LIBRARY NOTES
Jean Strouse
Napoleon of Finance
Wednesday, March 20, 1996 at 6:30 PM
Temple Israel, 112 East 75th Street
You might think, if you were working on a biography, that people would ask about the subject. Not if it's J. Pierpont Morgan. They tell you. A poet I met recently said, "Oh, Morgan: he was a terrible guy." An eminent educator warns me, "No philanthropist." A distant relative asks my aunt, who cheerfully passes the inquiry along, "What's a nice girl like her doing with a guy like that?" Why Morgan is a fair enough question, but not really what he meant.
One reason why is to examine a figure obscured in myth. Critics see Morgan as rapacious pirate; defenders describe him as patriot-saint. Called "Jupiter," "Pierpontifex Maximus," the "Napoleon of Finance," and a modern Medici prince, he reorganized the nation's railroads (the process came to be called 'Morganization'), put together giant trusts-- U.S. Steel, General Electric, International Harvester, AT&T -- and assembled one of the greatest art collections of modern times. He also appointed himself to act as lender of last resort, virtually a one-man Federal Reserve. When the government ran out of gold in 1895, Morgan raised $65 million; and when banks and trust companies began to fail in 1907, he led teams of financiers to stop the panic. For a moment in 1907 he was a national hero: crowds cheered as he made his way down Wall Street, and world leaders saluted his statesmanship with awe. The exercise of that much power by one private citizen appalled a nation of democrats, however, and revived America's longstand ing distrust of bankers, plutocrats, and concentrated wealth.
Morgan had two wives, four children, six houses, three yachts, epicurean tastes, and strong ties to the Episcopal Church. He died in 1913 worth about $100 million (roughly $1.5 billion today). Who was he? After years in the archives I have some ideas, which makes it all the more surprising that so many people, nearly a century after he died, would rather weigh in than find out.
Author of
Alice James: A Biography and a forthcoming life of
J. Pierpont Morgan, Jean Strouse will give the third talk in the 1995-1996
Art of Biography Lecture Series.
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