew the +owner of property to destroy the article which represented money? But +being "free" men and women and children, the proletarians were simply so +many bundles of flesh whose sickness and death meant pecuniary loss to +no property-holder. Therefore casualities to them were a matter of no +great concern to a society that was taught to venerate the sacredness of +property as embodied in brick and stone walls, clothes, machines, and +furniture, which same, if inert, had the all-important virile quality of +having a cash value, which the worker had not. + +But these landlords "of the highest character" not only owned, and +regularly collected rents from, tenement houses which filled the +cemeteries, but they also resorted to the profitable business of leasing +certain tenements to middlemen who guaranteed them by lease a definite +and never-failing annual rental. Once having done this, the landlords +did not care what the middlemen did--how much rent they exacted, or in +what condition they allowed the tenements. "The middlemen," further +reported the Metropolitan Board of Health, + + are frequently of the most heartless and unscrupulous character + and make large profits by sub-letting. They leave no space + unoccupied: they rent sheds, basements and even cellars to + families and lodgers; they divide rooms by partitions, and then + place a whole family in a single room, to be used for living, + cooking, and sleeping purposes. In the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, + Tenth, and Fourteenth Wards may be found large, old fashioned + dwellings originally constructed for one family, subdivided and + sublet to such an extent that even the former sub-cellars are + occupied by two or more families. There is a cellar population of + not less than 20,000 in New York City. + +Here, again, shines forth with blinding brightness that superior +morality of the propertied classes. There is no record of a single +landlord who refused to pocket the great gains from the ownership of +tenement houses. Great, in fact, excessive gains they were, for the +landowning class considered tenements "magnificent investments" (how +edifying a phrase!) and all except one held on to them. That one was +William Waldorf Astor of the present generation, who, we are told, "sold +a million dollars worth of unpromising tenement house property in +1890."[156] What fantasy of action was it that caused William Waldorf +Astor to so depart from the accepted formulas of his class as to give up +these "magnificent investments?" Was it an abhorrence of tenements, or +a growing fastidiousness as to the methods? It is to be observed that up +to that time he and his family had tenaciously kept the revenues from +their tenements; evidently then, the source of the money was not a +troubling factor. And in selling those tenements he must have known that +his profits on the transaction would be charged by the buyers against +the future tenants and that even more overcrowding would result. What, +then, was the reason? + +About the year 1887 there developed an agitation in New York City +against the horrible conditions in tenement houses, and laws were +popularly demanded which would put a stop to them, or at least bring +some mitigation. The whole landlord class virulently combated this +agitation and these proposed laws. What happened next? Significantly +enough a municipal committee was appointed by the mayor to make an +inquiry into tenement conditions; and this committee was composed of +property owners. William Waldorf Astor was a conspicuous member of the +committee. The mockery of a man whose family owned miles of tenements +being chosen for a committee, the province of which was to find ways of +improving tenement conditions, was not lost on the public, and shouts of +derision went up. The working population was skeptical, and with reason, +of the good faith of this committee. Every act, beginning with the mild +and ineffective one of 1867, designed to remedy the appalling conditions +in tenement houses, had been stubbornly opposed by the landlords; and +even after these puerile measures had finally been passed, the landlords +had resisted their enforcement. Whether it was because of the bitter +criticisms levelled at him, or because he saw that it would be a good +time to dispose of his tenements as a money-making matter before further +laws were passed, is not clearly known. At any rate William Waldorf +Astor sold large batches of tenements. + + +AN EXALTED CAPITALIST. + +To return, however, to William B. Astor. He was the owner, it was +reckoned in 1875, of more than seven hundred buildings and houses, not +to mention the many tracts of unimproved land that he held. His income +from these properties and from his many varied lines of investments was +stupendous. Every one knew that he, along with other landlords, derived +great revenues from indescribably malodorous tenements, unfit for human +habitation. Yet little can be discerned in the organs of public opinion, +or in the sermons or speeches of the day, which showed other than the +greatest deference for him and his kind. He was looked up to as a +foremost and highly exalted capitalist; no church disdained his +gifts;[157] far from it, these were eagerly solicited, and accepted +gratefully, and even with servility. None questioned the sources of his +wealth, certainly not one of those of his own class, all of whom more or +less used the same means and who extolled them as proper, both +traditionally and legally, and as in accordance with the "natural laws" +of society. No condemnation was visited on Astor or his fellow-landlords +for profiting from such ghastly harvests of disease and death. When +William B. Astor died in 1875, at the age of eighty-three, in his sombre +brownstone mansion at Thirty-fifth street and Fifth avenue, his funeral +was an event among the local aristocracy; the newspapers published the +most extravagant panegyrics and the estimated $100,000,000 which he left +was held up to all the country as an illuminating and imperishable +example of the fortune that thrift, enterprise, perseverance, and +ability would bring. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[143] Matthew Hale Smith in "Sunshine and Shadow in New York," 186-187. + +[144] See Part III of this work, "The Great Railroad Fortunes". + +[145] See Part III, Chapters iv, v, vi, etc. + +[146] Proceedings of the [New York City] Commissioners of the Sinking +Fund, 1844-1865:213. + +[147] Doc. No. 46, Documents of the [New York City] Board of Aldermen, +xxi, Part II. + +[148] Proceedings of the [New York City] Commissioners of the Sinking +Fund, 1844-1865:734. + +[149] Ibid:865. + +[150] Proceedings of the [New York City] Sinking Fund Commission, +1882:2020-2023. + +[151] Documents of the [New York City] Board of Aldermen, 1877, Part II. +No. 8. + +[152] New York Senate Journal, 1871:482-83. + +[153] See Exhibits Doc. No. 8, Documents of the [New York City] Board of +Aldermen, 1877. + +[154] For a full account of the operations of the Tweed regime see the +author's "History of Tammany Hall." + +[155] Report of the Metropolitan Board of Health for 1866, Appendix +A:38. + +[156] "America's Successful Men of Affairs":36. + +[157] "No church disdained his gifts." The morals and methods of the +church, as exemplified by Trinity Church, were, judged by standards, +much worse than those of Astor or of his fellow-landlords or +capitalists. These latter did not make a profession of hypocrisy, at any +rate. The condition of the tenements owned by Trinity Church was as +shocking as could be found anywhere in New York City. We subjoin the +testimony given by George C. Booth of the Society for the Improvement of +the Condition of the Poor before a Senate Investigating Committee in +1885: + + Senator Plunkett: Ask him if there is not a great deal of church + influence [in politics]. + + The Witness: Yes, sir, there is Trinity Church. + + Q.: Which is the good, and which is the bad? + + A.: I think Trinity is the bad. + + Q.: Do the Trinity people own a great deal of tenement property? + + A.: Yes, sir. + + Q.: Do they comply with the law as other people do? + + A.: No, sir; that is accounted for in one way--the property is + very old and rickety, and perhaps even rotten, so that some + allowance must be made on that account. + +(Investigation of the Departments of the City of New York, by Special +Committee of the [New York] Senate, 1885, 1:193-194.) + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CLIMAX OF THE ASTOR FORTUNE + + +The impressive fortune that William B. Astor left was mainly bequeathed +in about equal parts to his sons John Jacob II. and William. These +scions, by inheritance from various family sources, intermarriage with +other rich families, or both, were already rich. Furthermore, having the +backing of their father's immense riches, they had enjoyed singularly +exceptional opportunities for amassing wealth on their own account. + +In 1853 William Astor had married one of the Schermerhorn family. The +Schermerhorns were powerful New York City landholders; and if not quite +on the same pinnacle in point of wealth as the Astors, were at any rate +very rich. The immensely valuable areas of land then held by the +Schermerhorns, and still in their possession, were largely obtained by +precisely the same means that the Astors, Goelets, Rhinelanders and +other conspicuous land families had used. + + +INTERRELATED WEALTH. + +The settled policy, from the start, of the rich men, and very greatly of +rich women, was to marry within their class. The result obviously was to +increase and centralize still greater wealth in the circumscribed +ownership of a few families. In estimating, therefore, the collective +wealth of the Astors, as in fact of nearly all of the great fortunes, +the measure should not be merely the possessions of one family, but +should embrace the combined wealth of interrelated rich families. + +The wedding of William Astor (as was that of his son John Jacob Astor +thirty-eight years later to a daughter of one of the richest landholding +families in Philadelphia) was an event of the day if one judges by the +commotion excited among what was represented as the superior class, and +the amount of attention given by the newspapers. In reality, viewing +them in their proper perspective, these marriages of the rich were +infinitesimal affairs, which would scarcely deserve a mention, were it +not for the effect that they had in centralizing wealth and for the +clear picture that they give of the ideas of the times. Posterity, which +is the true arbiter in distinguishing between the enduring and the +evanescent, the important and the trivial, rightly cares nothing for +essentially petty matters which once were held of the highest +importance. Edgar Allan Poe, wearing his life out in extreme poverty, +William Lloyd Garrison, thundering against chattel slavery from a Boston +garret, Robert Dale Owen spending his years in altruistic +endeavors--these men were contemporaries of the Astors of the second +generation. Yet a marriage among the very rich was invested by the +self-styled creators and dispensers of public opinion with far more +importance than the giving out of the world of the most splendid +products of genius or the enunciation of principles of the profoundest +significance to humanity. Yet why slur the practices of past generations +when we to-day are confronted by the same perversions? In the month of +February, 1908, for instance, several millions of men in the United +States were out of work; in destitution, because something or other +stood between them and their getting work; and consequently they and +their wives and children had to face starvation. This condition might +have been enough to shock even the most callous mind, certainly enough +to have impressed the community. But what happened? The superficial +historian of the future, who depends upon the newspapers and who gauges +his facts accordingly, will conclude that there was little or no misery +or abject want; that the people were interested in petty happenings of +no ultimate value whatsoever; that an Oriental dance and pantomime given +in New York by "society" women, led by Mrs. Waldorf Astor, where a rich +young woman reaped astonishment and admiration by coiling a live boa +constrictor around her neck, was one of the great events of the day, +because the newspapers devoted two columns to it, whereas scarcely any +mention was made of armies of men being out of work. + + +MONEY AND HUMANITY. + +As it was in 1908 so was it in the decades when the capitalists of one +kind or another were first piling up wealth; they were the weighty class +of the day; their slightest doings were chronicled, and their flimsiest +sayings were construed oracularly as those of public opinion. Numberless +people sickened and died in the industrial strife and in miserable +living quarters; ubiquitous capitalism was a battle-field strewn with +countless corpses; but none of the professed expositors of morality, +religion or politics gave heed to the wounded or the dead, or to the +conditions which produced these hideous and perpetual slaughters of men, +women and children. But to the victors, no matter what their methods +were, or how much desolation and death they left in their path, the +richest material rewards were awarded; wealth, luxury, station and +power; and the Law, the majestic, exalted Law, upheld these victors in +their possessions by force of courts, police, sheriffs, and by rifles +loaded with bullets if necessary. + +Thus, to recapitulate, the Astors debauched, swindled and murdered the +Indians; they defrauded the city of land and of taxes; they assisted in +corrupting legislatures; they profited from the ownership of blocks of +death-laden tenement houses; they certified to thieving administrations. +Once having wrested into their possession the results of all of these +and more fraudulent methods in the form of millions of dollars in +property, what was their strongest ally? The Law. Yes, the Law, +theoretically so impartial and so reverently indued with awe--and with +force. From fraud and force the Astor fortune came, and by force, in the +shape of law, it was fortified in their control. If a starving man had +gone into any one of the Astor houses and stolen even as much as a +silver spoon, the Law would have come to the rescue of outraged property +by sentencing him to prison. Or if, in case of a riot, the Astor +property was damaged, the Law also would have stepped in and compelled +the county to idemnify. This Law, this extraordinary code of print which +governs us, has been and is nothing more or less, it is evident, than so +many statutes to guarantee the retention of the proceeds of fraud and +theft, if the piracy were committed in a sufficiently large and +impressive way. The indisputable proof is that every single fortune +which has been obtained by fraud, is still privately held and is greater +than ever; the Law zealously and jealously guards it. So has the Law +practically worked; and if the thing is to be judged by its practical +results, then the Law has been an instigator of every form of crime, and +a bulwark of that which it instigated. Seeing that this is so, it is +not so hard to understand that puzzling problem of why so large a +portion of the community has resolved itself into a committee of the +whole, and while nominally and solemnly professing the accustomed and +expected respect for Law, deprecates it, as it is constituted, and often +makes no concealment of contempt. + + +LAW THE STRONGEST ASSET. + +In penetrating into the origin and growth of the great fortunes, this +vital fact is constantly forced upon the investigator: that Law has been +the most valuable asset possessed by the capitalist class. Without it, +this class would have been as helpless as a babe. What would the +medieval baron have been without armed force? But note how sinuously +conditions have changed. The capitalist class, far shrewder than the +feudalistic rulers, dispenses with personally equipped armed force. It +becomes superfluous. All that is necessary to do is to make the laws, +and so guide things that the officials who enforce the laws are +responsive to the interests of the propertied classes. Back of the laws +are police forces and sheriffs and militia all kept at the expense of +city, county and State--at public expense. Clearly, then, having control +of the laws and of the officials, the propertied classes have the full +benefit of armed forces the expense of which, however, they do not have +to defray. It has unfolded itself as a vast improvement over the crude +feudal system. + +In complete control of the laws, the great propertied classes have been +able either to profit by the enforcement, or by the violation, of them. +This is nowhere more strikingly shown than in the growth of the Astor +fortune, although all of the other great fortunes reveal the same, or +nearly identical, factors. With the millions made by a career of crime +the original Astors buy land; they get more land by fraud; the Law +throws its shield about the property so obtained. They cheat the city +out of enormous sums in taxation; the Law does not molest them. On the +contrary it allows them to build palaces and to keep on absorbing up +more forms of property. In 1875 William Astor builds a railroad in +Florida; and as a gift of appreciation, so it is told, the Florida +Legislature presents him with 80,000 acres of land. It is wholly +probable, if the underlying circumstances were known, that it would be +found that an influence more material than a simple burst of gratitude +prompted this gift. Where did the money come from with which this +railroad was built? And what was the source of other immense funds which +were invested in railroads, banks, industrial enterprises, in buying +more land and in mortgages--in many forms of ownership? + +The unsophisticated acceptor of current sophistries or the apologist +might reply that all this money came from legitimate business +transactions, the natural increase in the value of land, and thus on. +But waiving these superficial explanations and defenses, which really +mean nothing more than a forced justification, it is plain that the true +sources of these revenues were of a vastly different nature. The +millions in rents which flowed in to the Astor's treasury every year +came literally from the sweat, labor, misery and murder of a host of +men, women, and children who were never chronicled, and who went to +their death in eternal obscurity. + + +THE BASIS OF WEALTH'S STRUCTURE. + +It was they who finally had to bear the cost of exorbitant rents; it was +their work, the products which they created, which were the bases of +the whole structure. And in speaking of murder, it is not deliberate, +premeditated murder which is meant, in the sense covered by statute, but +that much more insidious kind ensuing from grinding exploitation; in +herding human beings into habitations unfit even for animals which need +air and sunshine, and then in stubbornly resisting any attempt to +improve living conditions in these houses. In this respect, it cannot be +too strongly pointed out, the Astors were in nowise different from the +general run of landlords. Is it not murder when, compelled by want, +people are forced to fester in squalid, germ-filled tenements, where the +sunlight never enters and where disease finds a prolific breeding-place? +Untold thousands went to their deaths in these unspeakable places. Yet, +so far as the Law was concerned, the rents collected by the Astors, as +well as by other landlords, were honestly made. The whole institution of +Law saw nothing out of the way in these conditions, and very +significantly so, because, to repeat over and over again, Law did not +represent the ethics or ideals of advanced humanity; it exactly +reflected, as a pool reflects the sky, the demands and self-interest of +the growing propertied classes. And if here and there a law was passed +(which did not often happen) contrary to the expressed opposition of +property, it was either so emasculated as to be harmless or it was not +enforced. + +The direct sacrifice of human life, however, was merely one substratum +of the Astor fortune. It is very likely, if the truth were fully known, +that the stupendous sums in total that the Astors cheated in taxation, +would have been more than enough to have constructed a whole group of +railroads, or to have bought up whole sections of the outlying parts of +the city, or to have built dozens of palaces. Incessantly they derived +immense rentals from their constantly expanding estate, and just as +persistently they perjured themselves, and defrauded the city, State and +Nation of taxes. It was not often that the facts were disclosed; +obviously the city or State officials, with whom the rich acted in +collusion, tried their best to conceal them. + + +GREAT THEFTS OF TAXES. + +Occasionally, however, some fragments of facts were brought out by a +legislative investigating committee. Thus, in 1890, a State Senate +Committee, in probing into the affairs of the tax department, touched +upon disclosures which dimly revealed the magnitude of these annual +thefts, but which in nowise astonished any well-informed person, because +every one knew that these frauds existed. Questioned closely by William +M. Ivins, counsel for the committee, Michael Coleman, president of the +Board of Assessments and Taxes, admitted that vast stretches of real +estate owned by the Astors were assessed at half or less than half of +their real value.[158] Then followed this exchange, in which the +particular "Mr. Astor" referred to was not made clear: + + Q.: You have just said that Mr. Astor never sold? + + A.: Once in a while he sells, yes. + + Q.: But the rule is that he does not sell? + + A.: Well, hardly ever; he has sold, of course. + + Q.: Isn't it almost a saying in this community that the Astors buy + and never sell? + + A.: They are not looked upon as people who dispose of real estate + after they once get possession of it. + + Q.: Have you the power to exact from them a statement of their + rent rolls? + + A.: No. + + Q.: Don't you think that ... if you are going to levy a tax + properly and fully ... you ought to be vested with that power to + learn what the returns and revenues of that property are? + + A.: No, sir; it's none of our business.[159] + +This fraudulent evasion of taxation was anything but confined to the +Astor family. It was practiced by the entire large propertied interests, +not only in swindling New York City of taxes on real estate, but also +those on personal property. Coleman admitted that while the total +valuation of the personal property of all the corporations in New York +was assessed at $1,650,000,000, they were allowed to swear it down to +$294,000,000. + +Here we see again at work that fertile agency which has assisted in +impoverishing the masses. Rentals are exacted from them, which represent +on the average the fourth part of their wages. These rentals are based +upon the full assessment of the houses that they live in. In turn, the +landlords defraud the city of one-half of this assessment. In order to +make up for this continuous deprivation of taxes, the city proceeds time +and time again to increase taxes and put out interest-bearing bond +issues. These increased taxes, as in the case of all other taxes, fall +upon the workers and the results are seen in constantly rising rents and +in higher prices for all necessities. + + +LICENSED PIRACY RAMPANT. + +Was any criminal action ever instituted against these rich defrauders? +None of which there is any record. + +Not a publicist, editor, preacher was there who did not know either +generally or specifically of these great frauds in taxation. Some of +them might protest in a half-hearted, insincere or meaningless way. But +the propertied classes did not mind wordy criticism so long as it was +not backed by political action. In other words, they could afford to +tolerate, even be amused by, gusty denunciation if neither the laws were +changed, nor the particular enforcement or non-enforcement which they +demanded. The essential thing with them was to continue conditions by +which they could keep on defrauding. + +Virtually all that was considered best in society--the men and women who +lived in the finest mansions, who patronized art and the opera, who set +themselves up as paramount in breeding, manners, taste and fashions--all +of these were either parties to this continuous process of fraud or +benefited by it. The same is true of this class to-day; for the frauds +in taxation are of greater magnitude than ever before. It was not +astonishing, therefore, when John Jacob Astor II died in 1890, and +William Astor in 1892, that enconiums should be lavished upon their +careers. In all the accounts that appeared of them, not a word was there +of the real facts; of the corrupt grasping of city land; of the +debauching of legislatures and the manipulation of railroads; of their +blocks of tenements in which disease and death had reaped so rich a +harvest, or of their gigantic frauds in cheating the city of taxes. Not +a word of all of these. + +Without an exception the various biographies were fulsomely laudatory. +This excessive praise might have defeated the purpose of the authors +were it not that it was the fashion of the times to depict and accept +the multimillionaires as marvels of ability, almost superhuman. This was +the stuff fed out to the people; it was not to be wondered at that a +period came when the popular mind reacted and sought the opposite +extreme in which it laved in the most violent denunciations of the very +men whom it had long been taught to revere. That period, too, passed to +be succeeded by another in which a more correct judgment will be formed +of the magnates, and in which they will appear not as exceptional +criminals, but as products of their times and environment, and in their +true relation to both of these factors. + +The fortune left by John Jacob Astor II in 1890 amounted to about +$150,000,000. The bulk of this descended to his son William Waldorf +Astor. The $75,000,000 fortune left by William Astor in 1892 was +bequeathed to his son John Jacob Astor. These cousins to-day hold the +greatest part of the collective Astor fortune. + +Having reached the present generation, we shall not attempt to enter +into a detailed narrative of their multifarious interests, embracing +land, railroads, industries, insurance and a vast variety of other forms +of wealth. The purpose of this work is to point out the circumstances +underlying the origin and growth of the great private fortunes; in the +case of the Astors this has been done sufficiently, perhaps overdone, +although many facts have been intentionally left out of these chapters +which might very properly have been included. But there are a few +remaining facts without which the story would not be complete, and +lacking which it might lose some significance. + + +THE ASTOR FORTUNE DOUBLES. + +[Illustration: WILLIAM WALDORF ASTOR. +Now a British Subject, Self-Expatriated. He Derives +an Enormous Income from His American Estate.] + +We have seen how at William B. Astor's death in 1876 the Astor fortune +amounted to at least $100,000,000, probably much more. Within sixteen +years, by 1892, it had more than doubled in the hands of his two sons. +How was it possible to have added the extraordinary sum of $125,000,000 +in less than a decade and a half? Individual ability did not +accomplish it; it is ludicrous to say that it could have done so. The +methods by which much of this increase was gathered in have already been +set forth. A large part came from the rise in the value of land, which +value arose not from the slightest act of the Astors, but from the +growth of the population and the labor of the whole body of workers. +This value was created by the producers, but far from owning or even +sharing in it, they were compelled to pay heavier and heavier tribute in +the form of rent for the very values which they had created. Had the +Astors or other landlords gone into a perpetual trance these values +would have been created just the same. Then, not content with +appropriating values which others created, the landlord class defrauded +the city of even the fractional part of these values, in the form of +taxation. + +Up to the present generation the Astors had never set themselves out as +"reformers" in politics. They had plundered right and left, but withal +had made no great pretenses. The fortune held by the Astors, so the +facts indubitably show, represents a succession of piracies and +exploitation. Very curious, therefore, it is to note that the Astors of +the present generation have avowed themselves most solicitous reformers +and have been members of pretentious, self-constituted committees +composed of the "best citizens," the object of which has been to purge +New York City of Tammany corruption. Leaving aside the Astors, and +considering the attitude of the propertied class as a whole, this posing +of the so-called better element as reformers has been, and is, one of +the most singular characteristics of American politics, and its most +colossal sham. Although continuously, with rare intermissions, the +landholders and the railroad and industrial magnates have been either +corrupting public officials or availing themselves of the benefits of +corrupt politics, many of them, not in New York alone, but in every +American city, have been, at the same time, metamorphosing themselves +into reformers. Not reformers, of course, in the true, high sense of the +word, but as ingenious counterfeits. With the most ardent professions of +civic purity and of horror at the prevailing corruption they have come +forward on occasions, clothed in a fine and pompous garb of +righteousness. + + +THE QUALITY OF "REFORMERS." + +The very men who cheated cities, states and nation out of enormous sums +in taxation; who bribed, through their retainers, legislatures, common +councils and executive and administrative officials; who corruptly put +judges on the bench; who made Government simply an auxiliary to their +designs; who exacted heavy tribute from the people in a thousand ways; +who forced their employees to work for precarious wages and who bitterly +fought every movement for the betterment of the working classes--these +were the men who have made up these so-called "reform" committees, +precisely as to-day they constitute them.[160] + +If there had been the slightest serious attempt to interfere with their +vested privileges, corruptly obtained and corruptly enhanced, and with +the vast amount of increment and graft that these privileges bought +them, they would have instantly raised the cry of revolutionary +confiscation. But they were very willing to put an end to the petty +graft which the politicians collected from saloons, brothels, peddlers, +and the small merchants, and thereby present themselves as respectable +and public-spirited citizens, appalled at the existing corruption. The +newspapers supported them in this attitude, and occasionally a +sufficient number of the voters would sustain their appeals and elect +candidates that they presented. The only real difference was that under +an openly corrupt machine they had to pay in bribes for franchises, laws +and immunity from laws, while under the "reform" administrations, which +represented, and toadied to, them, they often obtained all these and +more without the expenditure of a cent. It has often been much more +economical for them to have "reform" in power; and it is a well known +truism that the business-class reform administrations which are +popularly assumed to be honest, will go to greater lengths in selling +out the rights of the people than the most corrupt political machine, +for the reason that their administrations are not generally suspected of +corruption and therefore are not closely watched. Moreover, corruption +by bribes is not always the most effective kind. There is a much more +sinister form. It is that which flows from conscious class use of a +responsive government for insidious ends. Practically all of the +American "reform" movements have come within this scope. + +This is no place for a dissertation on these pseudo reform movements; it +is a subject deserving a special treatment by itself. But it is well to +advert to them briefly here since it is necessary to give constant +insights into the methods of the propertied class. Whether corruption or +"reform" administrations were in power the cheating of municipality and +State in taxation has gone on with equal vigor.[161] + + +A VAST ANNUAL INCOME. + +The collective Astor fortune, as we have said, amounts to $450,000,000. +This, however, is merely an estimate based largely upon their real +estate possessions. No one but the Astors themselves know what are their +holdings in bonds and stocks of every description. It is safe to venture +the opinion that their fortune far exceeds $450,000,000. Their surplus +wealth piles up so fast that a large part of it is incessantly being +invested in buying more land. Originally owning land in the lower part +of Manhattan, they then bought land in Yorkville, then added to their +possessions in Harlem, and later in the Bronx, in which part of New York +City they now own immense areas. Their estate is growing larger and +larger all the time. + +In rents in New York City alone it is computed that the Astors collect +twenty-five or thirty million dollars a year. The "Astor Estates" are +managed by a central office, the agent in charge of which is said to get +a salary of $50,000 a year. All the business details are attended to +entirely by this agent and his force of subordinates. Of these annual +rents a part is distributed among the various members of the Astor +family according to the degree of their interest; the remainder is used +to buy more land. + +The Astor mansions rank among the most pretentious in the United States +and in Europe. The New York City residence long occupied by Mrs. William +Astor at Fifth avenue and Sixty-fifth street is one of extraordinary +luxury and grandeur. Adjoining and connected with it is the equally +sumptuous mansion of John Jacob Astor. In these residences, or rather +palaces, splendor is piled upon splendor. In Mrs. William Astor's +spacious ball-room and picture gallery, balls have been given, each +costing, it is said, $100,000. In cream and gold the picture gallery +spreads; the walls are profuse with costly paintings, and at one end is +a gallery in wrought iron where musicians give out melody on festive +occasions. The dining rooms of these houses are of an immensity. +Embellished in old oak incrusted with gold, their walls are covered with +antique tapestries set in huge oak framework with margins thick with +gold. Upon the diners a luxurious ceiling looks down, a blaze of color +upon black oak set off by masses of gold borders. Directly above the +center of the table are painted garlands of flowers and clusters of +fruit. In the hub of this representation is Mrs. Astor's monogram in +letters of gold. From the massive hall, with its reproductions of +paintings of Marie Antoinette and other old French court characters, its +statuary, costly vases and draperies, a wide marble stairway curves +gracefully upstairs. To dwell upon all of the luxurious aspects of these +residences would compel an extended series of details. In both of the +residences every room is a thing of magnificence. + + +PROXIMITY OF PALACES AND POVERTY. + +From these palaces it is but a step, as it were, to gaunt neighborhoods +where great parts of the population are crowded in the most inhuman way +into wretched tenement houses. It is an undeniable fact that more than +fifty blocks on Manhattan Island--each of which blocks is not much +larger than the space covered by the Astor mansions--have each a teeming +population of from 3,000 to 4,000 persons. In each of several blocks +6,000 persons are congested. In 1855, when conditions were thought bad +enough, 417,476 inhabitants were crowded into the section south of +Fourteenth street; but in 1907 this district contained fully 750,000 +population. Forty years ago the lower sections only of Manhattan were +overcrowded, but now the density of congestion has spread to all parts +of Manhattan, and to parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn. On an area of two +hundred acres in certain parts of New York City not less than 200,000 +people exist. It is not uncommon to find eighteen men, women, and +children, driven to it by necessity, sleeping in three small, +suffocating rooms. + +[Illustration: THE ASTOR MANSIONS IN NEW YORK CITY. +Occupied by the Late Mrs. William Astor and by John Jacob Astor.] + +But the New York City residences of the Astors are only a mere portion +of their many palaces. They have impressive mansions, costing great +sums, at Newport. At Ferncliffe-on-the-Hudson John Jacob Astor has an +estate of two thousand acres. This country palace, built in chaste +Italian architecture, is fitted with every convenience and luxury. John +Jacob Astor's cousin, William Waldorf, some years since expatriated +himself from his native country and became a British subject. He bought +the Cliveden estate at Taplow, Bucks, England, the old seat of the Duke +of Westminster, the richest landlord in England. Thenceforth William +Waldorf scorned his native land, and has never even taken the trouble +to look at the property in New York which yields him so vast a revenue. +This absentee landlord, for whom it is estimated not less than 100,000 +men, women and children directly toil, in the form of paying him rent, +has surrounded himself in England with a lofty feudal exclusiveness. +Sweeping aside the privilege that the general public had long enjoyed of +access to the Cliveden grounds, he issued strict orders forbidding +trespassing, and along the roads he built high walls surmounted with +broken glass. His son and heir, Waldorf Astor, has avowed that he also +will remain a British subject. William Waldorf Astor, it should be said, +is somewhat of a creator of public opinion; he owns a newspaper and a +magazine in London. + + * * * * * + +The origin and successive development of the Astor fortune have been +laid bare in these chapters; not wholly so, by any means, for a mass of +additional facts have been left out. Where certain fundamental facts are +sufficient to give a clear idea of a presentation, it is not necessary +to pile on too much of an accumulation. And yet, such has been the +continued emphasis of property-smitten writers upon the thrift, honesty, +ability and sagacity of the men who built up the great fortunes, that +the impression generally prevails that the Astor fortune is preeminently +one of those amassed by legitimate means. These chapters should dispel +this illusion. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[158] See Testimony taken before the [New York] Senate Committee on +Cities, 1890, iii:2312, etc. + +[159] Testimony taken before the [New York] Senate Committee on Cities, +1890, iii: 2314-2315. + +[160] As one of many illustrations of the ethics of the propertied +class, the appended newspaper dispatch from Newport, R. I., on Jan. 2, +1903, brings out some significant facts: + +"William C. Schermerhorn, whose death is announced in New York, and who +was a cousin of Mrs. William Astor, was one of Newport's pioneer summer +residents. He was one of New York's millionaires, and his Newport villa +is situated on Narragansett avenue near Cliffside, opposite the Pinard +cottages. + +"Mr. Schermerhorn, with Mrs. Astor and ex-Commodore Gerry, of the New +York Yacht Club, in order to avoid the inheritance tax of New York, and +to take advantage of Newport's low tax-rate, obtained in January last +through their counsel, Colonel Samuel R. Honey, a decree declaring their +citizenship in Rhode Island. Since that time Mr. Schermerhorn's +residence has been in this state. In last year's tax-list he was +assessed for $150,000. + +"Mr. Schermerhorn was a member of both the fashionable clubs on Bellevue +avenue, the Newport Casino and the Newport Reading-Room." + +[161] For further details on this point see Chapter ix, Part II. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +OTHER LAND FORTUNES CONSIDERED + + +The founding and aggrandizement of other great private fortunes from +land were accompanied by methods closely resembling, or identical with, +those that the Astors employed. + +Next to the Astors' estate the Goelet landed possessions are perhaps the +largest urban estates in the United States in value. The landed property +of the Goelet family on Manhattan Island alone is estimated at fully +$200,000,000. + + +THE GOELET FORTUNE. + +The founder of the Goelet fortune was Peter Goelet, an ironmonger during +and succeeding the Revolution. His grandfather, Jacobus Goelet, was, as +a boy and young man, brought up by Frederick Phillips, with whose career +as a promoter and backer of pirates and piracies, and as a briber of +royal officials under British rule, we have dealt in previous chapters. +Of Peter Goelet's business methods and personality no account is extant. +But as to his methods in obtaining land, there exists little obscurity. +In the course of this work it has already been shown in specific detail +how Peter Goelet in conjunction with John Jacob Astor, the Rhinelander +brothers, the Schermerhorns, the Lorillards and other founders of +multimillionaire dynasties, fraudulently secured great tracts of land, +during the early and middle parts of the last century, in either what +was then, or what is now, in the heart of New York City. It is entirely +needless to iterate the narrative of how the city officials corruptly +gave over to these men land and water grants before that time +municipally owned--grants now having a present incalculable value.[162] + +As was the case with John Jacob Astor, the fortune of the Goelets was +derived from a mixture of commerce, banking and ownership of land. +Profits from trade went toward buying more land, and in providing part +of corrupt funds with which the Legislature of New York was bribed into +granting banking charters, exemptions and other special laws. These +various factors were intertwined; the profits from one line of property +were used in buying up other forms and thus on, reversely and +comminglingly. Peter had two sons; Peter P., and Robert R. Goelet. These +two sons, with an eye for the advantageous, married daughters of Thomas +Buchanan, a rich Scotch merchant of New York City, and for a time a +director of the United States Bank. The result was that when their +father died, they not only inherited a large business and a very +considerable stretch of real estate, but, by means of their money and +marriage, were powerful dignitaries in the directing of some of the +richest and most despotic banks. Peter P. Goelet was for several years +one of the directors of the Bank of New York, and both brothers +benefited by the corrupt control of the United States Bank, and were +principals among the founders of the Chemical Bank. + +These brothers had set out with an iron determination to build up the +largest fortune they could, and they allowed no obstacles to hinder +them. When fraud was necessary they, like the bulk of their class, +unhesitatingly used it. In getting their charter for the notorious +Chemical Bank, they bribed members of the Legislature with the same +phlegmatic serenity that they would put through an ordinary business +transaction. This bank, as we have brought out previously, was chartered +after a sufficient number of members of the Legislature had been bribed +with $50,000 in stock and a large sum of money. Yet now that this bank +is one of the richest and most powerful institutions in the United +States, and especially as the criminal nature of its origin is unknown +except to the historic delver, the Goelets mention the connection of +their ancestors with it as a matter of great and just pride. In a +voluminous biography giving the genealogies of the rich families of New +York--material which was supplied and perhaps written by the families +themselves--this boast occurs in the chapter devoted to the Goelets: +"They were also numbered among the founders of that famous New York +financial institution, the Chemical Bank."[163] Thus do the crimes of +one generation become transformed into the glories of another! The stock +of the Chemical Bank, quoted at a fabulous sum, so to speak, is still +held by a small, compact group in which the Goelets are conspicuous. + +From the frauds of this bank the Goelets reaped large profits which +systematically were invested in New York City real estate. And +progressively their rentals from this land increased. Their policy was +much the same as that of the Astors--constantly increasing their land +possessions. This they could easily do for two reasons. One was that +almost consecutively they, along with other landholders, corrupted city +governments to give them successive grants, and the other was their +enormous surplus revenue which kept piling up. + + +ONCE A FARM; NOW OF VAST VALUE. + +When William B. Astor inherited in 1846 the greater part of his father's +fortune, the Goelet brothers had attained what was then the exalted rank +of being millionaires, although their fortune was only a fraction of +that of Astor. The great impetus to the sudden increase of their fortune +came in the period 1850-1870, through a tract of land which they owned +in what had formerly been the outskirts of the city. This land was once +a farm and extended from about what is now Union Square to Forty-seventh +street and Fifth avenue. It embraced a long section of Broadway--a +section now covered with huge hotels, business buildings, stores and +theaters. It also includes blocks upon blocks filled with residences and +aristocratic mansions. At first the fringe of New York City, then part +of its suburbs, this tract lay in a region which from 1850 on began to +take on great values, and which was in great demand for the homes of the +rich. By 1879 it was a central part of the city and brought high +rentals. The same combination of economic influences and pressure which +so vastly increased the value of the Astors' land, operated to turn this +quondam farm into city lots worth enormous sums. As population increased +and the downtown sections were converted into business sections, the +fashionables shifted their quarters from time to time, always pushing +uptown, until the Goelet lands became a long sweep of ostentatious +mansions. + +In imitation of the Astors the Goelets steadily adhered, as they have +since, to the policy of seldom or never selling any of their land. On +the other hand, they bought constantly. On one occasion they bought +eighty lots in the block from Fifth to Sixth avenues, Forty-second to +Forty-third streets. The price they paid was $600 a lot. These lots have +a present aggregate value of perhaps $15,000,000 or more, although they +are assessed at much less. + + +MISERS WITH MILLIONS. + +The second generation of the Goelets--counting from the founder of the +fortune--were incorrigibly parsimonious. They reduced miserliness to a +supreme art. Likewise the third generation. Of Peter Goelet, a grandson +of the original Peter, many stories were current illustrating his +close-fistedness. His passion for economy was carried to such an +abnormal stage that he refused even to engage a tailor to mend his +garments.[164] He was unmarried, and generally attended to his own +wants. On several occasions he was found in his office at the Chemical +Bank industriously absorbed in sewing his coat. For stationery he used +blank backs of letters and envelopes which he carefully and +systematically saved and put away. His house at Nineteenth street, +corner of Broadway, was a curiosity shop. In the basement he had a +forge, and there were tools of all kinds over which he labored, while +upstairs he had a law library of 10,000 volumes, for it was a fixed, +cynical determination of his never to pay a lawyer for advice that he +could himself get for the reading. + +Yet this miser, who denied himself many of the ordinary comforts and +conveniences of life, and who would argue and haggle for hours over a +trivial sum, allowed himself one expensive indulgence--expensive for +him, at least. He was a lover of fancy fowls and of animals. Storks, +pheasants and peacocks could be seen in the grounds about his house, and +also numbers of guinea pigs. In his stable he kept a cow to supply him +with fresh milk; he often milked it himself. + +This eccentric was very melancholy and, apart from his queer collection +of pets, cared for nothing except land and houses. Chancing in upon him +one could see him intently pouring over a list of his properties. He +never tired of doing this, and was petulantly impatient when houses +enough were not added to his inventory. + +He died in 1879 aged seventy-nine years; and within a few months, his +brother Robert, who was as much of an eccentric and miser in his way, +passed away in his seventieth year. + + +THE THIRD GENERATION. + +The fortunes of the brothers descended to Robert's two sons, Robert, +born in 1841, and Ogden, born in 1846. These wielders of a fortune so +great that they could not keep track of it, so fast did it grow, +abandoned somewhat the rigid parsimony of the previous generations. They +allowed themselves a glittering effusion of luxuries which were +popularly considered extravagances but which were in nowise so, inasmuch +as the cost of them did not represent a tithe of merely the interest on +the principal. In that day, although but thirty years since, when none +but the dazzlingly rich could afford to keep a sumptuous steam yacht in +commission the year round, Robert Goelet had a costly yacht, 300 feet +long, equipped with all the splendors and comforts which up to that time +had been devised for ocean craft. Between them, he and his brother Ogden +possessed a fortune of at least $150,000,000. The basic structure of +this was New York City land, but a considerable part was in railroad +stocks and bonds, and miscellaneous aggregations of other securities to +the purchase of which the surplus revenue had gone. Thus, like the +Astors and other rich landholders, partly by investments made in trade, +and largely by fraud, the Goelets finally became not only great +landlords but sharers in the centralized ownership of the country's +transportation systems and industries. + +When Ogden Goelet died he left a fortune of at least $80,000,000, +reckoning all of the complex forms of his property, and his brother, +Robert, dying in 1899, left a fortune of about the same amount. Two +children survived each of the brothers. Then was witnessed that +characteristic so symptomatic of the American money aristocracy. A +surfeit of money brings power, but it does not carry with it a +recognized position among a titled aristocracy. The next step is +marriage with title. The titled descendants of the predatory barons of +the feudal ages having, generation after generation, squandered and +mortgaged the estates gotten centuries ago by force and robbery, stand +in need of funds. On the other hand, the feminine possessors of American +millions, aided and abetted doubtless by the men of the family, who +generally crave a "blooded" connection, lust for the superior social +status insured by a title. The arrangement becomes easy. In marrying the +Duke of Roxburghe in 1903, May Goelet, the daughter of Ogden, was but +following the example set by a large number of other American women of +multimillionaire families. It is an indulgence which, however great the +superficial consequential money cost may be, is, in reality, +inexpensive. As fast as millions are dissipated they are far more than +replaced in these private coffers by the collective labor of the +American people through the tributary media of rent, interest and +profit. In the last ten years the value of the Goelet land holdings has +enormously increased, until now it is almost too conservative an +estimate to place the collective fortune at $200,000,000. + +This large fortune, as is that of the Astors and of other extensive +landlords, is not, as has been pointed out, purely one of land +possessions. Far from it. The invariable rule, it might be said, has +been to utilize the surplus revenues in the form of rents, in buying up +controlling power in a great number and variety of corporations. The +Astors are directors in a large array of corporations, and likewise +virtually all of the other big landlords. The rent-racked people of the +City of New York, where rents are higher proportionately than in any +other city, have sweated and labored and fiercely struggled, as have the +people of other cities, only to deliver up a great share of their +earnings to the lords of the soil, merely for a foothold. In turn these +rents have incessantly gone toward buying up railroads, factories, +utility plants and always more and more land. + + +WHERE SURPLUS REVENUE HAS GONE. + +But the singular continuity does not end here. Land acquired by +political or commercial fraud has been made the lever for the commission +of other frauds. The railroads now controlled by a few men, among whom +the large landowners are conspicuous, were surveyed and built to a +great extent by public funds, not private money. As time passes a +gradual transformation takes place. Little by little, scarcely known to +the people, laws are altered; the States and the Government, +representing the interests of the vested class, surrender the people's +rights, often even the empty forms of those rights, and great railroad +systems pass into the hands of a small cabal of multimillionaires. + +To give one of many instances: The Illinois Central Railroad, passing +through an industrial and rich farming country, is one of the most +profitable railroads in the United States. This railroad was built in +the proportion of twelve parts to one by public funds, raised by +taxation of the people of that State, and by prodigal gifts of public +land grants. The balance represents the investments of private +individuals. The cost of the road as reported by the company in 1873 was +$48,331 a mile. Of this amount all that private individuals contributed +was $4,930 a mile above their receipts; these latter were sums which the +private owners gathered in from selling the land given to them by the +State, amounting to $35,211 per mile, and the sums that they pocketed +from stock waterings amounting to $8,189 a mile. "The unsold land +grant," says Professor Frank Parsons, "amounted to 344,368 acres, worth +probably over $5,000,000, so that those to whom the securities of the +company were issued, had obtained the road at a bonus of nearly +$2,000,000 above all they paid in."[165] + +By this manipulation, private individuals not only got this immensely +valuable railroad for practically nothing, but they received, or rather +the laws (which they caused to be made) awarded them, a present of +nearly four millions for their dexterity in plundering the railroad +from the people. What set of men do we find now in control of this +railroad, doing with it as they please? Although the State of Illinois +formally retains a nominal say in its management, yet it is really owned +and ruled by eight men, among whom are John Jacob Astor, and Robert +Walton Goelet, associated with E. H. Harriman, Cornelius Vanderbilt and +four others. John Jacob Astor is one of the directors of the Western +Union Telegraph monopoly, with its annual receipts of $29,000,000 and +its net profits of $8,000,000 yearly; and as for the many other +corporations in which he and his family, the Goelets and the other +commanding landlords hold stock, they would, if enumerated, make a +formidable list. + +And while on this phase, we should not overlook another salient fact +which thrusts itself out for notice. We have seen how John Jacob Astor +of the third generation very eagerly in 1867 invited Cornelius +Vanderbilt to take over the management of the New York Central Railroad, +after Vanderbilt had proved himself not less an able executive than an +indefatigable and effective briber and corrupter. So long as Vanderbilt +produced the profits, Astor and his fellow-directors did not care what +means he used, however criminal in law and whatever their turpitude in +morals. John Jacob Astor of the fourth generation repeats this +performance in aligning himself, as does Goelet, with that master-hand +Harriman, against whom the most specific charges of colossal looting +have been brought.[166] But it would be both idle and prejudicial in the +highest degree to single out for condemnation a brace of capitalists for +following out a line of action so strikingly characteristic of the +entire capitalist class--a class which, in the pursuit of profits, +dismisses nicety of ethics and morals, and which ordains its own laws. + + +THE RHINELANDERS. + +The wealth of the Rhinelander family is commonly placed at about +$100,000,000. But this, there is excellent reason to believe, is an +absurdly low approximation. Nearly a century and a half ago William and +Frederick Rhinelander kept a bakeshop on William street, New York City, +and during the Revolution operated a sugar factory. They also built +ships and did a large commission business. It is usually set forth, in +the plenitude of eulogistic biographies, that their thrift and ability +were the foundation of the family's immense fortune. Little research is +necessary to shatter this error. That they conducted their business in +the accepted methods of the day and exercised great astuteness and +frugality, is true enough, but so did a host of other merchants whose +descendants are even now living in poverty. Some other explanation must +be found to account for the phenomenal increase of the original small +fortune and its unshaken retention. + +This explanation is found partly in the fraudulent means by which, +decade after decade, they secured land and water grants from venal city +administrations, and in the singularly dubious arrangement by which they +obtained an extremely large landed property, now having a value of tens +upon tens of millions, from Trinity Church. Since the full and itemized +details of these transactions have been elaborated upon in previous +chapters, it is hardly necessary to repeat them. It will be recalled +that, as important personages in Tammany Hall, the dominant political +party in New York City, the Rhinelanders used the powers of city +government to get grant after grant for virtually nothing. From Trinity +Church they got a ninety-nine year lease of a large tract in what is now +the very hub of the business section of New York City--which tract they +subsequently bought in fee simple. Another large tract of New York City +real estate came into their possession through the marriage of William +C. Rhinelander, of the third generation, to a daughter of John Rutgers. +This Rutgers was a lineal descendant of Anthony Rutgers, who, in 1731, +obtained from the royal Governor Cosby the gift of what was then called +the "Fresh Water Pond and Swamp"--a stretch of seventy acres of little +value at the time, but which is now covered with busy streets and large +commercial and office buildings. What the circumstances were that +attended this grant are not now known. The grant consisted of what are +now many blocks along Broadway north of Lispenard street. It is not +merely business sections which the Rhinelander family owns, however; +they derive stupendous rentals from a vast number of tenement houses. + +The Rhinelanders, also, employ their great surplus revenues in +constantly buying more land. With true aristocratic aspirations, they +have not been satisfied with mere plebeian American mansions, gorgeous +palaces though they be; they set out to find a European palace with +warranted royal associations, and found one in the famous castle of +Schonberg, on the Rhine, near Oberwesel, which they bought and where +they have ensconced themselves. How great the wealth of this family is +may be judged from the fact that one of the Rhinelanders--William--left +an estate valued at $50,000,000 at his death in December, 1907. + + +THE SCHERMERHORNS. + +The factors entering into the building up of the Schermerhorn fortune +were almost identical with those of the Astor, the Goelet and the +Rhinelander fortunes. The founder, Peter Schermerhorn, was a ship +chandler during the Revolution. Parts of his land and other possessions +he bought with the profits from his business; other portions, as has +been brought out, he obtained from corrupt city administrations. His two +sons continued the business of ship chandlers; one of them--"Peter the +Younger"--was especially active in extending his real estate +possessions, both by corrupt favors of the city officials and by +purchase. One tract of land, extending from Third avenue to the East +River and from Sixty-fourth to Seventy-fifth street, which he secured in +the early part of the nineteenth century, became worth a colossal +fortune in itself. It is now covered with stores, buildings and densely +populated tenement houses. "Peter the Younger" quickly gravitated into +the profitable and fashionable business of the day--the banking +business, with its succession of frauds, many of which have been +described in the preceding chapters. He was a director of the Bank of +New York from 1814 until his death in 1852. + +It seems quite superfluous to enlarge further upon the origin of the +great landed fortunes of New York City; the typical examples given +doubtless serve as expositions of how, in various and similar ways, +others were acquired. We shall advert to some of the great fortunes in +the West based wholly or largely upon city real estate. + +While the Astors, the Goelets, the Rhinelanders and others, or rather +the entire number of inhabitants, were transmuting their land into vast +and increasing wealth expressed in terms of hundreds of millions in +money, Nicholas Longworth was aggrandizing himself likewise in +Cincinnati. + + +HOW LONGWORTH BEGAN. + +Longworth had been born in Newark, N. J., in 1782, and at the age of +twenty-one had migrated to Cincinnati, then a mere outpost, with a +population of eight hundred sundry adventurers. There he studied law and +was admitted to practice. The story of how Longworth became a landowner +is given by Houghton as follows: His first client was a man accused of +horse stealing. In those frontier days, a horse represented one of the +most valuable forms of property; and, as under a system wherein human +life was inconsequential compared to the preservation of property, the +penalty for stealing a horse was usually death. No term of reproach was +more invested with cutting contempt and cruel hatred than that of a +horse thief. The case looked black. But Longworth somehow contrived to +get the accused off with acquittal. The man--so the story further +runs--had no money to pay Longworth's fee and no property except two +second-hand copper stills. These also were high in the appraisement of +property values, for they could be used to make whisky, and whisky could +be in turn used to debauch the Indian tribes and swindle them of furs +and land. These stills Longworth took and traded them off to Joel +Williams, a tavern-keeper who was setting up a distillery. In exchange, +Longworth received thirty-three acres of what was then considered +unpromising land in the town.[167] From time to time he bought more land +with the money made in law; this land lay on what were then the +outskirts of the place. Some of the lots cost him but ten dollars each. + +As immigration swarmed West and Cincinnati grew, his land consequently +took on enhanced value. By 1830 the population was 24,831; twenty years +later it had reached 118,761, and in 1860, 171,293 inhabitants. For a +Western city this was a very considerable population for the period. The +growth of the city kept on increasingly. His land lay in the very center +of the expanding city, in the busiest part of the business section and +in the best portion of the residential districts. Indeed, so rapidly did +its value grow soon after he got it, that it was no longer necessary for +him to practice law or in any wise crook to others. In 1819 he gave up +law, and thenceforth gave his entire attention to managing his property. +An extensive vineyard, which he laid out in Ohio, added to his wealth. +Here he cultivated the Catawba grape and produced about 150,000 bottles +a year. + +All available accounts agree in describing him as merciless. He +foreclosed mortgages with pitiless promptitude, and his adroit knowledge +of the law, approaching if not reaching, that of an unscrupulous +pettifogger, enabled him to get the upper hand in every transaction. His +personal habits were considered repulsive by the conventional and +fastidious. "He was dry and caustic in his remarks," says Houghton, "and +very rarely spared the object of his satire. He was plain and careless +in his dress, looking more a beggar than a millionaire." + + +HIS VAGARIES--SO CALLED. + +There were certain other conventional respects in which he was woefully +deficient, and he had certain singularities which severely taxed the +comprehension of routine minds. None who had the appearance of +respectable charity seekers could get anything else from him than +contemptuous rebuffs. For respectability in any form he had no use; he +scouted and scoffed at it and pulverized it with biting and grinding +sarcasm. But once any man or woman passed over the line of +respectability into the besmeared realm of sheer disrepute, and that +person would find Longworth not only accessible but genuinely +sympathetic. The drunkard, the thief, the prostitute, the veriest wrecks +of humanity could always tell their stories to him and get relief. This +was his grim way of striking back at a commercial society whose lies and +shams and hypocrisies he hated; he knew them all; he had practiced them +himself. There is good reason to believe that alongside of his one +personality, that of a rapacious miser, there lived another personality, +that of a philosopher. + +Certainly he was a very unique type of millionaire, much akin to Stephen +Girard. He had a clear notion (for he was endowed with a highly +analytical and penetrating mind) that in giving a few coins to the +abased and the wretched he was merely returning in infinitesimal +proportion what the prevailing system, of which he was so conspicuous an +exemplar, took from the whole people for the benefit of a few; and that +this system was unceasingly turning out more and more wretches. + +Long after Longworth had become a multimillionaire he took a savage, +perhaps a malicious, delight in doing things which shocked all current +conceptions of how a millionaire should act. To understand the intense +scandal caused by what were considered his vagaries, it is only +necessary to bear in mind the ultra-lofty position of a multimillionaire +at a period when a man worth $250,000 was thought very rich. There were +only a few millionaires in the United States, and still fewer +multimillionaires. Longworth ranked next to John Jacob Astor. On one +occasion a beggar called at Longworth's office and pointed eloquently at +his gaping shoes. Longworth kicked off one of his own untied shoes and +told the beggar to try it on. It fitted. Its mate followed. Then after +the beggar left, Longworth sent a boy to the nearest shoe store, with +instructions to get a pair of shoes, but in no circumstances to pay more +than a dollar and a half. + +This remarkable man lived to the age of eighty-one; when he died in 1863 +in a splendid mansion which he had built in the heart of his vineyard, +his estate was valued at $15,000,000. He was the largest landowner in +Cincinnati, and one of the largest in the cities of the United States. +The value of the land that he bequeathed has increased continuously; in +the hands of his various descendants to-day it is many times more +valuable than the huge fortune which he left. Cincinnati, with its +population of 325,902,[168] pays incessant tribute in the form of a vast +rent roll to the scions of the man whose main occupation was to hold on +to the land he had got for almost nothing. Unlike the founder of the +fortune the present Longworth generation never strays from the set +formulas of respectability; it has intermarried with other rich +families: and Nicholas, a namesake and grandson of the original, and a +representative in Congress, married in circumstances of great and lavish +pomp a daughter of President Roosevelt, thus linking a large fortune, +based upon vested interests, with the ruling executive of the day and +strategically combining wealth with direct political power. + +The same process of reaping gigantic fortunes from land went on in +every large city. In Chicago, with its phenomenally speedy growth of +population and its vast array of workers, immense fortunes were amassed +within an astonishingly short period. Here the growth of large private +fortunes was marked by much greater celerity than in the East, although +these fortunes are not as large as those based upon land in the Eastern +cities. + + +MARSHALL FIELD AND LEITER. + +The largest landowners that developed in Chicago were Marshall Field and +Levi Z. Leiter. In 1895 the Illinois Labor Bureau, in that year +happening to be under the direction of able and conscientious officials, +made a painstaking investigation of land values in Chicago. It was +estimated that the 266 acres of land, constituting what was owned by +individuals and private corporations in one section alone--the South +Side,--were worth $319,000,000. This estimate was made at a time when +the country was slowly recovering, as the set phrase goes, from the +panic of 1892-94, and when land values were not in a state of inflation +or rise. The amount of $319,000,000 was calculated as being solely the +value of the land, not counting improvements, which were valued at as +much more. The principal landowner in this one section, not to mention +other sections of that immense city, was Marshall Field, with +$11,000,000 worth of land; the next was Leiter, who owned in that +section land valued at $10,500,000.[169] It appeared from this report +that eighteen persons owned $65,000,000 of this $319,000,000 worth of +land, and that eighty-eight persons owned $136,000,000 worth--or +one-half of the entire business center of Chicago. Doubling the sums +credited to Field and Leiter (that is to say, adding the value of the +improvements to the value of the land), this brought Field's real estate +in that one section to a value of $22,000,000, and Leiter's to nearly +the same. This estimate was confirmed to a surprising degree by the +inventory of Field's executors reported to the court early in 1907. The +executors of Field's will placed the value of his real estate in Chicago +at $30,000,000. This estimate did not include $8,000,000 worth of land +which the executors reported that he owned in New York City, nor the +millions of dollars of his land possessions elsewhere. + + +FIELD'S MANY POSSESSIONS. + +Field left a fortune of about $100,000,000 (as estimated by the +executors) which he bequeathed principally to two grandsons, both of +which heirs were in boyhood. The factors constituting this fortune are +various. At least $55,000,000 of it was represented at the time that the +executors made their inventory, by a multitude of bonds and stocks in a +wide range of diverse industrial, transportation, utility and mining +corporations. The variety of Field's possessions and his numerous forms +of ownership were such that we shall have pertinent occasion to deal +more relevantly with his career in subsequent parts of this work. + +[Illustration: MARSHALL FIELD.] + +The careers of Field, Leiter and several other Chicago multimillionaires +ran in somewhat parallel grooves. Field was the son of a farmer. He was +born in Conway, Mass., in 1835. When twenty-one he went to Chicago and +worked in a wholesale dry goods house. In 1860 he was made a partner. +During the Civil War this firm, as did the entire commercial world, +proceeded to hold up the nation for exorbitant prices in its contracts +at a time of distress. The Government and the public were forced to pay +the highest sums for the poorest material. It was established that +Government officials were in collusion with the contractors. This +extortion formed one of the saddest and most sordid chapters of the +Civil War (as it does of all wars,) but conventional history is silent +on the subject, and one is compelled to look elsewhere for the facts of +how the commercial houses imposed at high prices shoddy material and +semi-putrid food upon the very army and navy that fought for their +interests.[170] In the words of one of Field's laudatory biographers, +"the firm coined money"--a phrase which for the volumes of significant +meaning embodied in it, is an epitome of the whole profit system. + +Some of the personnel of the firm changed several times: in 1865 Field, +Leiter and Potter Palmer (who had also become a multimillionaire) +associated under the firm name of Field, Leiter & Palmer. The great fire +of 1871 destroyed the firm's buildings, but they were replaced. +Subsequently the firm became Field, Leiter & Co., and, finally in 1887, +Marshall Field & Co.[171] The firm conducted both a wholesale and retail +business on what is called in commercial slang "a cash basis:" that is, +it sold goods on immediate payment and not on credit. The volume of its +business rose to enormous proportions. In 1884 it reached an aggregate +of $30,000,000 a year; in 1901 it was estimated at fully $50,000,000 a +year. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[162] Some of this land and these water grants and piers were obtained +by Peter Goelet during the corrupt administration of City Controller +Romaine. Goelet, it seems, was allowed to pay in installments. Thus, an +entry, on January 26, 1807, in the municipal records, reads: "On +receiving the report of the Street Commissioner, Ordered that warrants +issue to Messrs. Anderson and Allen for the three installments due to +them from Mr. Goelet for the Whitehall and Exchange Piers."--MSS. +Minutes of the [New York City] Common Council, 1807, xvi:286. + +[163] "Prominent Families of New York":231. Another notable example of +this glorifying was Nicholas Biddle, long president of the United States +Bank. Yet the court records show that, after a career of bribery, he +stole $400,000 of that bank's funds. + +[164] At this very time his wealth, judged by the standard of the times, +was prodigious. "His wealth is vast--not less than five or six +millions," wrote Barrett in 1862--"The Old Merchants of New York City," +1:349. + +[165] "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":104. + +[166] See Part III, "Great Fortunes From Railroads." + +[167] "Kings of Fortune":172. + +[168] Census of 1900. + +[169] Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:104-253. + +[170] In those parts of this work relating to great fortunes from +railroads and from industries, this phase of commercial life is +specifically dealt with. The enormities brazenly committed during the +Spanish-American War of 1898 are sufficiently remembered. Napoleon had +the same experience with French contractors, and the testimony of all +wars is to the same effect. + +[171] So valuable was a partnership in this firm that a writer says that +Field paid Leiter "an unknown number of millions" when he bought out +Leiter's interest. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE FIELD FORTUNE IN EXTENSO + + +In close similarity to the start of the Astors and many other founders +of great land fortunes, commerce was the original means by which +Marshall Field obtained the money which he invested in land. +Consecutively came a ramification of other revenue-producing properties. +Once in motion, the process worked in the same admixed, interconnected +way as it did in the amassing of contemporary large fortunes. It may be +literally compared to hundreds of golden streams flowing from as many +sources to one central point. From land, business, railroads, street +railways, public utility and industrial corporations--from these and +many other channels, prodigious profits kept, and still keep, pouring in +ceaselessly. In turn, these formed ever newer and widening distributing +radii of investments. The process, by its own resistless volition, +became one of continuous compound progression. + + +LAND FOR ALMOST NOTHING. + +Long before the business of the firm of Marshall Field & Co. had +reached the annual total of $50,000,000, Field, Leiter and their +associates had begun buying land in Chicago. Little capital was +needed for the purpose: The material growth of Chicago explains +sufficiently how a few dollars put in land fifty or sixty years ago +became in time an automatically-increasing fund of millions. A century +or so ago the log cabin of John Kinzie was the only habitation on a +site now occupied by a swarming, conglomerate, rushing population of +1,700,000.[172] Where the prairie land once stretched in solitude, a +huge, roaring, choking city now stands, black with factories, the +habitat of nearly two millions of human beings, living in a whirlpool of +excitement and tumult, presenting extremes of wealth and poverty, the +many existing in dire straits, the few rolling in sovereign luxury. A +saying prevails in Chicago that the city now holds more millionaires +than it did voters in 1840. + +Land, in the infancy of the city, was cheap; few settlers there were, +and the future could not be foreseen. In 1830 one-quarter of an acre +could be bought for $20; a few bits of silver, or any currency +whatsoever, would secure to the buyer a deed carrying with it a title +forever, with a perpetual right of exclusive ownership and a perpetual +hold upon all succeeding generations. The more population grew, the +greater the value their labor gave the land; and the keener their need, +the more difficult it became for them to get land. + +Within ten years--by about the beginning of the year 1840--the price of +a quarter of an acre in the center of the city had risen to $1,500. A +decade later the established value was $17,500, and in 1860, $28,000. +Chicago was growing with great rapidity; a network of railroads +converged there; mammoth factories, mills, grain elevators, packing +houses:--a vast variety of manufacturing and mercantile concerns set up +in business, and brought thither swarms of workingmen and their +families, led on by the need of food and the prospects of work. The +greater the influx of workers, the more augmented became the value of +land. Inevitably the greatest congestion of living resulted. + +By 1870 the price of a quarter of an acre in the heart of the city +bounded to $120,000, and by 1880, to $130,000. + + +IT BECOMES WORTH MILLIONS. + +During the next decade--a decade full of bitter distress to the working +population of the United States, and marked by widespread suffering--the +price shot up to $900,000. By 1894--a panic year, in which millions of +men were out of work and in a state of appalling destitution--a quarter +of an acre reached the gigantic value of $1,250,000.[173] At this +identical time large numbers of the working class, which had so largely +created this value, were begging vainly for work, and were being evicted +by the tens of thousands in Chicago because they could not pay rent for +their miserable, cramped habitations. + +By exchanging a few hundred, or a few thousand dollars, in Chicago's +extreme youth, for a scrap of paper called a deed, the buyer of this +land found himself after the lapse of years, a millionaire. It did not +matter where or how he obtained the purchase money: whether he swindled, +or stole, or inherited it, or made it honestly;--so long as it was not +counterfeit, the law was observed. After he got the land he was under no +necessity of doing anything more than hold on to it, which same he could +do equally well, whether in Chicago or buried in the depths of +Kamschatka. If he chose, he could get chronically drunk; he could +gamble, or drone in laziness; he could do anything but work. +Nevertheless, the land and all its values which others created, were his +forever, to enjoy and dispose of as suited his individual pleasure. + +This was, and is still, the system. Thoroughly riveted in law, it was +regarded as a rational, beneficent and everlasting fixture of civilized +life--by the beneficiaries. And as these latter happened to be, by +virtue of their possessions, among the real rulers of government, their +conceptions and interests were embodied in law, thought and custom as +the edict of civilization. The whole concurrent institutions of society, +which were but the echo of property interests, pronounced the system +wise and just, and, as a reigning force, do still so proclaim it. In +such a state there was nothing abnormal in any man monopolizing land and +exclusively appropriating its revenues. On the contrary, it was +considered a superior stroke of business, a splendid example of +astuteness. Marshall Field was looked upon as a very sagacious business +man. + + +FIELD'S REAL ESTATE TRACTS. + +Field bought much land when it was of comparatively inconsequential +value, and held on to it with a tenacious grip. In the last years of his +life, his revenues from his real estate were uninterruptedly enormous. + +"Downtown real estate in Chicago," wrote "a popular writer" in a +typically effusive biographical account of Field, published in 1901, "is +about as valuable, foot for foot, as that in the best locations in New +York City. From $8,000 to $15,000 a front foot are not uncommon figures +for property north of Congress street, in the Chicago business district. +Marshall Field owns not less than twenty choice sites and buildings in +this section; not including those used for his drygoods business. In the +vicinity of the Chicago University buildings he owns square block after +block of valuable land. Yet farther south he owns hundreds of acres of +land in the Calumet region--land invaluable for manufacturing +purposes." + +This extension and centralization of land ownership were accompanied by +precisely the same results as were witnessed in other cities, although +these results were the sequence of the whole social and industrial +system, and not solely of any one phase. Poverty grew in exact +proportion to the growth of large fortunes; the one presupposed, and was +built upon, the existence of the other. Chicago became full of slums and +fetid, overcrowded districts; and if the density and congestion of +population are not as great as in New York, Boston and Cincinnati, it is +only because of more favorable geographical conditions. + +Field's fortune was heaped up in about the last twenty years of his +life. The celerity of its progress arose from the prolific variety and +nature of his possessions. To form even an approximate idea of how fast +wealth came in to him, it is necessary to picture millions of men, women +and children toiling day after day, year in and year out, getting a +little less than two parts of the value of what they produced, while +almost nine portions either went to him entirely or in part. But this +was not all. Add to these millions of workers the rest of the population +of the United States who had to buy from, or in some other way pay +tribute to, the many corporations in which Field held stock, and you get +some adequate conception of the innumerable influxions of gold which +poured into Field's coffers every minute, every second of the day, +whether he were awake or asleep; whether sick or well, whether traveling +or sitting stock still. + + +HIS INCOME: $500 TO $700 AN HOUR. + +This one man had the legal power of taking over to himself, as his +inalienable property, his to enjoy, hoard, squander, bury, or throw in +the ocean, if his fancy so dictated, the revenue produced by the labor +of millions of beings as human as he, with the same born capacity for +eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping and dying. Many of his workers had +a better digestive apparatus which had to put up with inferior food, +and, at times, no food at all. He could eat no more than three meals a +day, but his daily income was enough to have afforded him ten thousand +sumptuous daily meals, with exquisite "trimmings," while periods came +when those who drudged for him were fortunate to have any meals at all. +Few of his workers received as much as $2 a day; Field's income was +estimated to be at the rate of about $500 to $700 an hour. + +First--and of prime importance--was his wholesale and retail drygoods +business. This was, and is, a line of business in which frantic +competition survived long after the manufacturing field had passed over +into concentrated trust control. To keep apace with competitors and make +high profits, it was imperative not only to resort to shifts, expedients +and policies followed by competitors, but to improve upon, and surpass, +those methods if possible. Field at all times proved that it was +possible. No competing firm would pay a certain rate of wages but what +Field instantly outgeneraled it by cutting his workers' wages to a point +enabling him to make his goods as cheap or cheaper. + + +HIS EMPLOYEES' WRETCHED WAGES. + +In his wholesale and retail stores he employed not less than ten +thousand men, women and children. He compelled them to work for wages +which, in a large number of cases, were inadequate even for a bare +subsistence. Ninety-five per cent. received $12 a week or less. The +female sewing-machine operators who bent over their tasks the long day, +making the clothes sold in the Field stores, were paid the miserable +wages of $6.75 a week. Makers of socks and stockings were paid from +$4.57 to $4.75 a week. The working hours consisted variously of from +fifty-nine to fifty-nine and a half a week. Field also manufactured his +own furniture as well as many other articles. Furniture workers were +paid: Machine workers, $11.02, and upholsterers $12.47 a week. All of +Field's wage workers were paid by the hour; should they fall sick, or +work become slack, their pay was proportionately reduced. + +The wretchedness in which many of these workers lived, and in which they +still live (for the same conditions obtain), was pitiful in the extreme. +Even in a small town where rent is not so high, these paltry wages would +have been insufficient for an existence of partial decency. But in +Chicago, with its forbidding rents, the increasing cost of all +necessaries, and all of the other expenses incident to life in a large +city, their wages were notoriously scanty. + +Large numbers of them were driven to herding in foul tenements or evil +dwellings, the inducements of which was the rent, a little lighter than +could be had elsewhere. Every cent economized meant much. If an +investigator (as often happened) had observed them, and had followed +them to their wretched homes after their day's work, he would have +noted, or learned of, these conditions: Their food was circumscribed and +coarse--the very cheapest forms of meat, and usually stale bread. Butter +was a superfluous luxury. The morning meal was made up of a chunk of +bread washed down with "coffee"--adulterated stuff with just a faint +odor of real coffee. At noon, bread and an onion, or a bit of herring, +or a slice of cheap cheese composed their dinner, with perhaps a dash of +dessert in the shape of sweetened substance, artificially colored, sold +as "cake." For supper, cheap pork, or a soup bone, garnished +occasionally in the season by stale vegetables, and accompanied by a +concoction resembling tea. Few of these workers ever had more than one +suit of clothes, or more than one dress. They could not afford +amusements, and were too fatigued to read or converse. At night bunches +of them bunked together--sometimes eight or ten in a single room; by +this arrangement the rent of each was proportionately reduced. + +It is now we come to a sinister result of these methods of exploiting +the wage-working girls and women. The subject is one that cannot be +approached with other than considerable hesitancy, not because the facts +are untrue, but because its statistical nature has not been officially +investigated. Nevertheless, the facts are known; stern, inflexible +facts. For true historical accuracy, as well as for purposes of +humanity, they must be given; that delicacy would be false, misleading +and palliative which would refrain from tearing away the veil and from +exposing the putridity beneath. + +Field was repeatedly charged with employing his workers at such +desperately low wages as to drive large numbers of girls and women, by +the terrifying force of poverty, into the alternative of prostitution. +How large the number has been, or precisely what the economic or +psychologic factors have been, we have no means of knowing. It is worth +noting that many official investigations, futile though their results, +have probed into many other phases of capitalist fraud. But the +department stores over the country have been a singular exception. + +Why this partiality? Because the public is never allowed to get +agitated over the methods and practices of the department stores. Hence +the politicians are neither forced, for the sake of appearance, to +investigate, nor can they make political capital from a thing over which +the people are not aroused. Not a line of the horrors taking place in +the large department stores is ever reported in the newspapers, not a +mention of the treatment of girls and women, not a word of the +injunctions frequently obtained restraining these stores from continuing +to sell this or that brand of spurious goods in imitation of those of +some complaining capitalist, or of the seizures by Health Boards of +adulterated drugs or foods. + +Wherefore this silence? Because, unsophisticated reader, these same +department stores are the largest and steadiest advertisers. The +newspapers, which solemnly set themselves up as moral, ethical, and +political instructors to the public, sell all the space desired to +advertise goods many of which are fraudulent in nature or weight. Not a +line objectionable to these department stores ever gets into newspaper +print; on the contrary, the owners of these stores, by the bludgeon of +their immense advertising, have the power, within certain limitations, +of virtually acting as censors. The newspapers, whatever their +pretensions, make no attempt to antagonize the powers from whom so large +a portion of their revenue comes. It is a standing rule in newspaper +offices in the cities, that not a specific mention of any unfavorable or +discreditable matter occurring in department stores, or affecting the +interests of the proprietors of those stores, is allowed to get into +print. Thus it is that the general public are studiously kept in +ignorance of the abominations incessantly going on in the large +department stores. + + +OUTCASTS RATHER THAN SLAVES. + +Notwithstanding this community of silence, in some respects akin to a +huge compounded system of blackmail, it is generally known that +department stores are often breeding stations of prostitution by reason +of two factors--extremely low wages and environment. There can be no +disputing the fact that these two working together, and perhaps +superinduced by other compelling influences, do bring about a condition +the upshot of which is prostitution. Such supine reports as those of the +Consumers' League, an organization of well-disposed dilletantes, and of +superficial purposes, give no insight into the real estate of affairs. +In his rather sensational and vitriolic raking of Chicago, W. T. Stead +strongly deals with the effects of department store conditions in +filling the ranks of prostitutes. He quotes Dora Claflin, the +proprietress of a brothel, as saying that such houses as hers obtained +their inmates from the stores, those in particular where hours were long +and the pay small.[174] + +Mockery of mockeries that in this era of civilization, so-called, a +system should prevail that yields far greater returns from selling the +body than from honest industry! + +It has been estimated that the number of young women who receive $2,500 +in one year by the sale of their persons is larger than the number of +women of all ages, in all businesses and professions, who make a +similar sum by work of mind or hand.[175] But one of the most +significant recognitions of the responsibility of department stores for +the prevalence of prostitution, was the act of a member of the Illinois +legislature, a few years ago, in introducing a resolution (which failed +to pass) to investigate the department stores of Chicago on the ground +that conditions in them led to a shocking state of immorality. The +statement has been repeatedly made that nearly one-half of the outcast +girls and women of Chicago have come from the department stores.[176] + +It was not only by these methods that the firm of Marshall Field & Co. +was so phenomenally successful in making money. In the background were +other methods which belong to a different category. Whatever Field's +practices--and they were venal and unscrupulous to a great degree, as +will be shown--he was an astute organizer. He understood how to +manipulate and use other men, and how to centralize business, and cut +out the waste and junket of mercantile operations. In the evolutionary +scheme of business he played his important part and a very necessary +part it was, for which he must be given full credit. His methods, base +as they were, were in no respect different from those of the rest of the +commercial world, as a whole. The only difference was that he was more +conspicuous and more successful. + + +CENTERING ALL PROFITS IN HIMSELF. + +At a time when all business was run on the chaotic and desultory lines +characteristic of the purely competitive age, he had the foresight and +shrewdness to perceive that the storekeeper who depended upon the jobber +and the manufacturer for his goods was largely at the mercy of those +elements. Even if he were not, there were two sets of profits between +him and the making of the goods--the jobber's profits and the +manufacturer's. + +Years before this vital fact was impressed upon the minds of the +floundering retailers, Field understood, and acted upon, it. He became +his own manufacturer and jobber. Thus he was complacently able to supply +his department store with many goods at cost, and pocket the profits +that otherwise would have gone to jobber and manufacturer. In, however, +the very act of making three sets of profits, while many other stores +made only one set, Field paid his employees at the retail store rate; +that is to say, he paid no more in wages than the store which had to buy +often from the jobber, who in turn, purchased from the manufacturer. +With this salient fact in mind, one begins to get a clear insight into +some of the reasons why Field made such enormous profits, and an +understanding of the consequent contrast of his firm doing a business of +$50,000,000 a year while thousands of his employees had to work for a +wretched pittance. He could have afforded to have paid them many times +more than they were getting and still would have made large profits. But +this would have been an imbecilic violation of that established canon of +business: Pay your employees as little as you can, and sell your goods +for the highest price you can get. + +Field was one of the biggest dry goods manufacturers in the world. He +owned, says a writer, scores of enormous factories in England, Ireland +and Scotland. "The provinces of France," this eulogist goes on, "are +dotted with his mills. The clatter of the Marshall Field looms is heard +in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and Russia. Nor is the Orient +neglected by this master of fabrics. Plodding Chinese and the skilled +Japs are numbered by the thousands on the payroll of the Chicago +merchant and manufacturer. On the other side of the equator are vast +woolen mills in Australia, and the chain extends to South America, with +factories in Brazil and in other of our neighboring republics." + +In all of these factories the labor of men, women and children was +harshly exploited; in nearly all of them the workers were in an +unorganized state, and therefore deprived of every vestige of +self-protection. Boys and girls of tenderest age were mercilessly ground +into dollars; their young life's blood dyed deep the fabrics which +brought Field riches. In this dehumanizing business Field was only doing +what the entire commercial aristocracy the world over was doing. + +How extraordinarily profitable the business of Marshall Field & Co. was +(and is), may be seen in the fact that its shares (it became an +incorporated stock company) were worth $1,000 each. At his death +Marshall Field owned 3,400 of these shares, which the executors of his +estate valued at $3,400,000. That the exploitation of labor, the sale of +sweatshop and adulterated goods, and many other forms of oppression or +fraud were a consecutive and integral part of his business methods is +undeniable. But other factors, distinctly under the ban of the law, +afford an additional explanation of how he was able to undersell petty +competitors, situated even at a distance. What all of these factors were +is not a matter of public knowledge. At least one of them came to light +when, on December 4, 1907, D. R. Anthony, a representative in Congress +from Kansas, supplied evidence to Postmaster-General Meyer that the +house of Marshall Field & Co. had enjoyed, and still had, the privilege +of secret discriminatory express rates in the shipment of goods. This +charge, if sustained, was a clear violation of the law; but these +violations by the great propertied interests were common, and entailed, +at the worst, no other penalty than a nominal fine. + +From such sources came the money with which he became a large +landowner. Also, from the sources enumerated, came the money with +which he and his associates debauched politics, and bribed common +councils and legislatures to present them with public franchises +for street and elevated railways, gas, telephone and electric light +projects--franchises intrinsically worth incalculable sums.[177] With +the money squeezed out of his legions of poverty-stricken employees and +out of his rent-racked tenants he became an industrial monarch. The +inventory of his estates filed in court by his executors revealed that +he owned stocks and bonds in about one hundred and fifty corporations. +This itemized list showed that he owned many millions of bonds and +stocks in railroads with the construction and operation of which he had +nothing to do. The history of practically all of them reeks with thefts +of public and private money; corruption of common councils, of +legislatures, Congress and of administrative officials; land grabbing, +fraud, illegal transactions, violence, and oppression not only of their +immediate workers, but of the entire population.[178] He owned--to give +a few instances--$1,500,000 of Baltimore and Ohio stock; $600,000 of +Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe; $1,860,000 of Chicago and Northwestern, +and tens of millions more of the stock or bonds of about fifteen other +railroads. + +He also owned an immense assortment of the stocks of a large number of +trusts. The affairs of these trusts have been shown in court, at some +time or other, as overflowing with fraud, the most glaring oppressions, +and violations of law. He had $450,000 in stock of the Corn Products +Company (the Glucose Trust); $370,000 of the stock of the notorious +Harvester Trust, which charges the farmer $75 for a machine that perhaps +costs $16 in all to make and market, and which holds a great part of the +farming population bound hand and foot; $350,000 of Biscuit Trust stock; +$200,000 of American Tin Can Company (Tin Can Trust) stock; and large +amounts of stock in other trusts. All of these stocks and bonds Field +owned outright; he made it a rule never to buy a share of stock on +margin or for speculative purposes. All told, he owned more than +$55,000,000 in stocks and bonds. + +A very considerable part of these were securities of Chicago surface and +elevated railway, gas, electric light and telephone companies. In the +corruption attending the securing of the franchises of these +corporations he was a direct principal. The narrative of this part of +his fortune, however, more pertinently belongs to subsequent chapters of +this work. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[172] Census of 1900. + +[173] Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:370. + +[174] See his work, "If Christ Came to Chicago." Much more specific and +reliable is the report of the U. S. Industrial Commission. After giving +the low wages paid to women in the different cities, it says: "It is +manifest from the figures given that the amount of earnings in many +cases is less than the actual cost of the necessities of life. The +existence of such a state of affairs must inevitably lead in many cases +to the adoption of a life of immorality and, in fact, there is no doubt +that the low rate of wages paid to women is one of the most frequent +causes of prostitution. The fact that the great mass of working women +maintain their virtue in spite of low wages and dangerous environment is +highly creditable to them."--Final Report of the Industrial Commission, +1902, xix:927. + +[175] See an article on this point by the Rev. F. M. Goodchild in the +"Arena" Magazine for March, 1896. + +[176] In the course of inquiries among the Chicago religious missions in +1909, the author was everywhere informed that the great majority of +native prostitutes were products of the department stores. Some of the +conditions in these department stores, and how their owners have fought +every effort to better these conditions, have been revealed in many +official reports. The appended description is from the Annual Report of +the Factory Inspectors of Illinois, 1903-04, pp. ix and x: + +"In this regard, and worthy of mention, reference might be made to the +large dry goods houses and department stores located in Chicago and +other cities, in which places it has been customary to employ a great +number of children under the age of sixteen as messenger boys, bundle +wrappers, or as cash boys or cash girls, wagon boys, etc. In previous +years these children were required to come to work early in the morning +and remain until late at night, or as long as the establishment was open +for business, which frequently required the youngsters to remain +anywhere from 8:00 to 9:00 o'clock in the morning until 10:00 and 11:00 +p.m., their weak and immature bodies tired and worn out under the strain +of the customary holiday rush. In the putting a stop to this practice of +employing small children ten and thirteen hours per day, the department +found it necessary to institute frequent prosecutions. While our efforts +were successful, we met with serious opposition, and in some cases +almost continuous litigation, some 300 arrests being necessary to bring +about the desired results, which finally secured the eight hour day and +a good night's rest for the small army of toilers engaged in the candy +and paper box manufacturing establishments and department stores. + +"In conducting these investigations and crusades the inspectors met with +some surprises in the way of unique excuses. In Chicago a manager of a +very representative first class department store, one of the largest of +its kind, gave as his reason for not obeying the law, that they had +never been interfered with before. Another, that the children preferred +to be in the store rather than at home. The unnaturalness of this latter +excuse can be readily realized by anyone who has stepped into a large +department store during the holiday season, when the clerks are tired +and cross and little consideration is shown to the cash boy or cash girl +who, because he or she may be tired or physically frail, might be a +little tardy in running an errand or wrapping a bundle. This character +of work for long hours is deleterious to a child, as are the employments +in many branches of the garment trade or other industries, which labor +is so openly condemned by those who have been interested in anti-child +labor movements." + +[177] For detailed particulars see that part of this work comprising +"Great Fortunes from Public Franchises." + +[178] The acts here summarized are narrated specifically in Part III, +"Great Fortunes from Railroads." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +FURTHER VISTAS OF THE FIELD FORTUNE + + +But if only to give at the outset a translucent example of Field's +method's in the management of industrial corporations, it is well to +advert here to the operations of one of his many properties--the Pullman +Company, otherwise called the "Palace Car Trust." This is a necessary +part of the exposition in order to bring out more of the methods by +which Field was enabled to fling together his vast fortune. + +The artificial creation of the law called the corporation was so devised +that it was comparatively easy for the men who controlled it to evade +personal, moral, and often legal, responsibility for their acts. +Governed as the corporation was by a body of directors, those acts +became collective and not individual; if one of the directors were +assailed he could plausibly take refuge in the claim that he was merely +one of a number of controllers; that he could not be held specifically +responsible. Thus the culpability was shifted, until it rested on the +corporation, which was a bloodless thing, not a person. + + +FIELD'S PULLMAN WORKS. + +In the case of the Pullman Co., however, much of the moral +responsibility could be directly placed upon Field, inasmuch as he, +although under cover, was virtually the dictator of that corporation. +According to the inventory of the executors of his will, he owned 8,000 +shares of Pullman stock, valued at $800,000. It was asserted (in 1901) +that Field was the largest owner of Pullman stock. "In the popular +mind," wrote a puffer, probably inspired by Field himself, "George M. +Pullman has ever been deemed the dominant factor in that vast and +profitable enterprise." This belief was declared an error, and the +writer went on: "Field is, and for years has been, in almost absolute +control. Pullman was little more than a figurehead. Such men as Robert +T. Lincoln, the president of the company, and Norman B. Ream are but +representatives of Marshall Field, whose name has never been identified +with the property he so largely owns and controls." That fulsome writer, +with the usual inaccuracies and turgid exaggerations of "popular +writers," omitted to say that although Field was long the controlling +figure in the management of the Pullman works, yet other powerful +American multimillionaires, such as the Vanderbilts, had also become +large stockholders. + +The Pullman Company, Moody states, employed in 1904, in all departments +of its various factories at different places, nearly 20,000 employees, +and controlled 85 per cent of the entire industry.[179] As at least a +part of the methods of the company have been the subject of official +investigation, certain facts are available. + +To give a brief survey, the Pullman Company was organized in 1867 to +build sleeping cars of a feasible type officially patented by Pullman. +In 1880 it bought five hundred acres of land near Chicago. Upon three +hundred of these it built its plant, and proceeded, with much show and +advertisement of benevolence, to build what is called a model town for +the benefit of its workers. Brick tenements, churches, a library, and +athletic grounds were the main features, with sundry miscellaneous +accessories. This project was heralded far and wide as a notable +achievement, a conspicuous example of the growing altruism of business. + + +THE NATURE OF A MODEL TOWN. + +Time soon revealed the inner nature of the enterprise. The "model town," +as was the case with imitative towns, proved to be a cunning device with +two barbs. It militated to hold the workers to their jobs in a state of +quasi serfdom, and it gave the company additional avenues of exploiting +its workers beyond the ordinary and usual limits of wages and profits. +In reality, it was one of the forerunners of an incoming feudalistic +sway, without the advantages to the wage worker that the lowly possessed +under medieval feudalism. It was also an apparent polished improvement, +but nothing more, over the processes at the coal mines in Pennsylvania, +Illinois and other States where the miners were paid the most meager +wages, and were compelled to return those wages to the coal companies +and bear an incubus of debt besides, by being forced to buy all of their +goods and merchandise at company stores at extortionate rates. But where +the coal companies did the thing boldly and crudely, the Pullman Company +surrounded the exploitation with deceptive embellishments. + +The mechanism, although indirect, was simple. While, for instance, the +cost of gas to the Pullman Company was only thirty-three cents a +thousand feet, every worker living in the town of Pullman had to pay at +the rate of $2.25 a thousand feet. If he desired to retain his job he +could not avoid payment; the company owned the exclusive supply of gas +and was the exclusive landlord. The company had him in a clamp from +which he could not well escape. The workers were housed in ugly little +pens, called cottages, built in tight rows, each having five rooms and +"conveniences." For each of these cottages $18 rent a month was charged. +The city of Chicago, the officials of which were but the mannikins or +hirelings of the industrial magnates, generously supplied the Pullman +Company with water at four cents a thousand gallons. For this same water +the company charged its employees ten cents a thousand gallons, or about +seventy-one cents a month. By this plan the company, in addition, +obtained its water supply for practically nothing. Even for having +shutters on the houses the workers were taxed fifty cents a month. These +are some specimens of the company's many devious instrumentalities for +enchaining and plundering its thousands of workers. + +In the panic year of 1893 the Pullman Company reduced wages one-fourth, +yet the cost of rent, water, gas--of nearly all other fundamental +necessities--remained the same. As the average yearly pay of at least +4,497 of the company's wage workers was little more than $600--or, to be +exact, $613.86--this reduction, in a large number of cases, was +equivalent to forcing these workers to yield up their labors for +substantially nothing. Numerous witnesses testified before the special +commission appointed later by President Cleveland, that at times their +bi-weekly checks ran variously from four cents to one dollar. The +company could not produce evidence to disprove this. These sums +represented the company's indebtedness to them for their labor, after +the company had deducted rent and other charges. Such manifold robberies +aroused the bitterest resentment among the company's employees, since +especially it was a matter of authentic knowledge, disclosed by the +company's own reports, that the Pullman factories were making enormous +profits. At this time, the Pullman workers were $70,000 in arrears to +the company for rent alone. + + +THE PULLMAN EMPLOYEES STRIKE. + +Finally plucking up courage--for it required a high degree of moral +bravery to subject themselves and their families to the further want +inevitably ensuing from a strike--the workers of the Pullman Company +demanded a restoration of the old scale of wages. An arrogant refusal +led to the declaration of a strike on May 11, 1894. This strike, and the +greater strike following, were termed by Carroll D. Wright, for a time +United States Commissioner of Labor, as "probably the most expensive and +far-reaching labor controversy which can properly be classed among the +historic controversies of this generation."[180] The American Railway +Union, composed of the various grades of workers on a large number of +railroads, declared a general sympathetic strike under the delegated +leadership of Eugene V. Debs. + +The strike would perhaps have been successful had it not been that the +entire powers of the National Government, and those of most of the +States affected, were used roughshod to crush this mighty labor +uprising. The whole newspaper press, with rare exceptions, spread the +most glaring falsehoods about the strike and its management. Debs was +personally and venomously assailed in vituperation that has had little +equal. To put the strikers in the attitude of sowing violence, the +railroad corporations deliberately instigated the burning or +destruction of their own cars (they were cheap, worn-out freight cars), +and everywhere had thugs and roughs as its emissaries to preach, and +provoke, violence.[181] The object was threefold: to throw the onus upon +the strikers of being a lawless body; to give the newspapers an +opportunity of inveighing with terrific effect against the strikers, and +to call upon the Government for armed troops to shoot down, overawe, or +in other ways thwart, the strikers. + +Government was, in reality, directed by the railroad and other +corporations. United States judges, at the behest of the railroad +companies (which had caused them to be appointed to the Bench), issued +extraordinary, unprecedented injunctions against the strikers. These +injunctions even prevented the strikers from persuading fellow employees +to quit work. So utterly lacking any basis in law had these injunctions +that the Federal Commission reported: "It is seriously questioned, and +with much force, whether the courts have jurisdiction to enjoin citizens +from 'persuading' each other in industrial matters of common interest." +But the injunctions were enforced. Debs and his comrades were convicted +of contempt of court and, without jury trial, imprisoned at a critical +juncture of the strike. And what was their offense? Nothing more than +seeking to induce other workers to take up the cause of their striking +fellow-workers. The judges constituted themselves as prosecuting +attorney, judge and jury. Never had such high-handed judicial usurpation +been witnessed. As a concluding stroke, President Cleveland ordered a +detachment of the United States army to Chicago. The pretexts were that +the strikers were interfering with interstate commerce and with the +carrying of mails. + + +VAST PROFITS AND LOW WAGES. + +That the company's profits were great at the identical time the workers +were curtailed to a starvation basis, there can be no doubt. The general +indignation and agitation caused by the summary proceedings during the +strike, compelled President Cleveland to appoint a commission to +investigate. Cleveland was a mediocre politician who, by a series of +fortuitous circumstances, had risen from ward politics to the +Presidency. After using the concentrated power of the Federal Government +to break the strike, he then decided to "investigate" its merits. It was +the shift and ruse of a typical politician. + +The Special Commission, while not selected of men who could in the +remotest degree be accused of partiality toward the workers, brought out +a volume of significant facts, and handed in a report marked by +considerable and unexpected fairness. The report showed that the Pullman +Company's capital had been increased from $1,000,000 in 1867 to +$36,000,000 in 1894. "Its prosperity," the Commission reported, "has +enabled the company for over twenty years to pay two per cent. quarterly +dividends." But this eight per cent. annual dividend was not all. In +certain years the dividends had ranged from nine and one half, to +twelve, per cent. In addition, the Commission further reported, the +company had laid by a reserve fund in the form of a surplus of +$25,000,000 of profits which had not been divided. For the year ending +July 31, 1893, the declared dividends were $2,520,000; the wages +$7,223,719.51. During the next year, when wages were cut one-fourth, the +stockholders divided an even greater amount in profits: $2,880,000. +Wages went to 4,471,701.39.[182] + +If Field's revenue was so proportionately large from this one +property--the Pullman works--it is evident that his total revenue from +the large array of properties which he owned, or in which he held bonds +or stock, was very great. + +It is probable that in the latter years of his life his annual net +income was, at the very least, $5,000,000. This is an extremely +conservative estimate. More likely it reached $10,000,000 a year. +Computing the sum upon which the average of his workers had to live (to +make a very liberal allowance) at $800 a year, this sum of $5,000,000 +flowing in to him every year, without in the slightest trenching upon +his principal, was equal to the entire amount that 6,250 of his +employees earned by the skill of their brains and hands, and upon which +they had to support themselves and their families. + +Here, then, was one individual who appropriated to his use as much as +six thousand; men and more who laboriously performed service to the +community. For that $5,000,000 a year Field had nothing to do in return +except to worry over the personal or business uses to which his surplus +revenues should be put; like a true industrial monarch he relieved +himself of superfluous cares by hiring the ability to supervise and +manage his properties for him. + +Such an avalanche of riches tumbled in upon him that, perforce, like the +Astors, the Goelets and other multimillionaires, he was put constantly +to the terrible extremity of seeking new fields for investment. +Luxuriously live, as he did, it would have required a superior inventive +capacity to have dissipated his full income. But, judging his life by +that of some other multimillionaires, he lived modestly. Of medium +height and spare figure, he was of rather unobtrusive appearance. In his +last years his hair and mustache were white. His eyes were gray and +cold; his expression one of determination and blandly assertive +selfishness. His eulogists, however, have glowingly portrayed him as +"generous, philanthropic and public-spirited." + + +"A MODEL OF BUSINESS INTEGRITY." + +In fact, it was a point descanted upon with extraordinary emphasis +during Field's lifetime and following his demise that, (to use the stock +phrase which with wearying ceaselessness went the rounds of the press), +he was "a business man of the best type." From this exceptional +commentary it can be seen what was the current and rooted opinion of the +character of business men in general. Field's rigorous exploitation of +his tens of thousands of workers in his stores, in his Pullman +factories, and elsewhere, was not a hermetically sealed secret; but this +exploitation, no matter to what extremes to which it was carried, was an +ordinary routine of prevailing business methods.[183] + +Of the virtual enslavement of the worker; of the robbing him of what he +produced; of the drastic laws enforced against him; of the debasement of +men, women and children--of all of these facts the organs of public +expression, the politicians and the clergy, with few exceptions, said +nothing. + +Everywhere, except in obscure quarters of despised workingmen's +meetings, or in the writings or speeches of a few intellectual +protestors, the dictum was proclaimed and instilled that conditions were +just and good. In a thousand disingenuous ways, backed by nimble +sophistry, the whole ruling class, with its clouds of retainers, turned +out either an increasing flood of praise of these conditions, or masses +of misinforming matter which tended to reconcile or blind the victim to +his pitiful drudgery. The masters of industry, who reaped fabulous +riches from such a system, were covered with slavish adulation, and were +represented in flowery, grandiloquent phrases as indispensable men, +without whom the industrial system of the country could not be carried +on. Nay, even more: while being plundered and ever anew plundered of the +fruits of their labor, the workers were told, (as they are increasingly +being told), that they should honor the magnates and be thankful to them +for providing work. + + +HE STEALS MILLIONS IN TAXES. + +Marshall Field, as we have said, was heralded far and wide as an +unusually honest business man, the implication being that every cent of +his fortune was made fairly and squarely. Those fawners to wealth, and +they were many, who persisted in acclaiming his business methods as +proper and honorable, were grievously at a loss for an explanation when +his will was probated, and it was found that even under the existing +laws, favorable as they were to wealth, he had been nothing more than a +common perjurer and a cheat. It was too true, alas! This man "of strict +probity" had to be catalogued with the rest of his class. + +For many years he had insisted on paying taxes on personal property on a +valuation of not more than $2,500,000; and the pious old shopkeeper had +repeatedly threatened, in case the board of assessors should raise his +assessment, that he would forthwith bundle off his domicile from +Chicago, and reside in a place where assessors refrain from too much +curiosity as to one's belongings. But lo! when the schedule of his +property was filed in court, it was disclosed that for many years he had +owned at least $17,500,000 of taxable personal property subject to the +laws of the State of Illinois. Thus was another idol cruelly shattered; +for the aforesaid fawners had never tired of exulting elaborately upon +the theme of Field's success, and how it was due to his absolute +integrity and pure, undented character. + +At another time the facts of his thefts of taxes might have been +suppressed or toned down. But at this particular juncture Chicago +happened to have a certain corporation counsel who, while mildly +infected with conventional views, was not a truckler to wealth. Suit was +brought in behalf of the city for recovery of $1,730,000 back taxes. So +clear was the case that the trustees of Field's estate decided to +compromise. On March 2, 1908, they delivered to John R. Thompson, +treasurer of Cook County, a check for one million dollars. If the +compound interest for the whole series of years during which Field +cheated in taxation were added to the $1,730,000, it would probably be +found that the total amount of his frauds had reached fully three +million dollars. + +The chorus of astonishment that ascended when these facts were divulged +was an edifying display. He who did not know that the entire propertied +class made a regular profession of perjury and fraud in order to cheat +the public treasury out of taxes, was either deliciously innocent or +singularly uninformed. Year after year a host of municipal and State +officials throughout the United States issued reports showing this +widespread condition. Yet aside from their verbose complainings, which +served political purpose in giving an air of official vigilance, the +authorities did nothing. + + +PERJURY AND CHEATING COMMON. + +As a matter of fact, the evasion of taxes by the Pullman Company had +been a public scandal for many years. John P. Altgeld, Governor of +Illinois in 1893-95, frequently referred to it in his speeches and +public papers. Field, then, not only personally cheated the public +treasury out of millions, but also the corporations which he controlled +did likewise. The propertied class everywhere did the same. The +unusually thorough report of the Illinois Labor Bureau of 1894 +demonstrated how the most valuable land and buildings in Chicago were +assessed at the merest fraction of their true value--the costliest +commercial buildings at about one-tenth, and the richest residences at +about one-fourteenth, of their actual value. As for personal property it +contributed a negligible amount in taxes.[184] + +The reports of the tax committee of the Boston Executive Business +Association in 1891 estimated that two billion dollars of property in +Boston escaped taxation, and that the public treasury was cheated out of +about $17,000,000 in taxes every year. As for New York City, we have +seen how the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Goelets--the whole aggregate +of the propertied class--systematically defrauded in taxes for many +decades. It is estimated that in New York City, at present, not less +than five billion dollars of property, real and personal, entirely +escapes taxation. This estimate is a conservative one. + +Spahr, after an exhaustive investigation in the United States concluded +more than a decade ago that, "the wealthy class pay less than one-tenth +of the indirect taxes, the well-to-do less than one-quarter, and the +relatively poorer classes more than two-thirds."[185] What Spahr omitted +was this highly important qualification: When the rich do pay. Tenants +of the property owners must pay their rent on time or suffer eviction, +but the capitalists are allowed to take their own leisurely time in +paying such portion of their taxes as remains after the bulk of the tax +list has been perjured away. Thus in a report he made public on February +28, 1908, Controller Metz, of New York City, pointed out that the huge +amount of $102,834,227, was due the city in uncollected taxes, much of +which amount ran several decades back. Of this sum $29,816,513 was owed +on real estate, on which the taxes were a direct lien. + +The beauties of law as made and enforced by the property interests, are +herein illustriously exemplified. A poor tenant can be instantly +dispossessed, whether sick or in destitution, for non-payment of rent; +the landowner is allowed by officials who represent, and defer to him +and his class, to owe large amounts in taxes for long periods, and not a +move is taken to dispossess him. + +And now by the most natural gradation, we come to those much bepraised +acts of our multimillionaires--the seignorial donating of millions to +"charitable" or "public-spirited" purposes. + +Like the Astors, the Schermerhorns, the Rhinelanders and a galaxy of +others, Field diffused large sums; he, like them, was overwhelmed with +panegyrics. Millions Field gave toward the founding and sustaining of +the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago, and to the University of Chicago. +It may be parenthetically added that, (to repeat), he owned, adjacent to +this latter institution, many blocks of land the increased value of +which, after the establishment of the University, more than recouped him +for his gifts. This might have been either accidental or it might have +been cold calculation; judging from Field's consistent methods, it was +probably not chance. + +So composite, however, is the human character, so crossed and seamed by +conflicting influences, that at no time is it easy to draw any absolute +line between motives. Merely because he exploited his employees +mercilessly, and cheated the public treasury out of millions of dollars, +it does not necessarily follow that Field was utterly deficient in +redeeming traits. As business is conducted, it is well known that many +successful men (financially), who practice the most cruel and oppressive +methods, are, outside the realm of strict business transactions, +expansively generous and kind. In business they are beasts of prey, +because under the private property system, competition, whether between +small or large concerns, is reduced to a cutthroat struggle, and those +who are in the contest must abide by its desperate rules. They must let +no sympathy or tenderness interpose in their business dealings, else +they are lost. + +But without entering into a further philosophical disquisition, this +fact must be noted: The amounts that Field gave for "philanthropy" were +about identical with the sums out of which he defrauded Chicago in the +one item of taxes alone. Probed into, it is seen that a great part of +the sums that multimillionaires have given, represent but a tithe of the +sums cheated by them in taxes. William C. Schermerhorn donates $300,000 +to Columbia University; the aggregate amount that he defrauded in taxes +was much more. Thus do our magnates supply themselves with present and +posthumous fame gratuitously. Not to consider the far greater and +incalculably more comprehensive question of their appropriating the +resources of the country and the labor of hundreds of millions of +people,[186] and centering attention upon this one concrete instance of +frauds in taxes, the situation presented is an incongruous one. Money +belonging to the public treasury they retain by fraud; this money, +apparently a part of their "honestly acquired" fortune, is given in +some form of philanthropy; and then by some curious oversetting of even +conventional standards, they reap blessings and glory for giving what +are really stolen funds. + +"Those who enjoy his confidence," wrote an effervescent eulogist of +Field, "predict that the bulk of his vast fortune will be devoted to +purposes of public utility." But this prediction did not materialize. + + +$140,000,000 TO TWO BOYS. + +Field's fortune, conservatively estimated at $100,000,000, yet, in fact, +reaching about $140,000,000, was largely bequeathed to his two +grandsons, Marshall Field III., and Henry Field. Marshall Field, as did +many other multimillionaires of his period, welded his fortune into a +compact and vested institution. It ceased to be a personal attribute, +and became a thing, an inert mass of money, a corporate entity. This he +did by creating, by the terms of his will, a trust of his fortune for +the two boys. The provisions of the will set forth that $72,000,000 was +to set aside in trust for Marshall III., until the year 1954. At the +expiration of that period it, together with its accumulation, was to be +turned over to him. To the other grandson, Henry, $48,000,000 was +bequeathed under the same conditions. + +These sums are not in money, although at all times Field had a snug sum +of cash stowed away; when he died he had about $4,500,000 in banks. The +fortune that he left was principally in the form of real estate and +bonds and stocks. These constituted a far more effective cumulative +agency than money. They were, and are, inexorable mortgages on the labor +of millions of workers, men, women and children, of all occupations. By +this simple screed, called a will, embodying one man's capricious +indulgence, these boys, utterly incompetent even to grasp the magnitude +of the fortune owned by them, and incapable of exercising the +glimmerings of management, were given legal, binding power over a mass +of people for generations. Patterson says that in the Field stores and +Pullman factories fifty thousand people work for these boys.[187] But +these are the direct employees; as we have seen, Field owned bonds and +stock in more than one hundred and fifty industrial, railroad, mining +and other corporations. The workers of all these toil for the Field +boys. + +They delve in mines, and risk accident, disease and death, or suffer an +abjectly lingering life of impoverishment. Thousands of coal miners are +killed every year, and many thousands more are injured, in order that +two boys and others of their class may draw huge profits.[188] More than +10,000 persons are killed, and 97,000 injured, every year on the +railroads, so that the income enjoyed by these lads and others shall not +diminish. Nearly all of these casualties are due to economizing in +expense, working employees to an extreme fatiguing limit, and refusing +to provide proper safety appliances. Millions more workers drudge in +rolling mills, railroad shops and factories; they wear out their lives +on farms, in packing houses and stores. For what? Why, foolish +questioner, for the rudiments of an existence; do you not know that +the world's dispossessed must pay heavily for the privilege of living? +As these lads hold, either wholly or partly, the titles to all this +inherited property; in plain words, to a formidable part of the +machinery of business, the millions of workers must sweat and bend the +back, and pile up a ceaseless flow of riches for them. + +[Illustration: MARSHAL FIELD III. and HENRY FIELD. +The Boys Who Inherited $140,000,000.] + +Marshall Field III., still in knickerbockers, receives $60,000 a week; +his brother Henry, $40,000 a week. The sum in both cases automatically +increases as the interest on the principal compounds. What do many of +the workers who supply this revenue get? Patterson gives this authentic +list of wages: + +Pullman Company blacksmiths, $16.43 a week; boiler-makers, $17; +carpenters, $12.38; machinists, $16.65; painters, $13.60, and laborers, +$9.90 a week. As for the lower wages paid to the workers in the Field +stores, we have already given them. And apart from the exploitation of +employees, every person in Chicago who rides on the street or elevated +railroads, and who uses gas, electricity or telephones, must pay direct +tribute to these lads. How decayed monarchial establishments are in +these days! Kings mostly must depend upon Parliaments for their civil +lists of expenditure; but Capitalism does not have to ask leave of +anybody; it appropriates what it wants. + +This is the status of the Field fortune now. Let the Field striplings +bless their destiny that they live in no medieval age, when each baron +had to defend his possessions by his strong right arm successfully, or +be compelled to relinquish. This age is one when Little Lord Fauntleroys +can own armies of profit producers, without being distracted from their +toys. Whatever defense is needed is supplied by society, with its +governments and its judges, its superserviceable band of lawyers, and +its armed forces. Two delicate children are upheld in enormous +possessions and vast power, while millions of fellow beings are suffered +to remain in destitution. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[179] "The Truth About the Trusts":266-267. + +[180] "Industrial Evolution of the United States," 313. + +[181] Parsons, "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":196. Also, +Report of Chicago Chief of Police for 1894. This was a customary +practice of railroad, industrial and mining capitalists. Further facts +are brought out in other parts of this work. + +[182] "Report on the Chicago Strike of June and July, 1894," by the +United States Strike Commissioners, 1895.--Throughout all subsequent +years, and at present, the Pullman Company has continued charging the +public exorbitant rates for the use of its cars. Numerous bills have +been introduced in various legislatures to compel the company to reduce +its rates. The company has squelched these measures. Its consistent +policy is well known of paying its porters and conductors such poor +wages that the 15,000,000 passengers who ride in Pullman cars every year +are virtually obliged to make up the deficiency by tips. + +[183] Sweeping as this statement may impress the uninitiated, it is +entirely within the facts. As one of many indisputable confirmations it +is only necessary to refer to the extended debate over child labor in +the United States Senate on January 23, 28, and 29, 1907, in which it +was conclusively shown that more than half a million children under +fifteen years of age were employed in factories, mines and sweatshops. +It was also brought out how the owners of these properties bitterly +resisted the passage or enforcement of restrictive laws. + +[184] Eighth Biennial Report of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, +1894. The report, made public in August, 1909, of the Illinois Tax +Reform League's investigation of the Chicago Board of Review's +assessments, showed that these frauds in evading taxation not only +continue, but on a much greater scale than ever before. The Illinois Tax +Reform League asserted, among other statements, that Edward Morris, head +of a large packing company, was not assessed on personal property, +whereas he owned $43,000,000 worth of securities, which the League +specified. The League called upon the Board of Review to assess J. Ogden +Armour, one of the chiefs of the Beef Trust, on $30,840,000 of personal +property. Armour was being yearly assessed on only $200,000 of personal +property. These are two of the many instances given in the report in +question. It is estimated (in 1909), that back taxes on at least a +billion dollars of assessable corporate capital stock, are due the city +from a multitude of individuals and corporations. + +[185] "The Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States":143. + +[186] "Hundreds of millions of people." Not only are the 85,000,000 +people of the United States compelled to render tribute, but the peoples +of other countries all over the globe. + +[187] "Marshall Field's Will" by Joseph Medill Patterson. Reprinted in +pamphlet form from "Collier's Weekly." + +[188] The number of men killed per 100,000 employed has increased from +267 a year in 1895 to about 355 at present. (See report of J. A. Holmes, +chief of the technological branch of the United States Geological +Survey.) The chief reason for this slaughter is because it is more +profitable to hire cheap, inexperienced men, and not surround the work +with proper safeguards. + + + + +END OF VOL. I. + + +(The index for Volumes I, II, and III will be found in Vol. III.) + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History of the Great American +Fortunes, Vol. I, by Myers Gustavus + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT AMERICAN FORTUNES *** + +***** This file should be named 30956.txt or 30956.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/9/5/30956/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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