CHAPTER XII.
“Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.”
It was October when Morning arrived in New York City. Steel had been prompt in shipping the gold not covered with copper, and Morning’s bank accounts in New York now amounted to sixteen millions of dollars, while the fame of the Morning mine as a producer of four millions of gold bars per month had already created a marked sensation in financial and business circles, and in the newspaper world, but none suspected the immense actual production.
Morning visited Washington, and bought a stone warehouse near the foot of Sixth Street. He purchased a similar building in Philadelphia, near the Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot, and he bought a third warehouse alongside the track of the New Jersey Central at Hoboken. He caused switches to be constructed into each of these warehouses, and provided each of them with heavy iron shutters and doors. He employed four watchmen for each building, divided into day and night-watches of six hours each. He arranged that the copper-pigs containing gold should be loaded on the cars at Tucson by his own men, who were themselves unaware that they were handling anything but copper, and the cars locked and sent in train-load lots through, without change or rehandling, to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, where they were run into his warehouses and there unloaded. It was given out that he was at the head of a copper syndicate, and was storing the surplus product of the mines for higher prices. His plans worked with perfect smoothness, and his wealth accumulated openly at the rate of four millions per month, and secretly at the rate of one hundred millions per month, with a vast amount of newspaper comment concerning the four millions, and no suspicion anywhere as to the real sum.
The advocates of free coinage of silver, who were defeated in the Congress of 1889–90, renewed their contest in the Congress of 1891–92, and in February, 1892, a free coinage law passed, but it was vetoed by President Harrison. The silver men carried the fight into the presidential election of 1892, and were so far successful that Congress, in February, 1894, enacted a law the text of which was as follows:—
“From and after July 1, 1894, any person may deposit at the treasury of the United States in Washington, or at either of the sub treasuries in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St Louis, New Orleans, Denver, or San Francisco, gold or silver bars of standard fineness, and receive the coined value thereof in United States treasury notes. The secretary of the treasury is authorized and directed to prepare and keep on hand a sufficient amount of treasury notes to comply with the provisions of this act.”
The influence of Morning as the largest single producer of gold in the world, as the owner already of thirty millions of dollars, and, if his mine should hold out for five years, of a sum that would cause him to outrank any millionaire in the world, was very great, and that influence, legitimately exercised in behalf of free coinage, proved very potent with senators and representatives, and did much to reconcile the adherents of a single gold standard to the overthrow of their system.
It was argued that if the gold supply of the world was to be increased forty per cent per annum by the yield of the Morning mine, that would diminish relatively the production of silver, and the ancient parity of the metals might be restored “without danger to our financial interests, Mr. Speaker.”
Thus reasoned the Honorable Senile Jumbo, who represented a New England district in the House. Jumbo was a banker at home, and because he was a banker was supposed to know something about finance, and was, in consequence, accorded a leading position on the House Committee on Banking and Currency.
In fact, Jumbo only knew a good discount from a poor one. His definition of a banker would have been that of the Indiana editor, who described such a functionary as “a gentleman who takes the money of one man without interest, and loans it to another upon interest, and places both depositor and borrower under obligations.”
By his small shrewdness Jumbo had gained a large fortune, and secured a seat in Congress; but of the laws which govern finance in its politico-economic relations he had no more knowledge than has a locomotive fireman about the law of dynamics, or a drygoods clerk about the culture of the silkworm. Yet the Honorable Senile Jumbo looked wise, and talked from the pit of his stomach, and respected the views of other rich men, and as a congressman he averaged with his colleagues.
What strange distortion of brain is it that causes men conspicuously unfit for public life, to seek elevations which can only expose their intellectual poverty? One who does not comprehend the French tongue or know anything about science, would be laughed at for seeking to be elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences, yet senatorial togas and congressional seats are constantly sought by gentlemen whose previous pursuits have unfitted them to “shine in the halls of high debate,” and who, indeed, would be puzzled to put together, while on their feet, ten sentences of grammatical English.
The great and growing wealth of Morning caused his society to be courted, and many a managing mamma was not unmindful of the fact that the “Arizona Gold King,” as he began to be called, was a bachelor. This man did not “wear his heart upon his sleeve,” and did not proclaim that his bachelorhood was confirmed, or had any special reason for its existence, but all plotting against him was in vain, for the Ellen lost to him was the constant companion of his thoughts, and to all movements and plans and purposes of life he applied instinctively the test, “What would she think of it?”