Part 43

One of Mr. Sage's lawyers was an intimate friend of mine, and he told me this story. Sage had been persuaded by his fellow directors in the Western Union Telegraph Company to make a will. As he was attorney for the company, Sage came to him to draw it.

The lawyer began to write: "I, Russell Sage, of the City of New York, being of sound mind" . . . (Sage interrupted him in his quick way by saying, "Nobody will dispute that") "do publish and devise this to be my last will and testament as follows: First, I direct that all my just debts will be paid." . . . ("That's easy," said Sage, "because I haven't any.") "Also my funeral expenses and testamentary expenses." ("Make the funeral simple. I dislike display and ostentation, and especially at funerals," said Sage.) "Next," said the lawyer, "I give, devise, and bequeath" . . . (Sage shouted: "I won't do it! I won't do it!" and left the office.)

Nothing is so absorbing as the life of Wall Street. It is more abused, misunderstood, and envied than any place in the country. Wall Street means that the sharpest wits from every State in the Union, and many from South America and Europe, are competing with each other for the great prizes of development, exploitation, and speculation.

I remember a Wall Street man who was of wide reading and high culture, and yet devoted to both the operation and romance of the Street. He rushed into my room one night at Lucerne in Switzerland and said: "I have just arrived from Greece and have been out of touch with everything for six weeks. I am starving for news of the market."

I enlightened him as well as I could, and then he remarked: "Do you know, while in Athens our little party stood on the Acropolis admiring the Parthenon, and one enthusiastic Grecian exclaimed: 'There is the wonder of the world. For three thousand years its perfection has baffled and taught the genius of every generation. It can be copied, but never yet has been equalled. Surely, notwithstanding your love of New York and devotion to the ticker, you must admire the Parthenon.' I answered him, if I could be transported at this minute to Fifth Avenue and Broadway and could look up at the Flatiron Building, I would give the money to rebuild that old ruin."

While conditions in the United States because of the World War are serious, they are so much better than in the years following the close of the Civil War, that we who have had the double experience can be greatly encouraged. Then one-half of our country was devastated, its industries destroyed or paralyzed; now we are united and stronger in every way. Then we had a paper currency and dangerous inflation, now we are on a gold standard and with an excellent banking and credit system. The development of our resources and wonderful inventions and discoveries since the Civil War place us in the foremost position to enter upon world commerce when all other nations have come as they must to co-operation and co-ordination upon lines for the preservation of peace and the promotion of international prosperity.

Many incidents personal to me occur which illustrate conditions following the close of the war between the States. I knew very rich men who became paupers, and strong institutions and corporations which went into bankruptcy. I was in the Union Trust Company of New York when our financial circles were stunned by the closing of its doors following the closing of the New York Stock Exchange.

One of my clients was Mr. Augustus Schell, one of the ablest and most successful of financiers and public-spirited citizens. The panic had ruined him. As we left the Union Trust Company he had his hat over his eyes, and his head was buried in the upturned collar of his coat. When opposite Trinity Church he said: "Mr. Depew, after being a rich man for over forty years, it is hard to walk under a poor man's hat." When we reached the Astor House a complete reaction had occurred. His collar was turned down, his head came out confident and aggressive, his hat had shifted to the back of his head and on a rakish angle. The hopeful citizen fairly shouted: "Mr. Depew, the world has always gone around, it always will go around." He managed with the aid of Commodore Vanderbilt to save his assets from sacrifice. In a few years they recovered normal value, and Mr. Schell with his fortune intact found "the world had gone around" and he was on top again.

I have often felt the inspiration of Mr. Schell's confidence and hope and have frequently lifted others out of the depths of despair by narrating the story and emphasizing the motto "The world always has gone around, the world always will go around."

Illustrating the wild speculative spirit of one financial period, and the eagerness with which speculators grasped at what they thought points, the following is one of my many experiences.

Running down Wall Street one day because I was late for an important meeting, a well-known speculator stopped me and shouted: "What about Erie?" I threw him off impatiently, saying, "Damn Erie!" and rushed on. I knew nothing about Erie speculatively and was irritated at being still further delayed for my meeting.

Sometime afterwards I received a note from him in which he said: "I never can be grateful enough for the point you gave me on Erie. I made on it the biggest kill of my life."

I have often had quoted to me that sentence about "fortune comes to one but once, and if rejected never returns." When I declined President Harrison's offer of the position of secretary of state in his Cabinet, I had on my desk a large number of telegrams signed by distinguished names and having only that quotation. There are many instances in the lives of successful men where they have repeatedly declined Dame Fortune's gift, and yet she has finally rewarded them according to their desires. I am inclined to think that the fickle lady is not always mortally offended by a refusal. I believe that there come in the life of almost everybody several opportunities, and few have the judgment to wisely decide what to decline and what to accept.

In 1876 Gardner Hubbard was an officer in the United States railway mail service. As this connection with the government was one of my duties in the New York Central, we met frequently. One day he said to me: "My son-in-law, Professor Bell, has made what I think a wonderful invention. It is a talking telegraph. We need ten thousand dollars, and I will give you one-sixth interest for that amount of money."

I was very much impressed with Mr. Hubbard's description of the possibilities of Professor Bell's invention. Before accepting, however, I called upon my friend, Mr. William Orton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Orton had the reputation of being the best-informed and most accomplished electrical expert in the country. He said to me: "There is nothing in this patent whatever, nor is there anything in the scheme itself, except as a toy. If the device has any value, the Western Union owns a prior patent called the Gray's patent, which makes the Bell device worthless."

When I returned to Mr. Hubbard he again convinced me, and I would have made the investment, except that Mr. Orton called at my house that night and said to me: "I know you cannot afford to lose ten thousand dollars, which you certainly will if you put it in the Bell patent. I have been so worried about it that contrary to my usual custom I have come, if possible, to make you promise to drop it." This I did.

The Bell patent was sustained in the courts against the Gray, and the telephone system became immediately popular and profitable. It spread rapidly all over the country, and innumerable local companies were organized, and with large interests for the privilege to the parent company.

I rarely ever part with anything, and I may say that principle has brought me so many losses and so many gains that I am as yet, in my eighty-eighth year, undecided whether it is a good rule or not. However, if I had accepted my friend Mr. Hubbard's offer, it would have changed my whole course of life. With the dividends, year after year, and the increasing capital, I would have netted by to-day at least one hundred million dollars. I have no regrets. I know my make-up, with its love for the social side of life and its good things, and for good times with good fellows. I also know the necessity of activity and work. I am quite sure that with this necessity removed and ambition smothered, I should long ago have been in my grave and lost many years of a life which has been full of happiness and satisfaction.

My great weakness has been indorsing notes. A friend comes and appeals to you. If you are of a sympathetic nature and very fond of him, if you have no money to loan him, it is so easy to put your name on the back of a note. Of course, it is rarely paid at maturity, because your friend's judgment was wrong, and so the note is renewed and the amount increased. When finally you wake up to the fact that if you do not stop you are certain to be ruined, your friend fails when the notes mature, and you have lost the results of many years of thrift and saving, and also your friend.

I declined to marry until I had fifty thousand dollars. The happy day arrived, and I felt the fortunes of my family secure. My father-in-law and his son became embarrassed in their business, and, naturally, I indorsed their notes. A few years afterwards my father-in-law died, his business went bankrupt, I lost my fifty thousand dollars and found myself considerably in debt. As an illustration of my dear mother's belief that all misfortunes are sent for one's good, it so happened that the necessity of meeting and recovering from this disaster led to extraordinary exertions, which probably, except under the necessity, I never would have made. The efforts were successful.

Horace Greeley never could resist an appeal to indorse a note. They were hardly ever paid, and Mr. Greeley was the loser. I met him one time, soon after he had been a very severe sufferer from his mistaken kindness. He said to me with great emphasis: "Chauncey, I want you to do me a great favor. I want you to have a bill put through the legislature, and see that it becomes a law, making it a felony and punishable with imprisonment for life for any man to put his name by way of indorsement on the back of another man's paper."

Dear old Greeley kept the practice up until he died, and the law was never passed. There was one instance, which I had something to do with, where the father of a young man, through whom Mr. Greeley lost a great deal of money by indorsing notes, arranged after Mr. Greeley's death to have the full amount of the loss paid to Mr. Greeley's heirs.

XXIII. ACTORS AND MEN OF LETTERS

One cannot speak of Sir Henry Irving without recalling the wonderful charm and genius of his leading lady, Ellen Terry. She never failed to be worthy of sharing in Irving's triumphs. Her remarkable adaptability to the different characters and grasp of their characteristics made her one of the best exemplifiers of Shakespeare of her time. She was equally good in the great characters of other playwrights. Her effectiveness was increased by an unusual ability to shed tears and natural tears. I was invited behind the scenes one evening when she had produced a great impression upon the audience in a very pathetic part. I asked her how she did what no one else was ever able to do.

"Why," she answered, "it is so simple when you are portraying ----" (mentioning the character), "and such a crisis arises in your life, that naturally and immediately the tears begin to flow." So they did when she was illustrating the part for me.

It was a privilege to hear Edwin Booth as Richelieu and Hamlet. I have witnessed all the great actors of my time in those characters. None of them equalled Edwin Booth. For a number of years he was exiled from the stage because his brother, Wilkes Booth, was the assassin of President Lincoln. His admirers in New York felt that it was a misfortune for dramatic art that so consummate an artist should be compelled to remain in private life. In order to break the spell they united and invited Mr. Booth to give a performance at one of the larger theatres. The house, of course, was carefully ticketed with selected guests.

The older Mrs. John Jacob Astor, a most accomplished and cultured lady and one of the acknowledged leaders of New York society, gave Mr. Booth a dinner in honor of the event. The gathering represented the most eminent talent of New York in every department of the great city's activities. Of course, Mr. Booth had the seat of honor at the right of the hostess. On the left was a distinguished man who had been a Cabinet minister and a diplomat. During the dinner Mr. Evarts said to me: "I have known so and so all our active lives. He has been a great success in everything he has undertaken, and the wonder of it is that if there was ever an opportunity for him to say or do the wrong thing he never failed."

Curiously enough, the conversation at the dinner ran upon men outliving their usefulness and reputations. Several instances were cited where a man from the height of his fame gradually lived on and lived out his reputation. Whereupon our diplomat, with his fatal facility for saying the wrong thing, broke in by remarking in a strident voice: "The most remarkable instance of a man dying at the right time for his reputation was Abraham Lincoln." Then he went on to explain how he would have probably lost his place in history through the mistakes of his second term. Nobody heard anything beyond the words "Abraham Lincoln." Fortunately for the evening and the great embarrassment of Mr. Booth, the tact of Mrs. Astor changed the subject and saved the occasion.