Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

Fully nine millions were added to the four which he brought from California. He stood in the centre of that great pile, figuratively speaking, the cynosure of all eyes from Maine to California, and his fame was noised abroad in Europe.

Gould and other old speculators began to grow green with envy at Keene’s unprecedented success. He seemed likely to exceed the wildest dreams that ever the avarice of Monte Cristo or Daniel Drew had conjured up, and with him the imaginary profits of Col. Sellers had become material realities. His investments were nearly all in good, reliable securities. No dubious paper acceptances nor rotten railroad items were mixed up with his tangible fortune, which was without parallel in Wall Street for its size and rapidity of accumulation.

The history of speculation was ransacked in vain for an illustration of such amazing success in so short a period. But here, I regret to say, this marvellous prosperity ends.

In an evil hour Mr. Keene was induced to spread himself out all over creation, while he still retained his immense interest in stocks. He was so flushed with successive victories that he began to regard failure impossible, and thought he was a man of destiny in speculation, such as Napoleon considered himself in war. He speculated in everything that came along—in wheat, lard, opium and fast horses.

Keene’s attempt to get a corner in all the grain in the country, however, was a signal failure. The very week that Foxhall won the Grand Prix in Paris he himself was sadly beaten in the speculative race by the steady going farmers of the West, who sent their wheat to market quicker than he could purchase it with his thirteen million dollars, and all the credit which that implied.

All of a sudden, reversal in the tide of speculation set in. Mr. Cammack was quick to perceive that Mr. Keene was extending his lines and his ventures. He had a conversation with Mr. Gould. They became convinced that the Californian must soon be obliged to leave some of his enterprises in a weak and unguarded position. It was impossible that he could take care of them all. These two champion bears united their efforts to upset the market, and each day brought additional force to their aid. By dint of perseverance their efforts commenced to bear fruit, and it was apparent that they would soon be rewarded with success. The bears began to multiply while the bulls diminished, and the remnant of the latter that were left were anything but rampant at that time.

The bankers became timid. The brokers were inspired with the same spirit and were still calling out for more margin. Loans were called in as a part of the programme of a bear campaign, and all the machinery of depression was put in active motion. Prices were torn to pieces. Properties that had been considered good as solid investments for a long turn, were mercilessly raided, and some of them shattered to fragments. In fact, there was a regular panic. In the general slaughter, many of the brokers sold Mr. Keene’s stocks out. His wheat was also sold in immense quantities at great sacrifice, and his load was lightened all around, even more quickly than it had been heaped up.

His losses are said to have amounted to seven millions of dollars at this time.

The manly efforts of Mr. Keene to recover these losses, as is usually the case in such instances, only resulted in further misfortune. Disaster followed disaster, and as he became desperate in his efforts to get back something, his losses became constantly greater, until nearly the whole of his immense pile was buried in fruitless efforts to recover a portion of it.

Great sympathy has been felt in Wall Street for Keene since his failure, for the Street had never before found such a liberal man. By general consent he decidedly took the palm in this respect, not only from all his speculative contemporaries, but the archives of Wall Street since the days of the first meetings of the brokers in the Tontine Coffee House, opposite the sycamore tree, early in the century, can furnish no such parallel of princely liberality as that of James R. Keene during the period of his matchless prosperity.