The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-12-03
DEATH OF THE GREAT wRECKER.

Jay Gould, very successful railroad
wrecker, corporation robber and land
pirate, died yesterday. He was a great
all that he was q sober scoundrel; his
sobriety of life was temperamental; he
was small, thin, dark, with a poor stomach
and bad liver all his days; he had more
brains than body, and dies in his prime.
but he was more formidable scoundrel.
both in the evil tina. he achieved and the
evil that lives after HIM in the shape of an
example of successful rascaiity, than his
fat. ford. lo9uacious and licentious lieu
tenant, the late James Fisk. jr.
Mr.. Gould was emphatically curse to
his country. He has no more right to be
named for a moment with such men as
Commodore Vanderbilt or other Napole-
onic men of business and finance than o
great bandit has to be named with great
banker or trader; than great pirate has
to be named rs identical with great ship
builder and merchant captain. The Van.
derbiit type of railroad men were legiti-
mate business men with genius for
said of Hamilton that he touched the
corpse of our credit and it started to its
feet. 1t was true Of Vanderbilt that what
ever he touched started to its feet; he
took properties that were worthless and
made them valuable; he did this by
economy, system. industry, energy, COM
bination; by the time-honored legitimate
methods of generalship in business. Van
derbiit was q man of genius; one of the
greatest benefactors that this country ever
produced, because by his genius for COM
bination applied to the organization of
great trunk lines of transportation Van
derbilt placed the consumers and pro-
ducers of Dakota in quick reach of the
consumers and producers of New York
city. Vast masses of working men today
who Ignorantly curse Vanderbilt for the
crime of being rich man can we'll afford
to rise up and call him blessed, for to his
genius they owe the fact that both food
city wage worker, and manufactured
goods cheaper to the Dakota con-
sumner than they would have been for
many years had not Vanderbilt lived. He
won his wealth legitimately by business
methods organized and applied by his far
seeing genius, and without specifically
seeking to be other than man oflegitimate
generalship in the business world he was
a great public benefactor. HIS genius
was that of a great general in the legitimate
warfare of the world of business, trade
and transportation. Under his touch
everything turned to gold; capital fol-
lowed him with absolute confidence be-
cause he kept his word and made every
waste place and barren enterprise he
touched blossom like the rose. He was not
.philanthropist, but ne was an honest mer-
chant captain never pirate on sea or land;
least of all was he ever a miserable wrecker,
displaying false lights from the shore to
lure good ships into the breakers and
dash them to rum on the rocks so that he
might rob the wreck and plumber the
drowned bodies of better men than him.
self.
While Vanderbilt wa, all his DAYS a
blessing TO the development of legitimate
American business and enterprise, Jaw
Gould was a curse. Vanderbilt was fertil-
izing rain. breeze and sunlight. while
Gould was = blight. a bandit, wrecker, a
pirate. a moral mildew, sirocco whose
hot breath scorched and made a desert of
every bit Of blooming, promising business
territory and enterprise over which il
blew. Vanderbilt kept hens, and made
i'm -
while Gould spent his time locating hen
roosts by day and robbing them by night.
Gould had the moral nature of = bandit. a
poacher and a sinuggier; he did not con-
struct or nourish or multiply honest en-
tsrprises; he simply discovered what other
men had created, and robbed them OF their
accumulations. He picked live geese
feathers all his days off the bodies Of geese
that his honest and hard-working neigh.
brs owned and maintained at their cost.
Gould and Fisk secured control of the
Erie railroad when ii was a valuable prom
erty. paying dividends on the common
and preferred stock to multitude of
humble stockholders; these two sconn.
drels ut once began to rob this railroad.
Nan9SrDiIE uuuSTkcOk 10 Hss possession hy
purchase in the stock market. Gould fed
out stock TO him fraudulently overissued
and Vanderbilt, of course, could not beat
the scoundrel and his printing press.
These rsscaily proceedings were ratified
by the corrupt Judges Of the Tammany
ring, whose chiefs were also members of
the Erie ring. After these corrupt Judges
were removed Vanderbilt forced Fisk and
Gould to disgorge; and after Fisk Was
murdered in ls72 Gould was forced to sur.
render Erie TO the English stock holders.
but he carried away with him as the price
of his surrender some sI2oco. 900 Of the
spoils ne had stolen from this rich rail-
road while he administered its affairs.
Let anybody who is curious about the
details Of Gould's piracy read "A Chapter
or Erie" by Charles Francis Adams.
printed in the North ATsericoa Rerie,e more
than twenty years ago; then let them
read the tale Of his robbery and wreekinS