How Wall Street Bankers’ Nerves are Tried.—Fine Humor, Jocular Dispositions, and Scholarly Taste of Operators.—George Gould as a Future Financial Power.—American Nobility Compared with European Aristocracy.—How the Irish can Assist to Purge Great Britain of her Bilious Incubus of Nobility.—The Natural Nobility of our own Country, and their Destiny.
Among the well-known members of the Stock Exchange not elsewhere mentioned are James D. Smith, who is now in his second term as President, and who is also President of the New York and Exchange clubs and Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, a man of a genial nature and everyone’s friend; Brayton Ives, twice President of the Stock Exchange, the colonel of a cavalry regiment under General Sheridan in the civil war, and later a Brevet-Brigadier General; a graduate of Yale, and a member of the Union League, Century, Athletic and University clubs; Charles Johnes, the King of board room traders, once a clerk for Henry Clews & Co., now worth a million, and a Prince of good fellows, as bright and quick as he is popular; Louis Bell, a daring and successful operator, a son of the well-known Isaac Bell, and who was at one time a clerk with Brown Brothers & Co., the bankers; John Kirkner, another plucky operator, keen in forecasting the market, and tenacious of his opinions, whether contrary to generally accepted views or not; Eugene Bogert, Wm. B. Wadsworth, William Henriques and James Raymond, also successful traders; John Slayback, Edward Brandon, James Mitchell, Vice-Chairman Alexander Henriques, ex-President J. Edward Simmons, Secretary Geo. W. Ely, Donald Mackay, Thomas B. Musgrave, Frank Work, the Wormsers, R. P. Flower, John T. Lester, Frank Savin, Charles Schwartz and A. E. Bateman, are all worthy of special notice. Some of the foregoing have a large following, more particularly the large room traders, like Messrs. Johnes, Bell, Bogert, Kirkner and Wadsworth. There are eleven hundred members of the Stock Exchange, and it is seldom that a black sheep is discovered among them. There are some lambs, perhaps, who receive a spring and fall shearing, but if they have pluck the wool comes back again, and they push up the thorny and brambly path to wealth, leaving, it is true, a little fleece here and there in the struggle, but generally “getting there,” nevertheless. It is, however, a mistake to suppose that all the members of the Stock Exchange are wealthy. They have their ups and downs like everybody else, and some are in very moderate circumstances.
The strain on a Wall Street broker is so great, the tension of the nerves, in one of the most trying vocations known in the business world, is so severe, that joking and in fact boyish pranks constitute a safety valve for the relief of brains that would otherwise become disordered. Without the relief of joking and skylarking, Nature’s own remedy for the burdened mind in such circumstances—many a stock broker would go mad. “There is nothing so good as a laugh,” says the song, and this expresses a profounder truth than is generally suspected. Charles Darwin relaxed the severe mental strain induced by his inquiries into occult questions of biological science by reading the humorous extravagances of Mark Twain, and the greatest thinkers, men who are far out on the cold frontiers of thought, seeking, as intellectual pioneers, the solution of the fundamental problem of existence, are proverbially jocular in their hours of relaxation. Nature herself may be said to laugh, and why not overburdened business men? The pranks at Christmas on the Stock Exchange, the sound of hand organs in the Board Room, the smashing of hats, pushing and jostling, the blowing of tin horns, the waltzes and lanciers, the walking matches, wrestling and sparring—these are only the natural reaction through the safety valve of humor which tend to relieve undue tension and keep the spirits clear and fresh. There is more or less skylarking on all dull days, and the effect is mental invigoration. It is a mistake to suppose that only the younger men participate in these amusements. The older members are the most incorrigible. When a new member, for instance, is receiving his vigorous initiation and being hustled here and there like a chip in raging waters, his silk hat skimming along the floor, the foot ball of hundreds of feet, his collar at right angles with his person and his coat tails flying like a Dutch lugger under full sail, a group of older members may look on with apparent disapproval, but the moment the newcomer is driven in their direction he finds that his last state is worse than the first. The veterans give him a reception that makes him look wilder and gasp more than ever, and he is glad to escape from these gray bearded evil-doers. The horse play is rough but it does no harm, and the new member, after buying a new hat, is ready to “get square” on the next unfortunate wight to be initiated.
As to the Stock Exchange as a great financial institution, none stands higher in the world. Its transactions involve hundreds of millions in a year, and nowhere is there more regard for strict equity in business. Its members are as exemplary a class of business men as can be found anywhere. Its methods are strictly upright, and a black sheep finds no mercy. Wealth will not necessarily procure a membership in this great financial emporium. The applicant must be a person of good repute. It numbers men of great wealth, men of a high order of talent, men of scholarly tastes, connoisseurs in art, students of science, literature and philosophy, and men capable of standing at the helm and giving direction to vast enterprises in the domain of finance and commerce. There is not a more intelligent body of men in the world. The very nature of their business compels them to study great public questions, and many of the members are men of a distinctly statesmanlike caste of mind, of whom the Stock Exchange may well be proud, while they themselves derive no small distinction from being identified with so illustrious and honorable a body.
Washington E. Connor.
Washington E. Connor was born in New York city about 37 years ago. He first appeared in Wall Street as a clerk for Wm. Belden & Co., a firm in which the redoubtable Jim Fisk was once a partner. Black Friday of September, 1869, when a financial hurricane whistled through Wall Street, brought young Connor to the front, and he has ever since remained there. He was long the able lieutenant of Mr. Gould in large speculations. He is a natural leader in speculation—cool, quick and adroit. From time to time he has been a director in the Western Union, Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, Missouri, Kansas & Texas, Kansas Pacific and Wabash Companies. He was president of the Central Construction Company, which established the lines of the American Union Telegraph Company. He was a director in the famous Credit Mobilier Company, the Texas & Colorado Improvement Company, the Metropolitan and New York Elevated roads and the New Jersey Southern. He is a member of the Union League and the Lotus clubs, and especially enjoys the society of artists, writers and other persons of talent and cultivation. He has a good library, and is of a somewhat studious turn of mind. As a youth he studied at the College of the City of New York.
George J. Gould
A Future Financial Power.
George J. Gould will be one of the few very rich men in this country, as he will, of course, be his father’s successor. He possesses good abilities, has an attractive presence, and is modest and retiring in his manners. He has, thus far, made an excellent record, and the Stock Exchange was glad to admit him to membership. He is connected with all of his father’s roads, and is gradually relieving him of much of the onerous work connected therewith. If anything should happen to Jay Gould, George Gould would stand in the same financial relation to his affairs that Wm. H. Vanderbilt sustained to his father, the Commodore, and, like him, would be found equal to the new honors and responsibilities devolving upon him. This reasonable expectation should dispel any apprehension of a financial shock in the event of Jay Gould’s demise.