Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/179

 of strength, was intrinsically weak. Garrett entered into negotiations to sell a controlling interest in the property. His desire was to place it in hands hostile to Gould, but the latter used his power in the stock market to frustrate his plans. Garrett contracted to deliver the control to Henry S. Ives, a young speculator who was modeling his life after the Gould pattern, but in the end Garrett was not able to deliver, nor was Ives able to receive. The B. and O. system was dismembered, and the telegraph fell into Gould's hands. Gould had previously announced to the public that "the Western Union does not intend to buy any more rival telegraph companies," but when he found he could get the B. and O. cheap, a little declaration of that kind did not stand in the way. In fact it was intended only to mask his intention to buy.

Gould drew around him in Western Union a powerful body of men. His board of directors included Norvin Green, Harrison Durkee, Alonzo B. Cornell (who when governor of the state from 1880 to 1883 posed as an anti-Gould and anti-monopoly governor), Cyrus W. Field, Robert L. Kennedy, Hugh J. Jewett (whose testimony in regard to Erie has already been quoted), J. Pierpont Morgan, of Drexel, Morgan & Co.; C. P. Huntington, R. C. Clowry, Henry Weaver, Erastus Wiman, of R. G. Dun & Co.; John Jacob Astor, Frank Work, George B. Roberts, president of the Pennsylvania railroad, the leading railroad system of the world; George D. Morgan, John Hoy, W. D. Bishop and J. W. Clen