The conspirators were early in the street, and the offices of Smith, Gould & Martin, Fisk & Belden and William Heath & Co. were the center of enormous excitement. William Belden, who was Fisk’s partner, played a conspicuous part in this day’s history. He was a man cool and daring—the fit companion of such men as Gould and Fisk. The day, however, left a stain on his record that could never be obliterated, and when, in 1888, Belden formed a co-partnership with a member of the Stock Exchange, the governing committee of the institution stated that unless the member severed his partnership with Belden he must leave the Exchange.
Gould, Fisk, Belden and their brokers held a counsel of war and laid out the work of the day. Heath was to look after this, Willard was to attend to that, Belden was to direct this and Fisk was to direct that, while “Gould”—the language of the Congressional report is now quoted—“Gould, the guilty plotter of all these criminal proceedings, determined to betray his own associates, and silent and imperturbable, by nods and whispers directed all.” “I determined,” said Mr. Gould afterward, “not to open my mouth that day, and I did not.”
What a study for a dramatic painter Gould would have made that day!
There was undoubtedly some secret understanding between Fisk and Belden to which Gould was a party, by which all the orders given that day could be repudiated if the market went against them. A ready tool was found in Albert Speyer, who accepted verbal orders from Belden in the presence of Gould and Fisk to buy, and who went into the board-room and did buy immense quantities of gold at the highest prices. The street was filled with the wildest rumors. Prices rapidly advanced to 165. The shorts trembled before the rising tide that seemed about to sweep over them. Many were frightened into covering their contracts. Gould continued to sell. Fisk and Belden continued to buy. The excitement rose point by point to the wildest pitch. Old operators lost their heads, men rushed hatless and half crazy through the streets, their eyes bloodshot, their faces pale with anxiety, their brains on fire. There came rumors of contemplated selling of gold by the Treasury, and the street went mad. Where these rumors started no one ever knew, but they were the forerunners of actual fact. James Brown, the Scotch banker, appeared in the board and began to offer gold at declining figures. Then the earthquake started, and the golden edifice built by Gould began to tumble. Soon the Treasury order to sell $4,000,000 of gold appeared, and then the terrible collapse. Prices fell from 165 to 133½. The board-room was the scene of contending furies. Albert Speyer completely lost control of himself; his hair is said to have turned white that night after he went home a ruined man. Wall and Broad streets were filled with men wild with excitement. Infuriated mobs surrounded the offices of Fisk & Belden and Smith, Gould & Martin. Threats of violence were made. Speyer went about saying: “Some one has threatened to shoot me. Let him shoot.” The Gold Exchange Bank was obliged to suspend operations. Its clearances that day amounted to over $300,000,000 of gold. Trading was stopped in the Gold Board. Fisk & Belden suspended and their contracts were repudiated. The fortunes of hundreds were swept away in that day’s battle. Several firms were driven to the wall and announced their failures. The administration was involved in suspicion which it took years to remove. The nation was disgraced and its credit was broken.
But Gould, “the guilty plotter of all these criminal proceedings,” went home saved. What he made or what he lost in that struggle is unknown, but though he had involved others in ruin and had betrayed others, he had saved himself from overthrow. To have gone down in the fight would have been a display of heroism. To save himself alone from the wreck was dishonor.
It is not strange that in his sworn autobiography delivered to the Committee on Labor and Education, Mr. Gould omitted all mention of Black Friday, but when as a witness before the Committee on Corners he was asked about the Black Friday panic, he calmly said that it was the “result of overtrading,” and that its real cause was “the fluctuations in the price of gold caused by the war!” It is a singular coincidence that exactly twenty-two years after Black Friday, on the very anniversary of the day in 1891, Gould caused another big flurry in Wall street. After several years of depression, a “boom” in stocks was in progress, when the sudden announcement was made that the Missouri Pacific, of which Gould was president, would pass its dividend. The announcement caused a revolution in prices and the “boom” completely collapsed.
Mr. Clews tells a graphic story of what he saw:
“On the morning of the fatal day, Belden and William Heath had an early breakfast together at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and repaired immediately to their offices. Belden announced that gold was going to 200. ‘This will be the last day of the Gold Room,’ he added. Moved by Belden’s threat, a large number rushed to cover. In the language of Henry N. Smith, ‘They came on with a rush to settle.’ He was settling in the office of Smith, Gould & Martin, at 150 to 145, while Albert Speyer, acting as broker for Fisk and Gould, was bidding up to 160 for a million at a time. It was only when the price came down to 133 that Speyer realized the humorous absurdity of his position. He had then bought 26 millions since morning at 160.
“A voracious demand for margins about midday brought the work to a crisis. The scene at the office of Heath was indescribable when Belden went there to see Gould and his confederates, to find out what was to be done next with the frenzied purchasers. An eye-witness thus describes the scene at Heath’s office: ‘I went outside while Belden went in. I walked up and down the alley-way waiting for him to come out. Deputy sheriffs, or men appearing to be such, began to arrive and to mount guard at Heath’s office to keep out visitors. After waiting a prodigious long time, as it seemed to me, Jay Gould came creeping out of the back door, and looking round sharply to see if he was watched, slunk off through a private rear passage behind the buildings. Presently came Fisk, steaming hot and shouting. He took the wrong direction at first, nearly ran into Broad street, but soon discovered his error and followed Gould through the rear passage. Then came Belden, with hair disordered and red eyes, as if he had been crying. He called: ‘Which way have they gone?’ and upon my pointing the direction, he ran after them. The rear passage led into Wall street. At its exit the conspirators jumped into a carriage and fled the street.”
They did not fly the street, however, but went to the Broad street office of Smith, Gould & Martin, where the crowd assembled, evidently with riotous intent, apparently bent upon an application to Judge Lynch for justice; and had any of the gentlemen appeared outside the confines of the front wall, the chances were that the lamp-post near by would have very soon been decorated with a breathless body. To insure their safety inside, however, a small police force kept guard outside, which made the barricade complete. These gentlemen remained under this shelter until the small hours of the morning, busily endeavoring to find out where they stood in the result of the gold deal; and the more they pondered over it, the greater grew the doubt in their minds whether they were standing on their heads or their heels.”