GOULD AND FISK THROW OVER DREW.
The next development was characteristic. Having no longer any need for their old accomplice, Gould and Fisk, by tactics of duplicity, gradually sheared Drew and turned him out of the management to degenerate into a financial derelict. It was Drew's odd habit, whenever his plans were crossed, or he was depressed, to rush off to his bed, hide himself under the coverlets and seek solace in sighs and self-compassion, or in prayer—for with all his unscrupulousness he had an orthodox religious streak. When Drew realized that he had been plundered and betrayed, as he had so often acted to others, he sought his bed and there long remained in despair under the blankets. The whimsical old extortionist never regained his wealth or standing. Upon Drew's effacement Gould caused himself to be made president and treasurer of the Erie Railroad, and Fisk vice-president and controller.
When Gould and Fisk began to turn out more watered stock various defrauded malcontent stockholders resolved to take an intervening hand. This was a new obstacle, but it was coolly met. Gould and Fisk brought in gangs of armed thugs to prevent these stockholders from getting physical possession of the books of the company. Then the New York Legislature was again corrupted.
A bill called the Classification Act, drafted to insure Gould and Fisk's legal control, was enacted. This bill provided that only one- fifth of the board of directors should be retired in any year. By this means, although the majority of stockholders might be opposed to the Gould-Fisk management, it would be impossible for them to get possession of the road for at least three years, and full possession for not less than five years.
But to prevent the defrauded large stockholders from getting possession of the railroad through the courts, another act was passed. This provided that no judgement to oust the board of directors could be rendered by any court unless the suit was brought by the Attorney-General of the State. It was thus only necessary for Gould and Fisk to own the Attorney-General entirely (which they took pains, of course, to do) in order to close the courts to the defrauded stockholders. On a trumped-up suit, and by an order of one of the Tweed judges, a receiver was appointed for the stock owned by foreign stockholders; and when any of it was presented for record in the transfer book of the Erie railroad, the receiver seized it. In this way Gould and Fisk secured practical possesssion of $6,000,000 of the $50,000,000 of stock held abroad.
ALLIANCE WITH CORRUPT POLITICS AND JUDICIARY.
From 1868 to 1872 Gould, abetted by subservient directors, issued two hundred and thirty-five thousand more shares of stock. [Footnote: Fisk was murdered by a rival in 1872 in a feud over Fisk's mistress. His death did not interrupt Gould's plans.] The frauds were made uncommonly easy by having Tweed machine as an auxiliary; in turn, Tweed, up to 1871, controlled the New York City and State dominant political machine, including the Legislature and many of the judges. To insure Tweed's connivance, they made him a director of the Erie Railroad, besides heavily bribing him. [Footnote: "Did you ever receive any money from either Fisk or Gould to be used in bribing the Legislature?" Tweed was asked by an aldermanic committee in 1877, after his downfall.
A. "I did sir! They were of frequent occurrence. Not only did I receive money but I find by an examination of the papers that everybody else who received money from the Erie railroad charged it to me."—Documents of the Board of Aldermen, 1877, Part II, No. 8:49.] With Tweed as an associate they were able to command the judges who owed their elevation to him. Barnard, one of Tweed's servile tools, was sold over to Gould and Fisk, and so throughly did this judge prostitute his office at their behest that once, late at night, at Fisk's order, he sportively held court in the apartment of Josie Mansfield, Fisk's mistress. [Footnote: The occasion grew out of an attempt of Gould and Fisk in 1869 to get control of the Albany and Sesquehanna Railroad. Two parties contested—The Gould and the "Ramsey," headed by J. Pierpont Morgan. Each claimed the election of its officers and board of directors. One night, at half-past ten o'clock, Fisk summoned Barnard from Poughkeepsie to open chambers in Josie Mansfield's rooms. Barnard hurried there, and issued an order ousting Ramsey from the presidency. Judge Smith at Rochester subsequently found that Ramsey was legally elected, and severely denounced Gould and Fisk—"Letters of General Francis C. Barlow, Albany": 1871.
The records of this suit (as set forth in Lansing's Reports, New York Supreme Court. I:308, etc.) show that each of the contesting parties accused the other of gross fraud, and that the final decision was favorable to the "Ramsey" party. See the chapters on J. Pierpont Morgan in Vol. III of this work.] When the English stockholders sent over a large number of shares to be voted in for a new management, it was Barnard who allowed this stock to be voted by Gould and Fisk. At another time Gould and Fisk called at Barnard's house and obtained an injunction while he was eating breakfast.
It was largely by means of his corrupt alliance with the Tweed "ring" that Gould was able to put through his gigantic frauds from 1868 to 1872.