Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/82

 Among this precious company, of course, were Gould and Fisk. In Jersey they were safe from the operation of New York law. They calmly proceeded to have the Erie incorporated as a New Jersey institution, at the same time laboring to get the New York legislature to pass a bill to legalize the issue of fifty thousand shares of stock, a transaction which some one at that time likened to an attempt "to legalize counterfeit money." It was not conscientious scruples which caused the legislature to hesitate to pass this bill; it was simply a question of cash. Vanderbilt was still in the fight to protect his interests, and it was a question of who had the biggest purse. Meanwhile, Peter B. Sweeny—the brains of the Tweed ring—had been made, temporarily, receiver of the road, and though he never actually did anything in that position, Judge Barnard ordered that he be paid one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for his services. Poor Erie had to foot the bill.

The Erie people needed a first-class representative at Albany to watch their interests before the legislature. Gould was selected as the fittest man to act in the capacity of a lobbyist. First giving out that he was going to Ohio, Gould quietly slipped up to Albany, with five hundred thousand dollars of Erie cash in his pocket. Here in a day or two he was arrested, but released on five hundred dollars bail to appear in a New York court on Saturday. He appeared on that day, but his attorneys secured a postponement, and he was allowed to return to Albany in charge of an under