Henry N. Smith and a few other favorite members of the syndicate would draw their balances from these banks, making money scarce to the general public, and the money market would suffer a sudden squeeze, and consequently the stock market would break, sometimes with such rapidity as to produce disastrous results to a number of brokers, business houses and other financial concerns outside the Tweed Ring.
On one of these occasions Mr. Smith drove up to the Tenth National Bank, the Black Friday ring institution, in a cab, and drew his balance therefrom, amounting to $4,100,000. He took it home and kept it there several days under lock and key. In the meantime Mr. Tweed and his companions withdrew from circulation the greater portion of the amount under their immediate control, making a tie-up, on the whole, of nearly twenty millions of dollars. At that time this was an amount sufficient to make a very stringent money market, and cause Wall Street operators to feel very uncomfortable. It was then a mighty power to be wielded by a few unscrupulous men. At that time Mr. Smith considered himself worth at least five million dollars. He lost most of this in the panic of 1873, largely in Western Union stock, as above stated, into which Commodore Vanderbilt had kindly put him.
I have referred to the prominent part which Mr. Smith played in the great speculative drama of Black Friday, in the scenes and incidents of my chapter on that ever-to-be-remembered day in Wall Street
I shall, in another chapter, briefly review some of the methods to which the Tweed Ring resorted to make speculation and politics play into each other’s hands, and show how a bold attempt was made to add the control of the National Treasury to that of New York.
CHAPTER XXV.
KEENE’S CAREER.
He Starts in Speculation as a California Broker.—A Lucky Hit in a Mining Stock Puts Him on the Road to be a Millionaire.—His Speculative Encounter with the Bonanza Kings.—He Makes Four Millions, Starts for Europe and Stops at Wall Street, Where He Forms an Alliance With Gould, Who “Euchres” Him and Others.—Selover Drops Gould in an Area Way.—Keene Goes Alone and Adds Nine Millions More to His Fortune.—He Then Speculates Recklessly in Everything.—Suffers a Sudden Reversal and Gets Swamped.—Overwhelming Disaster in a Bear Campaign, Led by Gould and Cammack, in Which Keene Loses Seven Millions.—His Desperate Attempts to Recover a Part Entail Further Losses, and He Approaches the End of His Thirteen Millions.—His Princely Liberality and Social Relations with Sam Ward.
One of the most remarkable up-and-down lives known to Wall Street is that of James R. Keene. His rise and fall are both of recent date.
Mr. Keene is of English parentage, and was born in London, about 48 years ago. He came to this country at the age of 17, lived in the South and studied law there. He removed to San Francisco in 1853, and became well informed in mining matters through several mining cases that were put into his hands while practising at the bar in that city. I am told he was also connected with a Western newspaper for some time. He caught the speculative fever shortly after his arrival in California, and, as it seems, abandoned both law and journalism to become a broker.
Keene had hard work for some time to make both ends meet, and his struggle for existence in the wild West made serious inroads on his health. His physician told him he must give up work, and advised him to take a long sea voyage if he intended to prolong his life. Acting on this advice, he secured his passage to the East. This was the turning point in both his health and fortune.