“Jay Gould and others, being satisfied that this was to be the policy of the administration, commenced at once buying large amounts of gold, actuated, doubtless, by the purest of patriotic motives, namely, to stimulate cotton and cereal exports. They succeeded in accumulating a considerable amount of gold at prices ranging from 135 to 140, covering a period of three months’ steady buying.
“This was the honest foundation on which the great ‘Black Friday’ speculative deal was erected.
“The eruption on ‘Black Friday’ was really caused by the erratic conduct of James Fisk, Jr., who actively joined the movement on Thursday, the day before, and became wild with enthusiasm on the subject of high gold.”
The Men of Black Friday.
1.—Jay Gould. 2.—Jim Fisk, Jr. 3.—Daniel Drew. 4.—Commodore Vanderbilt. 5.—Peter B. Sweeny. 6.—E. R. Stokes.
The “Black Friday” scheme was the most gigantic one that Wall street had ever seen. This gold conspiracy was investigated in 1870 by a committee of Congress, of which James A. Garfield, afterward President, was chairman, and S. S. Cox, a member. The investigation undertaken went far enough to show how zealously the conspirators labored to get Grant within their toils and implicated persons near to him. Unfortunately, too, the President had innocently enough permitted himself to be put in a suspicious position, and it was long before he was completely purged of the scandal.
The report of the committee, with the accompanying testimony, is absorbingly interesting:
“Gould, the guilty plotter of all these criminal proceedings,” is the language of James A. Garfield, the author of this report.
Gould some years before had formed a co-partnership with H. N. Smith and others under the name of Smith, Gould, Martin & Co. “He was a broker,” says Henry Adams in his history of the gold conspiracy, “and a broker is almost by nature a gambler, perhaps the very last profession suitable for a railway manager. In character he was strongly marked by his disposition for silent intrigue. He preferred, as a rule, to operate on his own account without admitting other persons into his confidence, and he seemed never to be satisfied except when deceiving everyone as to his intentions. There was a reminiscence of the spider in his nature. He spun huge webs in corners and in the dark, which were seldom strong enough to resist a serious strain at the critical moment. His disposition to this subtlety and elaboration of intrigue was irresistible. It is scarcely necessary to say that he had not a conception of a moral principle. In speaking of this class of men, it must be fairly assumed at the outset that they do not, and can not, understand how there can be a distinction between right and wrong in matters of speculation, so long as the daily settlements are punctually effected. In this respect, Mr. Gould was probably as honest as the mass of his fellows, according to the moral standard of the street; but without entering upon technical questions of roguery, it is enough to say that he was an uncommonly fine and unscrupulous intriguer, skilled in all the processes of stock gambling, and indifferent to the praise or censure of society.”