Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/77

 he had become a director and a controlling spirit of this great road. This was in 1867.

But now let us quote a little plain language from Charles Francis Adams in order to get into the atmosphere of Erie at this time:

"Yet freebooters are not extinct," he wrote. "They have only transferred their operations to the land, and have conducted them in more or less accordance with the forms of law, until at last so great a proficiency have they attained that the commerce of the world is more equally but far more heavily taxed in their behalf than would ever have entered into their wildest hopes, while outside the law they simply make all comers stand and deliver. * * * Gambling is a business now, where formerly it was a disreputable excitement. Cheating at cards was always disgraceful. Transactions of a similar character under the euphemistic names of 'operating,' 'cornering' and the like are not so regarded. * * * No better illustration of the fantastic disguises which the worst and most familiar evils of history assume as they meet us in the actual movement of our own day could be afforded than was seen in the events attending what are known as the Erie wars of the year 1868."

In these wars Gould was an active spirit; and if Mr. Adams had written in 1873 instead of 1869 he would have made his language still stronger.

Before his entrance into Erie Gould had become acquainted with James Fisk, Jr., and the former, with that unerring judgment of men which was