St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-05-28
MAKING OF FORTUNES.
Jay Gould Wonderful Financial Genius
and the Incarnation Of Wall
Street.
The Two Biggest Fortunes in the Repub
lie Held by the Vanderbilt and
Aston Families.
The Romantic and the Pro sale
oney-Maker--The Source of
Untold Millions.
Cyrus w. Field, a Man Whom Greed
of Gold Has Morally Hurt
Untold Riches.

LII tnlS new cOuulIy dllu COlhuiOlCial oSe
most of us feel an interest as to the way in
great fortunes have been made, even though
we may not esteem the makers Of them.
In no other age or country naturally has
anything like so much wealth been ac-
quired in so short time. Money-getting
romance and adventure, while in the Ole
World, with its slow and more sordid pro-
cesses, it would seem in the main a dull,
unattractive business. Sixty odd years
ago John Jacob Astor is said to have been
the only New Yorker worth $1,000, 900.
To-day S1,OO0,000 is hardly con-
sidered riches in the metropolis, al
though man possessed of that amount is
accounted very comfortably off. There
must be hundreds of our citizens whose es-
tates would foot up as much as that, but
who are never set down in the long list OF
wealthy Manhattanese. To be at all con-
spicuous among our millionaires (the word
means men who count their riches by mill
ions, not, as the newspapers are constantly
putting it, men with merely miIlionl they
must be estimated as owning fully So, 600,
600 to Sc, 900, 900 Of solid income-paying
property.
Thine two biggest fortunes here, OF any
where in the republic, are those of course OF
the Vanderbilt and Astor families. The
former has, happily, been divided by the
death of William A. Vanderbilt though tC
Cornelius and William K, the eldest sons,
are entrusted the management of the vast
estate. The late railway magnate was gen.
orally supposed to have accumulated about
5000, 600. 900, his father, old Cornelius,
the Staten island founder of the
family having left behind him
from $50. 600, 600 to 500, 900, 600, which
his son, by judicious management and
shrewd operations, nearly or quite doubled.
The commodore, as he was generally
named, was unquestionably financial
genius; but, beyond the fact that he always
paid his debts, his moral qualities were not
Of very high order. At nineteen he mar
ried; removed here; bought vessels, and al
twenty-three was worth $4,000. He fol
lowed the water until 1864, when, with
$40. 900, 900 he went into railroads, anG
there remained.s He was thoroughly selfish,
caring very little even for his nearest kin.
The story told of him, when a youth,
and generally believed. though doubtless
exaggerated, illustrates his character. His
father died when Cornelius was 16, his
chief property being a perianger. a sort OF
ferryboat, carrying two mastS and a lee
board, which he had employed in trans
porting household and farm products from
Staten Island to the New York market.
This vessel he bequeathed to his wife, and.
as Cornelius was her most capable and
practical son, she put him in charge of it.
He did remarkably well-far better than
his father had ever done-and. finding
profit in the trade, he bought another
boat, entered into active competition with
his mother, and very soon ran her off the
line-a salient example of filial devotion.
Throughout life he seldom considered any
thing except his own interest, albeit he
gave steamer, the Vanderbilt, costing
$500. 600, to the government at the outbreak
of the civil war, and literally endowed the
Vanderbilt university, at Nashville, Tenn,
at the urgent request of his second wife. He
was hard, astute, greedy man. whom his
fellows feared, but whom no one really
loved or could love. Gifted as he was in
the acquisition of money. he was so totally
without education of any kind, that he
could not express himself decently by
word of mouth or on paper. But his Hitter
acy troubled him not, since it never inter
fered with his pecuniary accumulation, the
aim and end of his whole existence.
William II. Vanderbilt was so extraordi-
nary an improvement on his father that he
seems of different stock. He was abomin-
ably neglected through all his early years
by the commodore. who thought him a
blank fool because he did not know, as he
thought. how to make money. Later on
Thurlow Weed made the ancient curmud-
geon acquainted with Williams financial
ability, and then he took his son into favor.
William had for many years a harder
course to follow than his father had had.
There were perpetual combinations against
him, Matchmaking roads like the Nickel
Plate and West Shore were built with the
intent to compel him to purchase them, and
any number of efforts employed to wresi
his property from him; still he conducted
his affairs very sagaciously and despite the
Vaccinations of his monetary enemies,
contrived to hold his own and get great
deal more. His ability as fnancier has
not been appreciated; it was extraor-
binary. and exercised in great measure on
the defensive. He was not in
tellectual or cultured, but he
was kind-hearted, rather SYM
pathetic, and performed many good acts OF
which the public know nothing. His tastes
were purely domestic; he was an excel
lent husband and devoted father. His
enormous wealth prevented people from
understanding hint naturally renders
its possesSor disliked without reason-and
he had, on the whole, rather dreary life
He would have been far happier If he haG
not been burdened with the vast estate
which he regarded as his sacred duty tC
keep unimpaired. Those who were his
friends always speak of him with affection
and tenderness. He was one of the very best
immensely rich men New York ever lad.
THE ASToR ESTATE.
The Astors' fortunes have been very SIM
liar to those of the Vanderbbilts, old
John Jacob AstOr having been to his FAM
lily very much what Cornelius Vanderbilt
was to his. except that the former was
more enlightened, although the son OF
Badenese peasant, and had more respect
for enlightened opinion. John Jacob,
with his European ideas, was anx-
ious, so soon as he had pros
pered. to found q family. His descendants
have kept this steadily in mind and have
done their best to this end by socially
judicious marriages. The commodore cared
nothing tor family; he was only intent on
getting every dollar possible, There have
been many scandals among the Wander
bilts and none among the Astors, except
that they have had one or two insane MEM
bers, for whom they provided with
silent discretion. The original Astor
was, ON smaller scale. a
financial genius also, but there the re-
semblance between him and the original
Vanderbilt ceased. The former began
with nothing and died worth $50, 600, 600,
after having endowed the Astor library,
which has never done the good he designed
it should. in consequence of the various
restrictions thrown around it, The man
who would leave the small paternal farm
at 16, walk from his native village to the
coast of Holland aid embark in Dutch
Sleep for London. determined to make his
own fortune, must have had extraordinary
energy and enterprise. John Jacob Astor
stayed eight or nine years in Lon
don. working with an elder brother, a
maker of musical instruments. Soon after
Al Of IND -