THE CAREER OF JAMES FISK, JUNIOR.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 133, 13 March 1872, Page 3

THE CAREER OF JAMES FISK, JUNIOR.

(From the Lender.') The Californian mail has brought intelligence of the assassination of one of the most remarkable men that the United States of America, prolific as that country is of remarkable men, has ever produced. Air Fisk, the hero of the New York Gold Company and of the Erie Railway raid, two of the most gigantic frauds of modern times, has been shot by a man named Stokes upon the staircase of the Grand Central Hotel. Of the particulars of the murder nothing more is known than that two shots were fired, that the assassin ran away-, but was immediatelyarrested and committed to the Tombs, and that Fisk lived for a few hours, just long enough to make his will. The

quarrel between Fisk and Stokes appears to have arisen from rivalry in the affectionsof an actress, Helen Josephine Mansfield Lawlor, the wife of an actor from | whom she was separated, and for some ; time mistress of Fisk, who had given her husband a considerable sum of money, and set him up as manager of a theatre in the far West. James Fisk was born in Vermont, which boasts of being one of the most correct and respectable States in the Union, somewhere about the year 18;30. His father was a pedlar, who hawked goods from town to town in his native valley of the Connecticut. The son followed his father’s calling with boldness and success, lie rushed into extravagances which completely shocked the old man’s sense of caution. He despised the old-fashioned style of doing business, drove six horses in the waggon instead of two, made it resplendent. with paint and varnish, and I completely turned the heads of the rustics ! in the Green Mountain State and Western i Massachussets. It was in vain that the senior Fisk remonstrated. The son accepted the whole responsibility, took his governor into his service, paid him a fixed salary, but warned him that he was not. to put on frills on the strength of his promotion. A large Boston linn, attracted by iiis energy, look him into partnership. The war broke out. Ilis influence led them into some brilliant speculations ; a lucky hit was made, and in a few j'cars Fisk retired with loo,ooodols. He had had enough of buying and selling merchandise. He resolved that his next field of operations should be Wall-street, the stock exchange of New York. He formed a connection with Daniel Drew, of that city, and a new signboard was raised, bearing the names of “ Fisk and Boulden, brokers.” His first experiences were not satisfactory. Two or three large transactions, in which lie was concerned, resulted so disastrously that he was cleaned out. This was the turning point of his life. Just as Disrali when lie failed so disastrously in the House of Commons, turned upon the men who were coughing him down, and yelled out that the time should come when they would he compelled to hear him, so Fisk swore a mighty oath that as Wall-street had ruined him Wall-street should smart for it. He quitted New York and went to Boston, where he made iho acquaintance of a young man who had a valuable patent, which the manufacturers were using, but refusing to pay the royalty, and resisting the rights of the owners in the courts. The money of the patentee was gone, and the lawyers refused to push the case any further upon credit. Fisk bought the right for a few hundred dollars, and commenced a series of lawsuits, by which be recovered enormous sums.

With a larger capital than when he first went to New York, Fisk returned to the scene of his discomfiture, and then began a remarkable series of operations. The Erie railway was, like many of the great corporations of the United States—an empire within a republic. It consisted of a trunk line of road 459 miles in length, with branches 314 miles in extent, in all 773 miles of road. Its capital was upwards of seven millions sterling ; its gross receipts exceeded three millions per annum ; its employees numbered over 15,000. By a successful intrigue Drew and Vanderbilt were driven from the directory, and Fisk became comptroller, a person named Gould being president and treasurer, and a young lawyer, named Lane, was also an official. These three directors formed a majority, and were practically the masters of Erie. The other members of the board were never called together, and the enormous property fell into the hands of these three men, all of whom belonged to a low and degraded moral and social type. Personally, Fisk was coarse, noisy, brutal, and ignorant; the type of a butcher’s assistant—large, llorid, and gross. Gould was small and slight, dark, rereliccnt and stealthy, with a trace of Jewish origin. Fisk’s redeeming point was his humour, which was racy and peculiarly American. Ilis mind was fertile in ideas and expedients; his conversation full of unusual images and forms of speech, which were repeated and made popular by the New York Press. Ilis regard for truth was of a peculiar description. A story is told which shows his father’s estimate of his character. An old woman, who had bought of the younger Fisk a handkerchief which cost ninepence in the New England currency, where six shillings are reckoned to the dollar, complained to Air Fisk senior that his son had cheated her. The old gentleman considered the case maturely, and then replied, “No, he wouldn’t have told a lie for ninepence, although lie would have told eight for a dollar !” The first operation of the new King of Erie was to buy a huge building of white marble, containing an opera house, known as Pike’s, .and several houses in the neighbourhood, at a cost of about £140,000 which he furnished at an expense of £(50.000, in a style which would be considered magnificent in any place in Europe. The adjoining houses, in which Fisk had his private rooms, were connected with the main building, and gave him access to his private box. lie became manager - in - chief, and imported a large number of artists from Europe. The opera supplied his mind with amusement ; from the troupe he selected a permanent harem. Having thus made themselves as comfortable as possible, the trio commenced their business operations by introducing into the directory, in the place of the respectable old fogies who formerly had seats thcie, two members of the now well known Tammany ring, Tweed and Sweeney. With their aid they engineered a bill through the local legislature, enabling Gould and Fisk to make themselves directors for five years. The next step was to obtain a control over the judiciary. The state of New York contains thirtythree elected judges, each of whom is clothed with equity powers running through the whole state, and had the power of forbidding proceedings before other judges, and staying proceedings in suits already commenced. Of these officials a large number were elected by Tammany influence, and thus became the tools of Fisk and Gould. The most celebrated, because the most subservient, were judges Barnard and C'ardogo. With the courts of justice virtually in their pay, and with an able counsel, Mr Field, permanently retained for them, Fisk and Gould had the whole administration of the law virtually at their command. They next, with these funds of the Erie railway, bought the whole number of shares in a joint stock hank, which Lad a capital of only £200,00U, but which was of enormous assistance to them in their schemes, since in one day it marked the cheques of Gould to the extent of a million and a I Half sterling without holding an atom of security. j

Tlio operations of Fisk, Gould, and Lane were now upon a scale corresponding with the resources at their command.

They operated most successfully in Erie stock, and upon one occasion issued and sold 235,000 new shares,- worth nearly

fifteen millions sterling. With the aid of the money thus obtained they succeeded in withdrawing about two and a half mili lions of coin from circulation at the time when it was most in demand in order to harvest the crops. By the aid of their fellow conspirators upon tlie bench, they shut up rival railroads, whose stock they had been selling upon time, and realised enormous sums by the fall, which of course arose when a railway hitherto in full operation had to stop running through the injunctions of Judge Barnard. When it is considered that the total gold in the New York district is only four million sterling, the effect of a withdrawal from circulation of two millions and a half may easily he seen. In order to prevent the interference of the Washington Government, which always holds about twenty millions sterling worth of gold, Fisk tried his powers of fascination upon the President himself, waited upon General Grant when that official visited New York, and induced him to accept an invitation to his theatre, and then to his magnificent steamer, where, arrayed “in a idne uniform, with a broad gilt cap-band, three silver stars on his coat sleeve, lavender gloves, and a diamond breast-pin as large as a cherry, he stood at the gangway surrounded by a brilliant staff, bestarred’and hestriped like their chief, and received the President. There can lie no doubt that Fisk struck some very heavy blows at Wall-street. Twice he completely broke the gold market, and upon one occasion, after buying enormously, lie repudiated every transaction, and coolly referred bis victims to the courts of law. The only man whom he could not succeed in swindling was Morrcssey, the cx-pugilist, who bearded the lion in his den, and succeeded by threats of personal violence in obtaining from him a cheque for .00,000 dollars. Fisk became a power in the country. He was the virtual owner of an important railway, controlled the judiciary of a whole state, was colonel of a regiment of volunteers, all of whom were devoted to him—in fact rivalled in magnificence and immorality an Eastern despot. He employed a large portion of his vast wealth in literally buying popularity, which meant votes, and consequently power, upon a scale which never entered into the wildest dreams of the most unprincipled English borough-monger in the days of Gallon and Old Saruin. In New York, both city and state, he was almost omnipotent. The belief had become common in America that the day was rapidly approaching when corporations far greater than the Erie —swaying power such as never in the history of the world has been trusted in the hands of private citizens, controlled by single men like Vanderbilt, or by combinations like Fisk, Gould, and Lane —would by a system of quiet hut irresistible corruption ultimately succeed in directing Government itself. Under the American form of society there was no authority capable of resistance. The recent action of the citizens of New York, in breaking up the Tammany ring, might have curbed the power of Fisk. Stokes is no doubt a great scoundrel, hut upon the present occasion he may unintentionally have done the state some service.