But the project which had appeared simple enough in theory and on paper, proved extremely difficult of execution. If Field could have foreseen the thirteen years of constant anxiety which awaited him, he would no doubt have hesitated to undertake it. It looked, at first, as though success would crown his efforts almost at the outset, for in 1858, the laying of a cable was completed, and for some days, messages were sent from one continent to the other. Then the signals began to grow fainter and fainter, until they became imperceptible, supposedly from the water of the ocean penetrating the cable covering.
At any rate, the work had to be done all over again, with little money on hand, and the coming of the Civil War helped to make further progress impossible. Field visited Europe more than twenty times in the effort to raise money for the enterprise and to keep it before the public, but it was not until 1865 that another effort to lay the cable could be made. The "Great Eastern," the largest ship in the world, was secured, and began paying out the cable; but twelve hundred miles from shore the cable parted and could not be regained, although every effort was made to grapple it. So the vessel had to put back to England, and Field was confronted with the heart-breaking task of raising even more money. He succeeded in doing so, and in 1866, another expedition started out with a new cable. This time, it met with no serious misadventure, and on July 27, telegraphic communication was re-established between England and America, and has never since been interrupted.
That cable was the first of the hundreds which now encircle the globe. Congress presented the bold adventurer with a gold medal and the thanks of the nation; John Bright pronounced him "the Columbus of modern times, who, by his cable, has moored the New World alongside of the Old"; the Paris exposition of 1867 gave him the grand medal, the highest prize it had to bestow; and he received votes of thanks and medals and presents from all parts of the world.
In 1884, two other cables were laid across the Atlantic by John W. Mackay and James Gordon Bennett, whose private property they remained. Mackay had had an adventurous career, and was destined to be the founder of another of those great American fortunes which are the wonder and admiration of Europe. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1831, his father being another of those sturdy Scotch-Irish of whom we have already had occasion to speak. He was brought to New York at the age of nine; but his father died a short time thereafter and the boy was thrown practically upon his own resources.
When gold was discovered in California in 1849, Mackay joined the crowd that rushed to the new El Dorado, and for several years, he lived a typical miner's life, roughing it in the camps, but gaining little except a thorough knowledge of mining. In 1860, some guiding spirit led him eastward to Nevada; his fortunes there steadily improved, until he became one of the leading men in the settlement, and in 1872, he made one of the most famous and romantic discoveries in mining history, that of the famous Comstock lode, on a ledge of rock high in the Sierras, under which Virginia City now nestles. So rich in silver was this great ledge of rock and its enormous production added so greatly to the world's supply of silver that the market price fell to a point where such countries as India and China, whose currency was on a silver basis, were seriously embarrassed to maintain values. From one mine alone over $150,000,000 was taken out. Mackay devoted himself personally to the superintendence of the mines, working in the lower levels with his men, who idolized him.
Let us turn for a moment to the career of another great fortune-builder, the man who was, perhaps, the greatest freebooter the American financial world ever saw, who made his money by destroying rather than building up, and whose wealth finally killed him—Jay Gould. Let us see if we can get some sort of idea of the personality of this extraordinary man.
Born in 1836, a farmer's boy, with only such education as he could pick up, he managed to find time to study surveying, and for two or three years was engaged in making surveys of various New York counties. While thus engaged, he fell in with a wealthy and eccentric individual named Zadock Pratt, who sent him to the western part of the state to select a site for a tannery. He was soon doing a large lumbering business, first with Pratt and then in his own name; but he sold out just before the panic of 1857, and soon after entered upon that career of speculation in New York City which, in the end, made him the best-hated man in America.
Picture the man, small, only five feet six inches in height, with sallow skin and jet black whiskers, his eyes dark and piercing, his whole personality, as one observer put it, "reminiscent of the spider." His reputation was that of an unscrupulous and immoral rascal, who would not hesitate to sacrifice his best friends, if need be. His war against Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of the Erie was one of his typical operations—a war which, when he saw he was losing, he won by issuing $5,000,000 worth of fraudulent stock. There was never any question about the criminality of this proceeding, and Gould was forced to flee to New Jersey, where he spent millions in corrupting courts and legislatures—millions, not taken from his own pocket, but from the treasury of the Erie, of which he had control. He was ousted, at last, but not until he had added $62,000,000 to the indebtedness of the road, of which amount it was asserted Gould had pocketed $12,000,000.
The culminating feature of his career was his attempt to corner gold, which brought about the famous Black Friday panic of 1869. The scheme, one of the most daring ever attempted by any operator, came near success. Gould is said to have bribed the brother-in-law of President Grant and to have persuaded the President himself not to release any of the government supply of gold. He then succeeded in driving the price up to 162½, when suddenly the bubble burst. Gould, himself, had been warned and succeeded in getting away with his immense profits, covering himself at the expense of his associates, an act of treachery unprecedented even in the stock market.