There has recently been a curious craze in the ranks of young ladies as well as among married women for speculation, many of them thinking they could make a fortune in a few days, weeks or months, and it is nearly time that this speculative mania should be checked or stopped. Maidens of uncertain age have probably been foremost in leading this movement, and through their influence many estimable ladies have been induced to bring financial trouble upon their husbands and families. Many of the woman’s righters think that it would be a glorious thing to follow in the footsteps of Victoria Woodhull ——, whom they imagine to have been a success in that line of business; whereas she was a sad failure. Women as brokers have singularly failed in every known instance of experience. Victoria W. has been much more successful as an investor than a speculator, and the best investment of her life was that of her last marriage. There she made a decided hit. Perhaps, her Wall Street experience may have assisted her, in a great measure, to accomplish this feat. Compared with her two former marriages, however, her happy union with the foreign banker is a decided success. It is probably only in the matrimonial line that women can become successful speculators.
Now, I shall attempt to give some reasons, with all due respect to the fair sex—and without trying to lower them in the estimation of men—why those dear creatures, so necessary to our happiness in many other respects, are not by nature, nor even by the best possible education, qualified to become speculators. Women are too impulsive and impressionable. Although they often arrive at correct conclusions in the ordinary affairs of life with amazing rapidity, they don’t reason in the way that is indispensable to a successful speculator. They jump to a conclusion by a kind of instinct, or it may be a sort of inspiration, on a single subject or part of a subject, but they are entirely unable to take that broad view of the whole question and situation which the speculator has to seize at a glance, in the way that Jacob Little, the elder Vanderbilt, or Daniel Drew could have done, as I have described in other chapters. Gould possesses many of these qualities, though he has never been a speculator like the others, in the ordinary and true sense of the term, but, as I have clearly shown in another place, made his great fortune by putting two or more wrecked railroads together and making others believe they were good, and selling out on them afterwards, and not by legitimate speculation or investment.
Women who have hitherto engaged in speculation have not yet shown that they are capable of generalizing the causes which affect the market as these kings of finance have done, nor have they illustrated that they are possessed of the ability to foresee financial events in the same way. Some people may think that Mrs. Hettie Green may be an exception to the rule, but, without attempting to detract from the abilities of this eminent and wealthy lady, I hardly think she has the mental power of any of the great operators whom I have named, and though it must be admitted that she has done some fine work in manipulating Louisville & Nashville, I am of the opinion that she would fall very far short of leading a bear attack on the market like any of those for which the late Charles F. Woerishoffer was famous, and in organizing a “blind pool” she would stand no show against Gould, Major Selover, Addison Cammack or James R. Keene.
Lady Claflin Cook, formerly Tennie C. Claflin, or “Tennessee,” as she was baptized, though she had not the intellectual ability of her sister Victoria, appeared to exercise more influence over Commodore Vanderbilt on account of her greater capacity as a spiritualistic medium. In his latter days, as is well known, the Commodore was an implicit believer in Spiritualism, and considered it expedient to consult mediums in the same way that the ancient Greeks and Romans went to their oracles, before engaging in any great enterprise. It is not generally known that the fallacy of Tennie’s mediumistic powers was exposed by the Christian Brothers, and her usefulness to the Commodore considerably impaired thereby in his estimation. This came about through the influence of Mrs. Claflin, the mother of the celebrated sisters. Her superstition ran so high that she imagined her daughters were possessed of evil spirits through the power of Colonel Blood, Victoria’s second husband. The holy men received due credit for exorcising the spirits, thus freeing the sisters from this mysterious thraldom, and Victoria from Blood. Her great prosperity and that of her sister began from this date, and at the beginning of the celebrated case on the part of “young Corneel” to break the Commodore’s will the sisters suddenly took a trip to England, lest they might be called as witnesses. It was a lucky day for them, and their speculative career is probably now closed. This is the kind of speculation for which women are best fitted. The introduction to this great “deal” came through Wall Street indirectly, but it does not prove by any means that women can be successful operators in speculative transactions and financial investments. It simply shows that they are excellent in adventures where their emotional feelings are brought to bear upon the weaker characteristics of men.
CHAPTER XLII.
WESTERN MILLIONAIRES IN NEW YORK.
Eastward the Star of Wealth and the Tide of Beauty Take their Course.—Influence of the Fair Sex on This Tendency, and Why.—New York the Great Magnet of the Country.—Swinging Into the Tide of Fashion.—Collis P. Huntington.—His Career from Penury to the Possessor of Thirty Millions.—Leland Stanford.—First a Lawyer in Albany, and Afterward a Speculator on the Pacific Coast.—Has Rolled Up Nearly Forty Millions.—D. O. Mills.—an[**An?] Astute and Bold Financier.—Courage and Caution Combined.—His Rapid Rise in California.—He Makes a Fortune by Investing in Lake Shore Stock.—Princes of the Pacific Slope.—Mackay, Flood and Fair.—Their Rise and Progress.—William Sharon.—A Brief Account of His Great Success.—Wm. C. Ralston and His Daring Speculations.—Begins a Poor New York Boy, and Makes a Fortune in California.—John P. Jones.—His Eventful Career and Political Progress.-“Lucky” Baldwin.—His Business Ability and Advancement.—Lucky Speculations.—Amasses Ten or Fifteen Millions.—William A. Stewart.—Discovers the Eureka Placer Diggins.—His Success as a Lawyer and in Mining Enterprises.—James Lick.—One of the Most Eccentric of the California Magnates.—Real Estate Speculations.—His Bequest to the Author of the “Star Spangled Banner.”—John W. Shaw, Speculator and Lawyer.
Not a few Western men of wealth have in recent years taken up their abode in New York. This is partly, and doubtless largely, due to the influence of ladies. The ladies of the West of course have heard of Saratoga, the far-famed spa of America, and as the fortunes of their husbands mount higher and higher into the millions, they become more and more anxious to see this great summer resort of wealth and fashion. Their influence prevails, and at the height of the gay season they may be seen at the United States or the Grand Union. They are in practically a new world. There is the rustle and perfume, the glitter and show, the pomp and circumstance of the more advanced civilization of the East, and the ladies, with innate keenness, are quick to perceive a marked difference between this gorgeous panorama and the more prosaic surroundings to which they have been accustomed. As people of wealth and social position, they are naturally presented to some of the society leaders of New York, whom they meet at Saratoga, and who extend an invitation to visit them in their splendid mansions in the metropolis. In New York the Western ladies go to the great emporiums of dry goods and fancy articles of all sorts, to the famous jewelry stores, and other retail establishments patronized by the wealthy. They form a taste for all the elegancies of metropolitan life, and this is revealed in a hundred little ways.
They have been accustomed, for instance, to wearing two buttoned gloves, but now, in emulation of their New York sisters, they must have them up nearly to the shoulder. Their dresses of Western make do not bear comparison with the superb toilettes of New York ladies, and so they seek out the most fashionable modistes in the city, and the change in their appearance is as marked as it is favorable. The innate refinement and love of elegance which is so striking a characteristic in most American women is exemplified, perhaps, in no respect more strikingly than in their taste in dress, and the Western ladies soon require the finest French silks for their dresses. They must have the most expensive real lace; their toilettes must be numerous, rich, and varied, and the refinements of other articles of dress or ornament to which American women have attained may well astonish and even awe the masculine mind.
In a word, people of wealth are apt to be drawn to New York because it is the great magnet of the country, whose attractive power is well nigh irresistible. What London is to Great Britain, what Paris is to the Continent, what Rome was in its imperial day to the Empire, what proud old Nineveh was to Assyria, the winged lion of the Orient; what Tyre was to old Syria, whose commercial splendor aroused the eloquence of the Hebrew prophet—New York is to the immense domain of the American Republic, a natural stage, set with innumerable villages, towns, and populous cities, with mighty rivers and vast stretches of table-lands and prairies, and far-reaching harvest fields and forests, for the great drama of civilization on this Continent. New York has now a population of approximately 1,500,000. By the close of the present century it will certainly reach 2,000,000, and the next century will see it increase to perhaps ten times that number. The great metropolis attracts by its restless activity, its feverish enterprise, and the opportunities which it affords to men of ability, but in the connection which I am now considering more particularly it attracts as an enormous lode-stone by its imperial wealth, its Parisian, indeed almost Sybaritic luxury, and its social splendor.