Its precise proportions no one knows except the Gould family itself. That it reaches many hundreds of millions of dollars is fairly obvious, although what is its exact figure is a matter not to be easily ascertained. In the flux of present economic conditions, which, so far as the control of the resources of the United States is concerned, have simmered down to desperate combats between individual magnates, or contesting sets of magnates, the proportions of great fortunes, especially those based upon railroads and industries, constantly tend to vary.
In the years 1908 and 1909 the Gould fortune, if report be true, was somewhat diminished by the onslaughts of that catapultic railroad baron, E. H. Harriman, who unceremoniously seized a share of the voting control of some of the railroad systems long controlled by the Goulds. Despite this reported loss, the Gould fortune is an active, aggressive and immense one, vested with the most extensive power, and embracing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, land, palaces, or profit-producing property in the form of bonds and stocks. Its influence and ramifications, like those of the Vanderbilt and of other huge fortunes, penetrate directly or indirectly into every inhabited part of the United States, and into Mexico and other foreign countries.
JAY GOULD'S BOYHOOD
The founder of this fortune was Jay Gould, father of the present holding generation. He was the son of a farmer in Delaware County, New York, and was born in 1836. As a child his lot was to do various chores on his father's farm. In driving the cows he had to go barefoot, perforce, by reason of poverty, and often thistles bruised his feet—a trial which seems to have left such a poignant and indelible impression upon his mind that when testifying before a United States Senate investigating committee forty years later he pathetically spoke of it with a reminiscent quivering. His father was, indeed, so poor that he could not afford to let him go to the public school. The lad, however, made an arrangement with a blacksmith by which he received board in return for certain clerical services. These did not interfere with his attending school. When fifteen, he became a clerk in a country store, a task which, he related, kept him at work from six o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night. It is further related that by getting up at three o'clock in the morning and studying mathematics for three years, he learned the rudiments of surveying.
According to Gould's own story, an engineer who was making a map of Ulster County hired him as an assistant at "twenty dollars a month and found." This engagement somehow (we are not informed how) turned out unsatisfactorily. Gould was forced to support himself by making "noon marks" for the farmers. To two other young men who had worked with him upon the map of Ulster County, Gould (as narrated by himself) sold his interest for $500, and with this sum as capital he proceeded to make maps of Albany and Delaware counties. These maps, if we may believe his own statement, he sold for $5,000.
HE GOES INTO THE TANNING BUSINESS.
Subsequently Gould went into the tanning business in Pennsylvania with Zadoc Pratt, a New York merchant, politician and Congressman of a certain degree of note at the time. [Footnote: Pratt was regarded as one of the leading agricultural experts of his day. His farm of three hundred and sixty-five acres, at Prattsville, New York, was reputed to be a model. A paper of his, descriptive of his farm, and containing woodcut engravings, may be found in U. S. Senate Documents, Second Session, Thirty-seventh Congress, 1861-62, v:411- 415.] Pratt, it seems, was impressed by young Gould's energy, skill and smooth talk, and supplied the necessary capital of $120,000. Gould, as the phrase goes, was an excellent bluff; and so dexterously did he manipulate and hoodwink the old man that it was quite some time before Pratt realized what was being done. Finally, becoming suspicious of where the profits from the Gouldsboro tannery (named after Gould) were going, Pratt determined upon some overhauling and investigating.
Gould was alert in forestalling this move. During his visits to New York City, he had become acquainted with Charles M. Leupp, a rich leather merchant. Gould prevailed upon Leupp to buy out Pratt's interest. When Gould returned to the tannery, he found that Pratt had been analyzing the ledger. A scene followed, and Pratt demanded that Gould buy or sell the plant. Gould was ready, and offered him $60,000, which was accepted. Immediately Gould drew upon Leupp for the money. Leupp likewise became suspicious after a time, and from the ascertained facts, had the best of grounds for becoming so. The sequel was a tragic one. One night, in the panic of 1857, Leupp shot and killed himself in his fine mansion at Madison avenue and Twenty- fifth street. His suicide caused a considerable stir in New York City. [Footnote: Although later in Gould's career it was freely charged that he had been the cause of Leupp's suicide, no facts were officially brought out to prove the charge. The coroner's jury found that Leupp had been suffering from melancholia, superinduced, doubtless, by business reverses.
Even Houghton, however, in his flamboyantly laudatory work describes Gould's cheating of Pratt and Leupp, and Leupp's suicide. According to Houghton, Leupp's friends ascribed the cause of the act to Gould's treachery. See "Kings of Fortune," 265-266.]