Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-06
trat.on of the office-holder and all his
helonoiDos
ITS BROADER SIGNIFICANCE.

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The personal element in the tragedy
which closes the honorable career of Cyrus
w. Field with disaster has already been
commented on as the phase which first
strikes the mind. The spectacle of an
eminent man, after long and prosperous
career, brought down by misfortune, and
an honorable and respected name clouded
by the misdeeds or insane recklessness of
son, rightly eyokes first the sympathy OF
observers But there is in the Field dis
asters a deeper and broader significance,
which should not escape public attention,
in its illustration of the business ten
denotes of the time.
Cyrus W. Field was the exponent OF the
most attractive class in the era of cor
porate development To him the cor
porate organization was the means adopted
to create enterprises of vast benefit to the
public, and the fortunes made in their
prosecution-the just reward for the work
and hazard of taking these enterprises from
doubtful beginning and carrying them
to a brilliant success. In this capacity MIR.
Field earned place among the leaders OF
men that cannot be damaged by his late
disaster As the organizer who brought
the first Atlantic cable into existence, and
gave to New York the first form of transit
superior to the crawling horse-car, he
fairly earned both his fortune and his
place in public esteem and respect.
But it will not do to permit this to carry
the idea that Mr.. Fields career was free
from the vices of corporate management
now so rampant To do so would be to lose
the most important lesson of the closing
tragedy in his life. His participation in
the abuses that grow naturally out of cor
porate organization was moderate and not
personally dishonorable. He put his share
of water into his corporate enterprises, but
he did so in the belief that he was simply
expressing the valuation of the future of
his enterprises. We do not believe he ever
undertook to float an entirely valueless
stock under the pretense that it was
genuine, or adopted the method of swind-
ling stockholders by either producing an
appearance of prosperity or pretense of
unremunerativeness in his corporations for
the purpose of either selling stock above
or buying below its true value.
He must have known that. such things
were done, even in the early days, how
ever; but he failed to perceive how these
abuses presented to unscrupulous and
daring manipulators the ability to override
and extinguish the honorable element in
corporate management.
The best evidence that Mr. Field failed
to appreciate the vast danger involved in
@bo oorno-o+o n bucos NTH which bio ooraor
brought him into contact is afforded by
the fact that he permitted himself to be.
come associated in corporate manage
ment with man whose career, from be-
ginning to end, illustrated the gains that
can be secured by the systematic utiliza-
ton of the opportunities of dishonesty. 1t
may be doubted whether, even now, when |
he is overcome by the personal aspects Of
his misfortunes, he .perceives this lesson. |
But the impartial observer ought to be
able to see in the fact that Jay Gould was
abe to relieve Mr. Field of the greater |
share of his fortune, by their connection |
in the elevated railway corporations, a |
very clear Illustration of the great odds |
which corporate abuses give to unscrupu- |
lous management over the honest corpo- |
rate managers who seek to earn their for |
tunes by the creation of real public ben-
efits.
Another thing which Mr.. Field failed to |
appreciate was the immense |
to speculate for sudden for
tunes afforded by the corporate era. Of
course he knew there was great deal Of |
speculation. But he could not have fore
seen that the universal and overmastering
greed for sudden gains, secured no matter
how, attacking his own family would
bring him to ruin and connect his name
with disgrace But if he had even faint
of the decentralization growing
out Of these abuses of the system of which
he was a leader, would he not have used
all the influence and power he possessed
fifteen years ago in eradicating these
abuses in their early growth?
1t is certainly solemn lesson on the
tendencies of the time when the Goulds
are powerful and triumphant and the
Fields are overcome with disaster and
financial extinction.