It must have been an important meeting, for that night Cannon left New York for Washington on a midnight train, arriving in Washington Saturday morning, April 22, and while there had interviews with Grover Cleveland. On the morning of April 22 Jordan was sworn into office, and his first act, official or semi-official, was to arrange for a meeting with certain National Bank Presidents in the afternoon.
I can give you the names of most of the National Bank Presidents who met Jordan that afternoon. The meeting was said to be informal, and its proceedings were carefully guarded. But it was of such importance that Jordan went to Washington on a late evening train to make a report of its proceedings.
It was generally believed at the time, and there is little doubt of its truth, that Jordan was simply given the office to mask his character as confidential agent between Grover Cleveland and the New York National Bank Presidents.
After a conference with Cleveland on Sunday morning, April 23, Jordan and Cannon returned to New York, arriving there late in the evening. Before leaving Washington Jordan wired certain National Bank Presidents to meet him at a private house uptown.
What happened at that meeting we can only surmise. I mention it to show the connection between the National Bank Presidents and Grover Cleveland.
The next morning, April 24, Jordan was at his desk. One of the first things he did was to notify the National Bank Presidents and officers of trusts and other companies to meet him that day at the Sub-Treasury. This also was a dark-lantern meeting, and no one would give out the proceedings. But what followed shortly afterward, and the action taken by those who attended that meeting, justifies the belief that that convention was called for the purpose of arranging a concerted attack upon the national industries, agriculture, commerce, property and social order of the American people—the assault to be directed by the New York National Bank Presidents—as the swiftest and surest means of forcing Congress to repeal the silver law—to give the country Cleveland’s “Object-Lesson.”
Nine National Bank Presidents met John G. Carlisle at the Williams House on April 27, presumably to complete the arrangements for the attack. No doubt Cleveland had approved the conclusions reached on the 24th, and sent Carlisle to sanction them.
Carlisle’s meeting with the Bank Presidents that day was, as you know, a subject of much newspaper comment. The meeting was said to have been one of “effusive cordiality,” and, in view of the events which quickly followed, there is little doubt but what it partook of the nature of “two hearts that beat as one.”
It was there that the National Bankers proposed an issue of bonds. But Carlisle, like a young girl, although keen to marry, intimated that it was “too sudden.”