YOUNG AMERICA'S SPECULATIVE ADVENT.

in drawing out the young element in the business of Wall Street, which might have lain dormant for a much longer period without this sudden and somewhat rude awakening. It not only brought Young America to the front in speculation, commerce and general business, but it imparted an impetus of genuine enterprise to every department of trade and industry, from the good effects of which the country has never since receded.

This new element, emanating from the throes of one of the greatest business revolutions that any country has ever experienced, has continued to grow and thrive with marvellous rapidity. It is now getting so large that the Exchange will soon require a whole block instead of a basement as at its origin for its head-quarters. The Governing Committee of the Stock Exchange are now looking forward to arrangements for this consummation. How the ancient fathers of my early days in Wall Street would have been shocked at the bare idea of such amazing progress!

It is not the least singular phase of this evolution in Wall Street, that the youthful element to which I have referred stands alone as compared with the progress achieved by the same class of men in any other nation. In America only does the youthful element predominate in financial affairs; and results have justified the selection, which perhaps in no other nation is possible. Thanks to the freedom of our Republican institutions, which, in spite of some individual deductions and the occasional obstructions of "crankdom," make way for that progress, in the wake of which the other nations of the world are emulous to follow.

The Exchange was at this time situated on William street between Beaver street and Exchange Place. That place is rich in speculative reminiscences. It was there that Jacob Little made and lost his nine fortunes: It was there that Anthony Morse, the lightning calculator, operated. He could foot up four columns of figures as easily as the ordinary accountant could run up one. Ho had been a clerk, and having saved seven hundred dollars by close economy,

began to deal in stocks. His career at that time was more marvellous even than that of Keene of a recent date. Morse made a fortune of several millions in a year, and became bankrupt during the same period, without any available assets to speak of. It was all honorably lost, however. There was no Ferdinand Ward game connected with it.

Youthful speculators had not then learned the "crooked" methods of the young idea of modern times. It was there also that Daniel Drew began to accumulate those millions that afterward were subject to such a rude scattering. It was there that the celebrated "corners" in Rock Island, Prarie du Chien and Harlem were concocted. It was there that the wealth was accumulated which built twenty thous and miles of Western railroads, causing many millions of acres, that would otherwise have been a wilderness, to blossom like the rose, in spite of Mr. Powderly's opinion that no material good can come out of speculation, and thus adding immense wealth in real estate to the country, besides conferring incalculable benefits on trade and commerce, and preparing comfortable homes not only for the pioneers and surplus population of the Eastern States, but a teeming soil that has attracted the down-trodden of every nation to come and partake of the blessings of freedom and prosperity.

One of Jacob Little's speculative ventures has been rendered historically famous through the rule of limitation of sixty days for option contracts. The necessity for this limit was brought about by one of his celebrated attempts to manipulate the market. He was one of the most prominent speculators in Erie in the early days of Drew's transactions with that property and its stocks. Mr. Little had been selling large blocks of Erie on seller's option, to run from six to twelve months. This was in the early history of "corners," before the method of managing them scientifically had been fully developed and while "blind pools" were yet in embryo.

The leading members of the Erie Board formed a pool to "corner" Mr. Little, and ran Erie shares up to a consid

THE FIRST OF GREAT

CORNERS."

11

erable height. They imagined that he was in blissful ignorance of their purpose, and had everything arranged for a coup d'etat which was to reach its crisis at two o'clock on a certain day, when Little was to be completely overwhelmed and hopelessly ruined. An hour prior to the time appointed by the clique for his disaster he walked into the Erie office, opened a bag filled with convertible bonds, and requested an exchange of stock for the same. He had purchased the bonds in London and had them safely locked up for the emergency, which he promptly met on its arrival. He got the stock, settled his contracts, broke the "corner," and came out triumphantly.

The option limit of sixty days was afterwards adopted in order to prevent similar triumphs in manipulation on the "short" side.

As will be illustrated more fully in subsequent chapters, Mr. Little's convertible bond trick was used with signal advantage by his speculative successors in Erie, who practically demonstrated on several occasions that there were millions in it.

Mr. Little was generous and liberal to a fault with his brother speculators who had experienced misfortune. He used to say that he could paper his private office with notes he had forgiven to the members of the Board. He was also remarkable for his great memory. He could easily remember all the operations he made in the course of a day without making a note or a mistake.

Like Drew, he was careless in his attire, wearing a hat like that of a farmer, and not a very prosperous one, but he had no compeer in his day at calculating ahead in a speculative venture.