Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/108

 The report of the committee, with the accompanying testimony, is absorbingly interesting:

"Gould, the guilty plotter of all these criminal proceedings," is the language of James A. Garfield, the author of this report.

Gould some years before had formed a co-partnership with H. N. Smith and others under the name of Smith, Gould, Martin & Co. "He was a broker," says Henry Adams in his history of the gold conspiracy, "and a broker is almost by nature a gambler, perhaps the very last profession suitable for a railway manager. In character he was strongly marked by his disposition for silent intrigue. He preferred, as a rule, to operate on his own account without admitting other persons into his confidence, and he seemed never to be satisfied except when deceiving everyone as to his intentions. There was a reminiscence of the spider in his nature. He spun huge webs in corners and in the dark, which were seldom strong enough to resist a serious strain at the critical moment. His disposition to this subtlety and elaboration of intrigue was irresistible. It is scarcely necessary to say that he had not a conception of a moral principle. In speaking of this class of men, it must be fairly assumed at the outset that they do not, and can not, understand how there can be a distinction between right and wrong in matters of speculation, so long as the daily settlements are punctually effected. In this respect, Mr. Gould was probably as honest as the mass of his fellows, according to the moral standard of the street; but without