Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

Erie became scarce after this skilful movement was performed, and was selling at 47. Drew made desperate attempts to cover at this price, but the stock ran up to 57 between Monday and Wednesday. Wall Street was in a terrible ferment, and, as the newspapers say, the greatest excitement prevailed. Erie made still another leap and reached 62. It was evident that it was bound to keep on the upward grade, and there was no apparent relief for Drew, at least for two or three days, when an incoming steamer was expected to have a considerable amount of Erie on board. It was manifest, however, that by that time Drew would have reached the end of his millions, and probably most of his credit would have vanished with his own filthy lucre. His oppressors were bearing down upon him with all their might, and were evidently determined to make short work of him.

The struggle waxed hotter as the hour of three in the afternoon approached, and these two young lions of speculation were determined to crush the old bear unmercifully and effectually.

When Drew was apparently on the very brink of utter financial destruction, and almost at the close of the market, two events happened that preserved him from total annihilation. There had been 300,000 shares of Erie issued in ten share lots, which the operators thought were safely secreted in London and Amsterdam. When the stock reached 60 these ten-share lots began to come out. It turned out that most of them had never left home, but were securely had by tradesmen, mechanics, grocers and small bankers and brokers. They were thrown on the market with great rapidity to realize handsome profits, and the efforts of the clique to absorb them before they got into the hands of Drew, made serious inroads on the reserve funds of the champion operators. As troubles never come singly, at this new juncture the banks refused to certify their checks. Drew was, therefore, enabled to make good his contracts at 47, but speculatively speaking, he was ruined. He came pretty near bringing down his desperate assailants, however, in his sad and frightful fall. The stock then fell to 42, and Erie became a drug in the market. The victors had got the spoils, but they paid dearly for them, and had come pretty near being destroyed in the moment of their triumph. They had purchased their Erie at “corner” prices, and they were obliged to carry it, for nobody wanted it. Added to this Erie was struck from the Board for a time, and had it not been for the gullibility of our English cousins, this stock would have ceased to be a disturbing element in the market for a great while longer.

Although old Drew was badly treated, yet there was little sympathy for him, since he had merely become the victim of his own avarice, vacillation, treachery and scheming to catch others in the same net.

He could not justly complain of his former partners, and Fisk told him so, for their methods of operation, and the immense inflation of the Erie stock by which he was ruined had been accomplished by the machinery which he, himself, had set in motion, only his ci-devant colleagues had improved upon it, and had received various new patents on inventions and improvements, which they had joined to the old one invented by “Uncle Daniel,” mating one of the best combinations for the purpose of creating and working “corners” that had ever been devised in Wall Street.

But the unkindest cut of all was the way in which Fisk taunted him, on the eve of his crushing defeat, with the absurdity of his complaints about the management of Erie matters.

“You should be the last man,” said this worthy pupil, sneeringly, to his dear old preceptor, “that should whine over any position in which you may be placed in Erie.”

It was a sad truth, heartlessly uttered by the generous “Jim.” Drew had no mercy on others, and could not expect to be shown any of that “twice blessed quality” towards himself.

The private scene in the Erie office between old Drew and Fisk and Gould, just prior to their final and victorious charge upon him, was deeply pathetic, yet none of the three showed more conspicuously that they were destitute of that proverbial honor among “boodlers” than Drew himself. He had secured Vanderbilt to assist him in the courts, and also in the market, against the machinations of the Erie clique, and then, turning around, he went straight to Gould. and to him betrayed his ally and the plans he had arranged with him, expecting mercy from his old colleague by this dastardly act of humiliation and deception.

He must have lost his head at this crisis, for he ought to have known Gould better. He begged and pleaded with Gould and Fisk, and was ready to throw himself at their feet. He implored them to join him, with the remnant of his fortune, in giving the old paper mill another turn to grind out more Erie stock, that he might be permitted to emerge from that cruel “corner” in which he was placed like a scorpion girt by fire, brooding over his guilty woes.