From this period Gould began to grow rapidly to the full stature of speculative manhood, while Drew moved as quickly in a downward direction, until he found himself again at the lowest rung of the financial ladder. It was no wonder that he said of Gould, “his touch is death.”
Drew’s losses followed one another in quick succession, until his thirteen millions had melted away like snow off a ditch, and eventually he died in debt and broken hearted. His last days stand out as a sad, but eloquent warning to the avaricious. And this reminds me of a festive event, the chief incidents of which, I think, are worthy of reproduction.
I remember being at a dinner party ostensibly given to the old gentleman when in the very zenith of his financial fame and prosperity. It was a kind of mutual admiration society, Drew being the king-pin of the social coterie. On account of his thirteen millions he was the centre of cringing admiration, and was by a number of the assemblage almost deified.
As is usual on such occasions, speechmaking was in order, the oratorical talent being called out by the toasts as they went the round of the board.
When it came my turn to speak, I followed suit, to some extent, in picking up the thread of the general glorification extended to the honored guest, to whom I paid marked deference.
“We are honored,” I said, “on this festive occasion, by a gentleman of vast wealth, one who can control more ready money than any man in America, and be it said to his honor, it has all been of his own creation. He is a true representative of American thrift and enterprise. His money and his genial disposition together combined make all men his friends, and I know of only one antagonistic spirit to the continued growth of this already marvellous fortune; but that one, in all probability, may yet work his ruin. I refer to our honored guest, Mr. Drew, and his one enemy which I have in mind is ‘Avarice.’”
In five years from that memorable dinner Daniel Drew was a ruined man, and his thirteen millions had vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving nothing but the miserable wreck of an avaricious spirit behind.
The manner in which Drew was supposed to make religion the handmaid to speculation was satirically touched in the following verses published in the New York Tribune about fifteen years ago:
He was a long, lank countryman,
And he stoppeth one of two.