Gray continued to operate in Wall Street, both in small and large ways, and seldom made a loss. When the first loud mutterings of the civil conflict began to shake the land, he became a heavy purchaser of tar, resin, and cotton, and, later, of gold. When the Union armies were defeated and the day looked darkest, and gold mounted to two hundred and eighty premium, he never faltered in his belief in the ultimate triumph of the nation, and he sold gold and bought government bonds, and margined one against the other, and risked little and gained much.
A year after the sun went down upon Appomattox, the Yankee peddler was worth $20,000,000, and ten years later he was worth $50,000,000. He abandoned such stock operations as were dependent for their success upon other men’s movements and plans, and only engaged in such as he could absolutely control. He gambled only with marked cards and loaded dice. He bought a control of the stocks and bonds of badly-managed and bankrupt railroads. He consolidated them, re-equipped them, built feeders, opened new sources of traffic, and so doubled, trebled, and quadrupled his investments. He sold short the stock of a prosperous railroad, and obtained, by purchase of proxies, the control of its management. He cut rates, diminished traffic, enlarged expenses, and passed dividends until he depreciated the value of the stock to a point where he could gain millions by covering his shorts, and other millions by again restoring the road to prosperity. In one instance, by his paid emissaries, he promoted a general strike, until, through riot and fires and suspension of traffic, the stock of the afflicted corporation was depreciated to the price at which he desired to purchase a controlling interest.
John Gray was an exemplary father and husband, a good neighbor, and, in a small way, generous and charitable; but in his larger dealings with mankind he was a moral idiot, without conscience or perception. The world is no better for his life; the youth of the land are the worse for his example of successful scoundrelism, and those who wish well to their country and their kind, will have a right to stand beside his coffin and thank God that he is dead.
“I suppose,” said Mr. Arnold Claybank, “that we all understand the general outlines of our project, and that this meeting is for the purpose of talking over details.”
“Our purpose,” said Mr. Wolf, “of I gomprehent it, is to use the bower dot we haf in our hants, to make for ourselves about fifty millions of tollars apiece. Is not dot apout vot it vas, eh?”
“We need not, I think, discuss that question,” said Gray suavely.
“Exactly,” said Claybank. “Now I propose that we list the securities which we shall place in our pool, at the closing quotations of the Stock Exchange to-day, each one of us being credited with his contributions. The stocks contributed will aggregate in value about $150,000,000, at present market prices, and, as nearly as possible, will be contributed by us equally. It is also understood that the stocks and bonds placed in the pool will constitute the entire holdings of each and all of us, in that class of property. Am I correct?”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Gray.
“Dot is also my unterstanting,” said Wolf.
“Very well,” resumed Claybank, “these securities are to be placed in the offices of different brokers, and turned into cash as rapidly as possible without breaking the market. The public will, I think, take them easily in a week, for the market is rising, and permanent as well as speculative investment is in order.”