"There is a poor blind Samson in our land,
Shorn of his strength and bound with bonds of steel,
Who may in some grim revel raise his hand,
And shake the pillars of the Commonweal.">[
Thus was the supremacy of "law and order" maintained. The day was saved for well-fed respectability, and starving humanity was forced back into its despairing haunts, there to reflect upon the club- taught lesson that empty stomachs should remain inarticulate. For the flash of a second, a nameless fright seized hold of the gilded quarters, but when they saw how well the police did their dispersing work, and choked up with their clubs the protests of aggregated suffering, self-confidence came back, revelry was resumed, and the saturnalia of theft went on unbrokenly.
And a lucky day was that for the police. The methods of the ruling class were reflected in the police force; while perfumed society was bribing, defrauding and expropriating, the police were enriching themselves by a perfected system of blackmail and extortion of their own. Police Commissioners, chiefs, inspectors, captains and sergeants became millionaires, or at least, very rich from the proceeds of this traffic. Not only did they extort regular payments from saloons, brothels and other establishments on whom the penalties of law could be visited, but they had a standing arrangement with thieves of all kinds, rich thieves as well as what were classed as ordinary criminals, by which immunity was sold at specified rates. [Footnote: The very police captain, one Williams, who commanded the police at the Tompkins Square gathering was quizzed by the "Lexow Committee" in 1893 as to where he got his great wealth. He it was who invented the term "Tenderloin," signifying a district from which large collections in blackmail and extortion could be made. By 1892, the annual income derived by the police from blackmailing and other sources of extortion was estimated at $7,000,000. (See "Investigation of the Police Department of New York City," 1894, v:5734.) With the establishment of Greater New York the amount about doubled, or, perhaps, trebled.] The police force did not want this system interfered with; hence at all times toadied to the rich and influential classes as the makers of law and the creators of public opinion. To be on the good side of the rich, and to be praised as the defenders of law and order, furnished a screen of incalculable utility behind which they could carry on undisturbedly their own peculiar system of plunder.
CHAPTER XII
THE GOULD FORTUNE AND SOME ANTECEDENT FACTORS
With his score or more of millions of booty, Jay Gould now had much more than sufficient capital to compete with many of the richest magnates; and what he might lack in extent of capital when combated by a combination of magnates, he fully made up for by his pulverizing methods. His acute eye had previously lit upon the Union Pacific Railroad as offering a surpassingly prolific field for a new series of thefts. Nor was he mistaken. The looting of this railroad and allied railroads which he, Russell Sage and other members of the clique proceeded to accomplish, added to their wealth, it was estimated perhaps $60,000,000 or more, the major share of which Gould appropriated.
It was commonly supposed in 1873 that the Union Pacific Railroad had been so completely despoiled that scarcely a vestige was left to prey upon. But Gould had an extraordinary faculty for devising new and fresh schemes of spoliation. He would discern great opportunities for pillage in places that others dismissed as barren; projects that other adventurers had bled until convinced nothing more was to be extracted, would be taken up by Gould and become plethora of plunder under his dexterous touch. Again and again Gould was charged with being a wrecker of property; a financial beachcomber who destroyed that he might profit. These accusations, in the particular exclusive sense in which they were meant, were distortions. In almost every instance the railroads gathered in by Gould were wrecked before he secured control; all that he did was to revive, continue and elaborate the process of wrecking. It had been proved so in the case of the Erie Railroad; he now demonstrated it with the Union Pacific Railroad.
THE MISLEADING ACCOUNTS HANDED DOWN.
This railroad had been chartered by Congress in 1862 to run from a line on the one hundredth meridian in Nebraska to the western boundary of Nevada. The actual story of its inception and construction is very different from the stereotyped accounts shed by most writers. These romancers, distinguished for their sycophancy and lack of knowledge, would have us believe that these enterprises originated as splendid and memorable exhibitions of patriotism, daring and ability. According to their version Congress was so solicitous that these railroads should be built that it almost implored the projectors to accept the great gifts of franchises, land and money that it proffered as assistance. A radiantly glowing description is forged of the men who succeeded in laying these railroads; how there stretched immense reaches of wilderness which would long have remained desolate had it not been for these indomitable pioneers; and how by their audacious skill and persistence they at last prevailed, despite sneers and ridicule, and gave to the United States a chain of railroads such as a few years before it had been considered folly to attempt.
Very limpidly these narratives flow; two generations have drunk so deeply of them that they have become inebriated with the contemplation of these wonderful men. When romance, however, is hauled to the archives, and confronted with the frigid facts, the old dame collapses into shapeless stuffing.