Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-03-12
JAY GOULD.
VIEWS AND OPINIONS OF THE GREAT
WALL STREET OPERATOR.
Corporate Rights and Duties from the
Standpoint Of the Capitalists
the Republic in Danger7-De
Lesssps' Canal Scheme.
u. Y. Herald, February 2sth.l

Yes, SAID NIT. Jay OOuius IL Tie
Herald cares to have my views | am willing
to give them. But l really think my ideas
are of very little value. What shall say to
your"
To the question of a representative OF the
Herald the preceding answer was given the
other evening in what may be called Mr..
Gould's working room in his Fifth avenue
home.
In reply to the above inquiry the reply was
given 1.-The question to ask politician is
about politics, statesman about govern
ments, a railroad man about railroads, a
great incorporation about corporations"
''As to corporations" said Mr.. Gould,
"let us consider, first of all, what corpora
ton is. A corporation is body of men who
unite, associate, concentrate their capital,
ability and intelligence in the undertaking of
9 work, great or small, which any one of them
individually would be unwilling to under
take. II there are losses they agree to bear
each his proportion. IF there are profits they
agree to divide them. That is corporation.
There is Just now a great cutlery In this coun-
try against corporations. We hear it in State
Legislatures, in Congress, in some of the
newspapers. Corporations, we are told, are
obtaining control they are going to destroy
the country. What would this country be if
it were not for corporations? Who have de-
veloped it, Corporations. Who keep all its
vast machinery in motion! Corporations.
Who transact the most marvellous business
the world has ever seen? Corporations 2"
But, Mr.. Gould, they say the corpora
tons are becoming too POWERFUL
The corporations are powerful because
the people are powerful. Corporate property
wss never so widely scattered in this country
as it is to-day. Some years ago | controlled
the Union Pacific Railroad. | bought its
stock when it was down so low that it could
hardly find purchaser. 1t was built up and
I sold out. Its stockholders to-day are num-
bered by the thousand where they were be-
fore numbered by the hundred. A short
time ago MIR. Vanderbilt controlled the New
York Central. He sold large interest,
which has passed into the hands of other
people farmers. insurance COM
panies and trust estates The number of its
stockholders Is larger now than ever before. u
CONCENTRATION.
"Then, in your opinion, the tendency in
corporations is not toward the concentration
of large interests in the hands of indi-
viduals?'
Certainly not 1t is all the other way.
The people are every year getting more and
more control. Corporate property was never
80 widely distributed. One of the roads, one
Vi Vic TDOIdtlOus III WHICH, tHbSTcoJSu,
and in which l am a Director, will show on
its books to-day list of stockholders in
nearly every State in the Union, and not
only in the Union but in nearly every coun-
try in Europe. When you hit that corpora
ton, when you do anything to injure it, you
hit and. you inJure thousands of people all
ever the world"
What is your theory in investments ?"
9 have got some money. My theory is
this To go into everything that promises a
profit. For me business possesses a very
great fascination. | believe in this country
in its future. / have great faith in its posi-
bilities in it's almost boundless resources.
To use the slang of the street, and of the day
and time, go into almost everything that
promises a return bat at the same time l
am as careful as possible to make my gains
exceed my losses. Unfortunately do not
always succeed. [ have been in score, a
hundred speculations, from which almost
as soon as | was In l would have gladly
withdrawn. But once in an enterprise it is
very hard to leave it. To give yeu an illus
tration endeavored to get out of Union
Pacific long before | did. l spoke to Mr..
Sidney Dillon about it, aud he almost begged
me to remain in. In all these great enter
prises there are ties of friendship as well IS
ties of business. We are all slaves, and the
est slave of all, save and except he who owns
two millions. That idea has been put in
another way by man who at enc time was
himself millionaire two or three times
over"
&C But Mr.. Gould, corporations are, it is
said, menace to cur institutionsf'
Then the danger to our institutions
comes from the people themselves. AS have
pointed out to you, the people are the cor
porations. The time has gone, and gone for
ever, when the country can be controlled by
mere men, or even strong combinations of
what are called strong men. Ihave got some
money to-day, but do you suppose that it is
invested in one corporation, or even in
financial transactions. am interested in all
my undertakings not with one OF q dozen
men, but with thousands. Any man to-day
can buy anything / have got.
But you dictate the price ?"
In other words l control Wall stree?
YES"
WALL STREET.
Nonsense No man can control WSn
street. Wall street is like the ocean. No
man can govern it. It is too big, too vast.
No man ought TO attempt it. Wall street is
full of eddies and currents. The thing to do
Is to watch them, to exercise little common
sense, and on the wave of speculation. or
whatever you please to call it, to come in on
top. To attempt its direction and control
would be as wild as to try to turn back the
Atlantic. Wall street is the arena in which
the most daring men of the continent, the
greatest spectators of a population of So,
coo, 900 of people-the majority of whom,
each in his OWE sphere, is a Spectator
No one man can govern it or them. He who
81 DIX
papers, which to great extent mold public
opinion, magnify individual men in Wall
street. 0ne-half of what you read and three
feurths Of what you hear is pure romance.
Wall street is the business barometer of the
country, and not only of this country, but of
the world in so far as our relations and the
relations of the world are Independent. Wall
street does not govern; it is governed. 1t
does not control; it is controlled. They say
combinations are formed, traps laid, springs
set. In this age of instantaneous communi.
cation, from San Francisco to st. Petersburg,
the latest dispatch will upset the most
cunning combination that can possibly be
formed"
CABLES AND TELEGRAPH LINES
THAT suggests the cable aud the telegraph
line
swell. what of them?"
w udS VI tho tS4SSAdph CpHeouudtlou
It is alleged that il is another monopoly fas-
tened upon the country. to which its business
must pay tribute and toll. +"
Better watch and wait. As the whole
country knows, was interested in the Ameri-
can Union Telegraph Company. Its PIesi-
denA, General Eckert, is the ablest telegraph
captain l ever met. He is a man OF the high
est genius 10 that direction. But we found
we could not compete with the Western
Union. We did our best to fight it, but there
was nothing left, in the interest of the public
and in our interest, but consolidation. Take
the situation as it was. The Western Union
Company has between nine and ten thousand
offices. Nearly three-fourths of its operators
are in one way or another connected with
different railroads. The railroads pay them
for their services. They act as operators of
the companies and of the Western Union.
It is a system of cooperation between
the railroads and the Western Union,
and the public gains BY the combination.
The American Union, except between certain
points, was cut off from that. To compete
with it the American Union had to pay sala-
ries in fllacas wbera the Western Union was