It is believed that Mr. Gould’s real ambition, so far as concerned the Western Union, was to sell it to the government. But so long as the country believed that Jay Gould desired to sell there could be no public opinion aroused in favor of purchasing it. So Gould, if such was his real desire, masked his purpose behind a display of indifference or opposition, in the hope that if it was thought he did not wish to sell the country would be all the more eager to buy. Thus he told the Committee on Labor and Education:
“I think the control by the government is contrary to our institutions. The telegraph system, of all other business, wants to be managed by skilled experts, while the government is founded on the idea that the party in power shall control the patronage. If the government controlled it the general managers’ heads would come off every four years and you would not have any such efficient service as at present. The very dividend of the Western Union is based upon doing business well, keeping her customers and developing her business. If the Democrats were in power there would be a Democratic telegraph; if the Republicans came into power there would be a Republican telegraph, and if the reformers came in I don’t know what there would be. (Laughter.) I think it would be a mere political machine. I would be perfectly willing, so far as I am concerned, to allow the government to try it, to sell out our property, but it would be very unjust to take it away, the property of our own citizens, and make it valueless.”
“Have you any idea what the government ought to pay?”
“I think that it ought to pay what it is worth and no more. I think that the method that was provided in the law is a very just one, and I would be perfectly willing to let the government take it on those terms.”
“What, in your opinion, is the Western Union property worth?”
“Well, I judge of property myself by its net earning power; that is the only rule I have been able to get. If you show me a property that is paying no more than the taxes, I don’t want it. I want property that earns money. You might say that there is water in Western Union, and so there is. There is water in all this property along Broadway. This whole island was once bought for a few strings of beads. But now you will find this property valued by its earning power, by its rent power, and that is the way to value a railroad or a telegraph. So it is worth what it earns now, a capital that pays seven per cent.”
“That would be $100,000,000?”
“Yes, and it is worth much more than that, because there are a great many assets.”
GOULD FAINTING AT DIRECTORS’ MEETING IN RUSSELL SAGE’S OFFICE.