Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/89

 CHAPTER VII.

GOULD'S VICTORY AND FINAL DEFEAT IN ERIE.

During these years of Erie conflicts, Gould not only fought his enemies most bitterly, but hardly appreciated the usual feelings of men to be true to their friends. Gould and Fisk now had practical control of Erie. They saw the October election coming, and they were nervous. But the crops were good and Erie's traffic brought in good returns. Englishmen had become strangely fascinated with the stock, and had bought over 100,000 shares. On August 19th the stock had dropped to 44, and then to the astonishment of Wall street, the transfer books were closed, preparatory to the annual election on October 13th. The election went off well for Mr. Gould and his friends. Peter B. Sweeny and William M. Tweed were among the new directors. Then, it is said Mr. Gould began a system of locking up money. This culminated on October 27th, when members of the New York Stock Exchange waited on Mr. Gould, who had obtained large loans on Erie. Mr. Gould told the committee that $10,000,000 of convertible bonds had been issued, half of which had been converted into stock and the rest would be. This was a new issue. The money, he said, had been used to purchase the $5,000,000 of