by James Grant
Mr. B’s the standing
sitting
running
jumping all-time
Champeen stand-up guy.
61. Mary Boyle, who kept a live-in butler and cook and who generally spent money as if she had more of it than her wealthy employer (it amused Baruch to say that she did), died in 1973 with $1,115,200.81.
62. Baruch kept his eye on foreign markets too, and in September 1957 he saw something that he thought was fishy on the London Metal Exchange. He called an FBI man to his office, and the G-Man filed the following report to his office: “Mr. Baruch stated that he is very much concerned about the ‘wide gyrations’ in the price of copper that have been occurring on the London exchange. He said these exaggerated fluctuations could have an unsettling effect on the world economy and he felt they could be occurring through sinister manipulations, possibly by persons under Communist direction or affiliation.” Baruch admitted that the information was vague and probably outside the purview of the FBI, but he said that someone might want to look into it.
63. Baruch had a narrow escape that he never knew about. In the late 1950s—the memory of the police is unclear on the date—the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division discovered a plot to assassinate him. The lawmen thought that the Ku Klux Klan was behind it, and they took their information to Governor George Bell Timmerman Jr., who passed it on to former Governor James F. Byrnes. Byrnes feared that if Baruch were told the shock would kill him. The police, not having enough evidence to put anyone in jail, paid a call on their prime suspect, a farmer, to try to scare him off. They confronted the man with what they knew, or suspected, and he, who was wearing a pistol stuck upside down in his back pocket, gave an unconvincing denial. He said he hadn’t planned to kill Baruch himself, but added, “It would be a pretty good idea if somebody did kill the old Jew son of a bitch.” One of the policemen said years later: “There’s no question in our mind that it was planned.”
Notes
Chapter One: A Doctor’s Son
“I guess . . .”: James Myers, a partner of Stillman, Maynard & Co., to author, May 12, 1980.
“My first recollection . . .”: Mrs. Rebecca R. Stewart to Baruch, May 2, 1938; Baruch papers.
“The bearer of this . . .”: Bernard M. Baruch, Baruch: My Own Story (New York, 1957), p. 21.
“Grandfather also claimed . . .”: Ibid., p. 3.
Sailing Wolfe’s birthplace: Bureau of the Census, 1850 and 1860, County of Fairfield, S.C., Post Office, Winnsboro.
“God grant her . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 19.
“Now say something . . .”: Ibid., p. 25.
“Now, Doctor, don’t . . .”: Ibid., p. 30.
“I have the most distinct . . .”: Baruch to Mark Sullivan, Jan. 21, 1927; Baruch papers.
“There is one recourse . . .”: Claude Bowers, The Tragic Era (New York, 1929), p. 359.
“She told Harty . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, pp. 34–35.
“You see . . .”: New York Times, Nov. 11, 1881.
“sheenie”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 49.
“body of land . . .”: Ibid., p. 47.
“The method of . . .”: Department of the Interior, Census Office, Social Statistics of the Cities, Part I (Washington, DC, 1886), p. 582.
“I consider . . .”: Marilyn Thornton Williams, “New York City’s Public Baths: A Case Study in Urban Progressive Reform.” Journal of Urban History, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Nov. 1980), p. 60.
Club memberships: Virginia Epstein to author, June 24, 1980, and New York Times, July 12, 1914.
“Yes, and you’re not . . .”: Virginia Epstein to author, Feb. 16, 1981.
“Not long ago . . .”: New York Times, July 12, 1914.
“Now, Doctor . . .”: Virginia Epstein to author, Feb. 16, 1981.
“When we first . . .”: “The Secret Fraternities and Literary Societies of the College of the City of New York,” Microcosm, Vol. XXX (1889), p. 71.
“under our noble flag . . .”: Ibid., p. 163.
“cribology”: Ibid., pp. 164–165.
“nonsense”: S. Willis Rudy, The College of the City of New York: A History, 1847–1947 (New York, 1949), p. 162.
Baruch’s grades: CCNY class records.
“When prices go up . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 55.
“[T]he economic end . . .”: George B. Newcomb, “Political Economy in Its Relation to Ethics.” A lecture delivered before the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, Asbury Park, NJ, July 25, 1885.
“It arises solely . . .”: Francis A. Walker, Political Economy (New York, 1888), p. 66.
“Baruch is greatly . . .”: The College Journal, May 16, 1889, p. 175.
“a vile name”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 63.
“As an evidence . . .”: The College Journal, June 21, 1889, p. 210.
Chapter Two: Three Dollars a Week
“I am thinking . . .”: Bernard M. Baruch, Baruch: My Own Story (New York, 1957), p. 71.
“Son, when you are ready . . .”: Ibid., p. 75.
“To think that at my age . . .”: Ibid., p. 76.
Forty years later: Baruch reminiscences, Unit XV, Box 272, pp. 71–72; Baruch papers. (Hereafter referred to as Baruch reminiscences.)
“I am so glad . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 76.
“My son, Bernard.”: Ibid., p. 77.
“I felt a slap . . .”: Ibid., p. 65.
“It seems to me . . .”: New York Times, July 24, 1898.
“While Housman never said . . .”: Ibid., Aug. 22, 1907.
“I was paid . . .”: Baruch reminiscences, p. 83.
Brooklyn Union Gas story: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 27.
“symphony of gamble”: Thomas W. Lawson in The New York Times, Jan. 4, 1913; Lawson also said of Keene, “. . . it was a greater pleasure to lose to him than to win from a bungler. We often wrangled, but my admiration for his ability was excelled only by my wonder at his nerve.”
“Why does a dog . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 157.
“Uneasy lies the head . . .”: Baruch reminiscences, p. 92.
“You don’t see . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 157.
“He had the most . . .”: Baruch reminiscences, p. 87.
“Keene’s horse won . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 89.
“free ride”: James Myers to author, Oct. 25, 1980.
Lytton story: Baruch reminiscences, p. 102.
“Perhaps the actors . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, pp. 69–70.
“Raising my hat . . .”: Ibid., p. 99.
“Being a junior partner . . .”: Baruch reminiscences, p. 97.
Sugar speculation: The arithmetic raises some questions. In the reminiscences, Baruch said he put down $300 (p. 102); and in his autobiography, he said that he bought 100 shares (p. 100). But at a price of $115 a share, and at the standard margin rate of 10 percent, his $300 down payment would have controlled only 26 shares. Either he put down more than $300, or he got away with a margin requirement of less than 10 percent, or he bought fewer than 100 shares.
“You’ll lose it . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 102.
“Yes, and you . . .”: Ibid., p. 102.
Gift to his father: Baruch reminiscences, p. 108.
Chapter Three: Baruch’s Wall Street
“In a year . . .”: New York Times, Feb. 7, 1884.
“Everybody was making . . .”: Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (Larchmont, NY, 1964), p. 34.
“strange scene . . .”: Karl Baedeker, ed., The United States: With an Excursion into Mexico (New York, 1971), p. 27.
Amount of commission income: Unidentified newspaper clipping in NYSE archives, dated July 31, 1892.
Visiting Christians: New York Herald, July 12, 1892.
Hazing: For example, resolution of Jan. 15, 1900, of the Committee of Arrangements; Box No. 1, NYSE, 1880–1899, Officers Governing Committee.
Gambling: Minute Book No. 5 of the Governing Committee, Nov. 10, 1897.
“detrimental to the interest . . .”: NYSE Constitution, Art. XVIII, Sec. 8, 1902.
Quotations from Granberry: Minutes of the Committee on Unlisted Securities of the NYSE, Apr. 4, 1906.
“Accessibility to the street . . .”: Percy C. Stuart, “The New York Stock Exchange.” Architectural Record, Vol. 11 (July 1901), p. 540.
“The silver is Thine . . .” and “. . . but one of the many . . .”: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Alexander N. Easton, eds., The New York Stock Exchange (New York, 1905), p. 413; also New York Times, Apr. 23, 1903. Bellwether trading issue: Wall Street Journal, Apr. 20, 1900.
“Every conceivable line . . .”: Arthur Stone Dewing, The Financial Policy of Corporations, Vol. IV (New York, 1920), p. 36.
Trust study: Ralph L. Nelson, Merger Movements in American Industry, 1895–1956 (Princeton, NJ, 1959), pp. 96–100.
“This, as a record . . .”: E. G. Campbell, The Reorganization of the American Railroad System, 1893–1900 (New York, 1938), p. 27.
“absorbed in various ways”: Quoted in W. Z. Ripley, Railroads: Finance & Organization (New York, 1915), p. 461.
“At the beginning . . .”: Campbell, pp. 331–332.
“Rembrandts”: Quoted in Julius Grodinsky, Jay Gould: His Business Career, 1867–1892 (Philadelphia, 1957), p. 491.
“Amalgamated Copper Co. . . .”: Thomas W. Lawson, Frenzied Finance (New York, 1905), p. 338.
Insider trading survey: H. L. Wilgus, “Purchase of Shares of Corporation by a Director from a Shareholder.” Michigan Law Review, Vol. VIII, No. 4 (Feb. 1910), pp. 267–297.
“It has been . . .”: King, p. 82.
“except in the regular course . . .”: Application for listing of Sears, Roebuck & Co., dated Nov. 12, 1906; NYSE archives.
“to deal . . .”: W. H. Granberry, Apr. 4,1906; minutes of the Committee on Unlisted Securities, p. 22.
Weird dress: Robert Sobel, The Curbstone Brokers (New York, 1970), p. 103.
“. . . because I do not . . .”: Apr. 4, 1906; minutes of the Committee on Unlisted Securities, p. 27.
“Quotations frequently represent . . .”: Report of Gov. Hughes’ Committee on Speculation in Securities and Commodities, June 7, 1909, quoted in US House of Representatives, 62nd Cong., 3rd Sess., Report of the Committee Appointed . . . to Investigate the Concentration of Money and Credit (Washington, 1913), p. 2195. (Hereafter cited as Money Trust Investigation, Report.)
“In other words . . .”: Ibid., p. 116.
Bucket shops: Concerning Pittsburgh, transcript of meeting between a contingent of visiting brokers and George W. Ely, secretary of the NYSE, July 17, 1905, in Box No. 1, NYSE, 1900–1919, Governing Committee, Admissions-Arrangements; re Milwaukee, statement of George B. Post, Jr., to the Law Committee, June 28, 1905, in Box No. 3, NYSE, 1900–1919, Governing Committee, External Relations, Law, Special.
“I stood . . .”: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 20, 1899.
“I cannot describe . . .”: Money Trust Investigation, Report, p. 869.
Gould’s trading failure: Grodinsky, p. 514.
Chapter Four: “Wealth Commenced to Pour In on Me”
Loving son: Mrs. Virginia Epstein to author, Feb. 16, 1981.
“the recognized representative . . .”: New York Times, Jan. 3, 1898.
“Great American victory . . .”: Bernard M. Baruch, Baruch: My Own Story (New York, 1957), p. 108.
$6,000 a year: Baruch to Harold Epstein, Dec. 17, 1953; Baruch papers.
“The stock . . .”: Wall Street Journal, Apr. 19, 1898.
“Their conversation . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, pp. 111–112.
Minority stockholder: St. Louis Republic, Feb. 2, 1899.
Wetmore’s control: Ibid., Feb. 3, 1899.
“hang on the flank” and Lavino and Tobey: Memo on Liggett & Myers; Baruch papers.
“I want you . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 115.
Conspiracy: St. Louis Republic, Feb. 3, 1899; Wall Street Journal, Feb. 21, 1899; John Wilber Jenkins, James B. Duke, Master Builder (New York, 1927), p. 105; Baruch, My Own Story, p. 116.
$10,000 offer to Page: Page to Baruch, Dec. 10, 1930; no rebutting letter was found in Baruch’s papers, which suggests that Page’s recollection, albeit more than thirty years old, was accurate.
“ridiculously small”: Liggett & Myers memo.
Published tips: Wall Street Journal, June 12, 1899; also, June 21 and June 23.
“Whitney syndicate”: Ibid., June 24, 1899.
“You will be . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 72.
“Rather sheepishly . . .”: Ibid., p. 122.
“I have come back . . .”: Wall Street Journal, June 13, 1899.
“I am a believer . . .”: New York Times, May 13, 1899.
“The ex-governor . . .”: Henry Clews, Fifty Years in Wall Street (New York, 1908), p. 705.
“To hold the price . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 126.
“As you get older . . .”: Yousuf Karsh, Faces of Destiny: Portraits by Karsh (Chicago and New York, 1946), p. 22.
Weil episodes: Arthur Pound and Samuel Taylor Moore, eds., They Told Barron: Conversations and Revelations of an American Pepys in Wall Street (New York, 1930), p. 221.
“Probably 1901. . .”: Alexander Dana Noyes, The Market Place (Boston, 1938), p. 195.
“gambling purposes”: George Kennan, E. H. Harriman, A Biography, Vol. 1 (Boston, 1922), p. 315.
“Who’s that damn fellow . . .”: Typescript in File No. 1, Box 273, Unit XV, p. 17a; Baruch papers.
“Bernie,” he said . . . : Baruch, My Own Story, pp. 141–142.
Hill’s statement on speculation: Albro Martin, James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest (New York, 1976), p. 503.
“Only the stoutest . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 147.
Housman and Bache stories: Wall Street Journal, May 10, 1901; “A broker . . .”: Ibid., May 11, 1901.
London purchases at $112–$115: Memo on Northern Pacific corner in the Baruch papers, dated May 27, 1935, pp. 11–12.
Biggest day’s profit: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 145.
Short of stocks against calls: Northern Pacific memo, p. 5; Baruch papers.
“Mr. Baruch . . .”: New York Herald, July 2, 1901.
“Bernie . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 128.
“I became . . .” and ff.: Baruch dictation in Unit XV, Box 272; Baruch papers.
Baruch’s prowess: Ibid.
“The substantial . . .”: Unidentified newspaper clipping; Baruch scrapbook.
Chapter Five: His Own Man
“knees from shock.”: Bernard M. Baruch, Baruch: My Own Story (New York, 1957), p. 188.
“luxurious sanitary quarters”: New York Tribune, Aug. 22, 1907.
Official notice of the Stock Exchange: No mention of the firm appears in the minutes of the Committee on Insolvencies for this period.
Housman evolution: “We the People” (the Merrill Lynch house organ), Jan.-Feb. 1959.
“After a particularly . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 184.
“Let unswerving integrity . . .”: Ibid., p. 189.
“funny looking”: Marcia Kendrick McCue to author, May 6, 1980.
“born in iniquity”: New York Times, Mar. 22, 1902.
Prag complaint: Motz Prag v. Bernard M. Baruch, New York State Supreme Court, Sept. 28, 1903.
“as a matter . . .”: Answers of Defendant Bernard M. Baruch in the action titled Frank G. Turner and Barreda Turner v. Bernard M. Baruch and Motz Prag, New York State Supreme Court (6406–13), Apr. 17, 1913.
The record shows . . . : Minutes of the Committee on Unlisted Securities, Jan. 24, 1906, p. 319.
“Shall a separate . . .”: Agenda attached to the minutes of the Unlisted Committee, Apr. 4, 1906.
“I am like Mr. Thomas . . .”: Minutes of the Unlisted
Committee, Mar. 29, 1906, p. 7.
“Mining Corporations . . .”: Ibid., Jan. 10, 1907.
“It’s in Bingham . . .”: T. A. Rickard, Utah Copper Enterprise (San Francisco, 1917), p. 26.
“a good many shares”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 222.
“damn figures”: Rickard, Utah Copper Enterprise, p. 28.
“He’s a big man . . .”: Isaac F. Marcosson, Metal Magic: The Story of American Smelting and Refining Co. (New York, 1949), p. 76.
“ . . . I told Mr. Untermeyer . . .”: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 199.
Baruch’s bull pool: Wall Street Journal, Apr. 14–15, 1905.
Solomon Guggenheim’s apology: Baruch, My Own Story, pp. 202–203.
“My self-confidence . . .”: Memo titled “Notes on Coffee” in Baruch papers, Unit XV, Box 273.
Sielcken’s coffee role: See US House of Representatives, 62nd Cong., 3rd Sess., Report of the Committee Appointed . . . to Investigate the Concentration of Money and Credit (Washington, 1913), p. 36ff.
“Nixon,” said Crocker . . .: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 249.
“I haven’t a closer friend . . .”: Nevada Mining News, June 29, 1907.
Psychological element: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 250.
“confused and inconsistent”: Mining & Scientific Journal, Dec. 21, 1907.
“the unlawful dynamiting . . .”: New York Tribune, Dec. 7, 1907.
“It being . . .”: Baruch memoir; Baruch papers.
Baruch as evil genius: See, for example, Nevada Mining News, June 13, 1907.
“There is a rumor . . .”: Ibid., May 18, 1907.
Stockholder attitudes and settlement: York Times, Sept. 21, 1907.
Baruch’s reported holdings: The New York Commercial, Jan. 21, 1908.
Baruch sold stocks in advance: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 192.
“Like many other people . . .”: Ibid., p. 226.
“At the height . . .”: Boston News Bureau, June 6, 1911.
Utah Copper financial information: Utah Copper Co. Third Annual Report, 1908.
Baruch’s 6 percent loan: Baruch, My Own Story, p. 227.
“pulled us off the suit”: Ibid., p. 214.
