Page:The Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth.djvu/90

 Boston, Hartford and Erie. The committee was not satisfied. It wanted to know if more stock would be issued. Gould replied: "In certain contingencies," meaning for his loans. The Secretary of the Exchange afterward said that the stock of the corporation had been increased from $34,265,300 on July 1, 1868, to $57,766,300 on October 24th, or by 235,000 shares within four months. These new issues forced Erie to 35. There was over $12,000,000 in greenbacks locked up and all values were depressed. The situation was so serious that Secretary McCulloch of the treasury, a contractionist, was compelled to announce that if necessary $50,000,000 additional currency would be forthcoming for the relief of the community.

Their next achievement, after securing entire possession, was to corner their old associate Daniel Drew. The latter, after a short retirement from the street, returned to speculation and naturally drifted into Erie, but this time from the outside. He was caught just as many times he had caught others. And Gould repeated, only in a more aggravated way, his trick of issuing new stock and flooding Wall street with it. This new stock was issued by Gould and Fisk without even going through the form of consultation with the other directors. Mr. Adams calls this "the most extraordinary feat of financial legerdemain which history has yet recorded." Drew found that even he, old and experienced in all the tricks of his trade, was no match for Gould. He appealed to the courts for relief, but Mr. Gould