Wichita eagle., 1888-02-01
NEW NAPoLEoNs OF FIANcE.

The New York correspondent OF the
st. Louis Globe, writing under date OF
January 81, gives the following interest
ing account of the money magnates
whose names occupies prominent places
in current discussions of financsal matters
in the east:
One of the most prominent figures in
the railroad world just at this moment Is
unquestionably Austin COrbin. president
of the Philadelphia & Reading Rail
road company, who is accused of very
small trickery in his dealings with the
hard working operatives in the coal
mines of the company. Many OF our
railroad presidents are close-fisted, not
overscrupulous men, who think that the
principal object of their existence Is to
earn big dividends, however outrageously
the stock of the corporations may have
been watered. 1t is entirely unnecessary
to point out that the Reading cap
italization represents reservoir of water.
Whatever may be said about funding
big debts, lower rates of interest and ali
! the rest of the argument whereby the
blunders OF phenomenal misnanagement
are clearly revealed. To make the
operatives responsible for the loss by the
Reading company. through arrant tu-
pldity, Of $4,000, 900 i'll coal mining with
in twelve years, is as disreputable as to
deliberately pick their pockets as they
come up from their hard toll in the
mines, and it is significant that the
people of Pennsylvania, as a rule, sym
pathiZe with the strikers. Men like
George w. Childs and Anthony w.
Drexel, of Philadelphia, who are large
stockholders in the Reading. favor arbi-
tration of the question of wages, put Mr.,
COrbin seems to think that he can gall
the sore back of labor with impunity. 1t
is such men who embitter the laboring
classes against the existing state OF
society: who by their purblind mean
ness envenom the spirit of discomfort,
which, among the vicious. proceeds to
the length of anarchism. The French
aristocrats who shot peasants for the
amusement of seeing them drop from
the Paris roofs, were responsible for the
Robespierres, the Marats, the Dantons,
who came later with the guillotine for
the work of vengeance. 1t was the
French aristocrats and capitalists who
started the pen OF Jean Jacques Rous-
seau, the French Henry George of the
last century, at whom they laughed at
first in light Gallo skeptism. though as
Carlyle shows, their skins went to bind
the second edition of his works.
The success of not a few young men is
one Of the interesting facts on Wall
street. Hurrying across to the palatial
Mills building from the marble Stock
Exchange | often see a rather slightly
built, boyish-loOking young man who has
been in Wall street since he be-
gan, at thirteen years Of age, as an Office
boy for a broker at So week, period
that is of twenty years. 1t is Charles NJ.
Foster. He became a partner in large
house at 81. and is now worth $3.50, 900.
for which he paid $4,000. He is typ
ical New York boy of the better class,
brought up in moderate circumstances.
securing his education in the public
schools, and largely seif-educated in the
great school of life. He is a member of
the stock, produce and coffee exchanges.
and also of the Manhattan Club. He is
one of the quickest men at figures in
Wall street The bare facts of his sue
cessful career are sufficiently indicative
of his abilities.
I occasionally see in the financial re-
gion a man of polished address and
rather handsome features set off with an
imperial, who has had an eventful ca
reer 1t is D. F. Verdenal, who is well
known in the far west He presides
over the deStinies of six mining
companies here. and the six may become
dozen before the year is finished. He
is a New York state man by birth. but he
went early in life to st. Louis, and then.
having been smitten with the gold fever,
migrated to San Francisco. He suDse-
quentiy became graduate from the ST.
Louis university and the Harvard law
school. and was admitted to practice in
the supreme court of Massachusetts. He
returned to San Francisco and practiced
law for time, but in 1858 went to White
Pine while the mining excitement was
at it's height In that interesting cemetery
of human hopes. He had u sort of
mausOleum on Treasure hill; it was a
seven by nine cabin, and in the long
nights the roar of the mountain blast
through the great natural corridors
was the requiem of his aspirations
Bacchanalian orgies, unnumbered faro
banks. wild hopes. bitter dis
appointments and "a man for breakfast
was the brief chronicle of the feverish
life of Treasure Hill Some rubbed the
lamp of Aladdin and found wealth;
others found their way back to civiliza-
ton as best they might. Chloride Fiat
might have We'd with the Poker Flat of
Bret Harte as scene of exciting fiction
with foundation or truth. Its glories
vanished. however. into the air. and Mr.
Nerdenal left for San Francisco, where
he became the editor of the Chronicle
He is of French extraction and of versa
tile mental endowments. He could. if
necessary. WELD pick in a mine one
day and the Journalists pen the next.
Later he became interested in mines in
notable those on the Constock
lode, and also in Utah. Arizona and else
where. He is a great friend of George
Roberts and Asbury Harpending, those
pious persons who develop mines of the
most undoubted value from sheer love
of their fellow man and never were
known to come out ahead while the
were in the woods hunting
for the fence.
Mr.. Eerdenal is member of number
of clubs, and is esteemed for his social
qualities. is still in the prime OF life. and
though he has not accumulated a million. /
is in comfortable circumstances.
One of the young men whom / see on
Fifth avenue and elsewhere in the fash /
quarter formerly had room in
the same house in Buffalo where Grover !
Cleveland had ms bachelor quarters 4
while mayor of that city, and saw not a I
little of the burly chief magistrate when I
ne never dreamed of being governor of 4
New York, much less president of the /
United States. Ii Is James +. Cleyvs. |
4 nephew Of Henry Clews, the 1
banker and broker, and associated with !