Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1872-08-29
Vanderbilt at Saratoga.


Yonder is Vanderbilt, with an income of
$4,000 day, as one of his family admitted
to ME. He refuses all telegraph dispatches;
will see none of his subordinates on business
| plays fve-handed euchre twice day, for two
dollars and half at each stretch; takes one
| carriage ride with his wife and Mrs. Craw-
| ford, his Inother-in-law, who is about young
enough to be his granddaughter, and talks
with his cronies. He is seventy years
old, and if he should endeavor to realize cash
for his personal railway stocks, bonds, and
mortgages tomorrow there would be q finan-
cial panic. There is nothing suggestive about
Vanderbilt, except his wealth, which, to any
high-thinking man, is the superfuous and
vulgar burden of a long g-extended life of
ey-seeking-useless 10 him, useless to his
fellow-men, and useless to his children---ex-
cept that he demonstrates in his life how faith
can grow richer than fear He was born
bull, in the stock sense; that is one who bet
that whatever he bought would win. Every
railway security he ever touched seemed to
grow buOyant from contact with his grim
Mohammcdan will and predcstinating con-
fidence. All that he ever did with the prop
erty represented by such stocks was to give
orders to manage it as meanly as possible, so
that it should cost the least for the most re-
turn; but to the stocks themselves he was the
uplifting bull tossing them aloft, and repre-
senting broader religious faith than he ever
knew In the surety of his country's judicious
enterprises. No ''bear" in the history of the
world ever touched his mark of prosperity,
and it would seem that the materialist who
bets systematically that all things must lose
has no better luck than the skeptic who some
times grows rich in wisdom by pursuing his
himself. .... -.@ H,hi.'&| X
Vanderbilt's life at seventy-eight, though
always essentially a gambling life, selfish and
single in his own interests, is still what one
might expect of such bull. He is never out
OF spirits; he is never above spirits; he is
Cornelius Vanderbilt, the bull. "a
- AL is clear again above TO-" he says to
visitors. "My lie is eight years ahead. "
And he says it in the cool tone of a man who
would take his own age even row, though
prolonged eight years beyond the dispensation
OF God to other men, and over-issue stock
upon it, and bull 1t up to be security. 1t is
a security. The stocks of his railways viii
show it when death, the great bear, gets Van
derbilt down. 7'.'- - ~
Those motley and dssimilar people whom,
by freaks and spells, he takes under his
capricious protection, are guarded while his
contract lasts: but what man of such riches
ever picked such friends? The best of them
are successful materialists like himself, all
kinder and more ponderable than himself,
and recommended to him by their masculine
qualities, heavy health, and gross sincerity.
They all admire him; he knows it, and en-
Joys the consciousness of it without thank
fulness or egotism. John Morrissey, who
keeps the clubhouse around the corner, can
get money from him with the understanding
that it is to be gambling capital. certain to
win by the percentage in favor of the player
capitalists, and to be repaid at that rate of
profit, as if Vanderbilt himself were pro-
prietor of the house. :.sf
He has no scruples about law or appear
ances; litigation, over-issue, injunction, seiz-
ure, are human processes to be availed of.
roads pay their interest. His son, William
of actual railroad leaders in the country,
make these dividends by handling the rail-
ways while Vanderbilt watches the people
who bother his stocks, and, now and then
descending upon the street, like a dog upon
the weasel, he bites the backs in twain of
hundreds of little people who would get his
securities from the roost. Probably no living
man has sent deserved beggary to more game
sters than this old chap. ~ '''
He wears light breeches and a black coat
and standing collar. He is tall and straight,
and white whiskered; the firmness of the
mouth is giving way, and he sleeps a great
deal. His wife is less than half his age, and
she is agreeable, and as individual as HIM
self. Is5sn #at a-t,4'.t 1sa' H~9
MAY ask which Mrs. Vanderbilt am
addressing" said a gentleman soon after
being introduced.
''Old Mrs. Vanderbilt" she said, naively.
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