San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-10-11
Jay Gould.
p,cbmond Industrial South.

II
D,.nmond Industrial South.
q man has done what Jay
VIII has done, and what perhaps no
oala human being ever did-begun
tle - a dollar of capital or solitary
GinCSu Of means or influence, and made
renu emu he was fifty years Of age, through
slc a0ss operations, over hundred
a sai"ns of dollars-it is natural that
1llliV should be desire to know some
aei S about his personal history, his
DlS Soss transactions, and his opinions
i,ir Jews of leading topics of the day,
~ %hs career OF this American citizen
l mite out of the arena of practical
ge' INTO the realm of the fabulous.
; y himself, turning everything he
Y nDsed into gold, could hardly have
Oua"Omnlated more rapidly. Think of
;or a moment. The average posses
a S Of the people OF this country are
s SIued somewhere not far from $500
~ cnpita. At this estimate Mr.. Gould,
.aditing him with S100,0O0,000, has
aSSured to himself the shares of tive
inbred thousand persons-or has
1ovn an acquisitive power two hun
red thousand times greater than the
'rerage. Taking the assessed valuation
= the city of Richmond and the coun-
W Of Henrico, real and personal prop
,,tv, as shown by the census of 1880,
md Mr.. Gould could purchase the
rhole, and then have enough left to
INV and pay for Norfolk, Portsmouth,
Manchester, Peters burg, Alexandria,
fredericksburg, and the counties in
which they are located-and still have
a larger cash account at bank than any
man in Richmond. He could buy all
tbe personal property of all the people
Of Virginia, as then assessed, and have
money enough left to pay for all the
houses and lots in half a dozen such
nlaces as Alexandria. He could buy
all the lands and buildings of North
Carolina, and pay their assessed value,
minus trife of less than two millions
Of dollars. He could present every
nhabitant of Maryland with a hundred
dollars, and still have money enough
left to buyout the county of Albemarle.
including Charlottesville. And all this
enormous means the accumulation of q
life scarcely past it's meridian, the gains
of one who a third of century ago
was barefoot cowboy, and who in
his first venture into the world might
have been seen crying and praying by
the wayside from fear of starvation.
We have had no such transformation
as this since the Judean peasant boy of
old who was haunted by his brother
with "the few sheep" he had in the
wilderness became the most renowned
md splendid King Of Israel.
twill not do to say that all this is
he result of chance or accident; any
more than were the victories of Napo-
con or Marlborough. Chance and &C
,ident never stand so steadily in any
mes favor as to give unbroken success
trough long series of trials in which
ordinary men fail. Mr.. Gould is I'M
man of great ability, of in
ense purpose and unfaltering nerve.
lis answers to the questions put to
i'm by the committee show that he is a
nan of thought, and of decided opin-
ons, which, too, he has the faculty of
living very clean cut expression to.
lie must have extraordinary clearness
f insight into the motives of men and
be drift of affairs, great power to
ontrol events, to muster resources, to
manage others and control himself, an
lstinct to detect imposture and false
and other like qualities that
lake the master-man of the world
or to this class one may show his
ight to belong as we'll by phenomenal
lccess in business as by leading politi-
Al parties and debating public politics
r heading armies and conquering
ingdoms. Indeed, if we look at the
mount of competition and it's charac-
II, at the contemplating, and COM
lexities of all sorts that are to be en-
ountered in the tedious and toilsome
fort to build up great fortune, and
punt the number of failures that strew
lie way, it may we'll be doubted
neither great success in the undsrtak-
e, success even family approaching
lat of Mr.. Gould, does not denote
reater parts than are requisite to the
leader of armies or OF
arties.