human
Usually and naturally the best talent goes with the biggest fees.
gpt
It seems to me, said my wife, musing along, in her way, on parallel lines,
human
That never yet could be set, Morgan replied.
gpt
It is impossible for any number of men to agree on it. I don't see any line between absolute freedom of acquisition, trusting to circumstances, misfortune, and death to knock things to pieces, and absolute slavery, which is communism.
human
Do you believe, Mr. Morgan, that any vast fortune was ever honestly come by?
gpt
That is another question. Honesty is such a flexible word. If you mean a process the law cannot touch, yes. If you mean moral consideration for others, I doubt. But property accumulates by itself almost. Many a man who has got a start by an operation he would not like to have investigated, and which he tries to forget, goes on to be very rich, and has a daily feeling of being more and more honorable and respectable, using only means which all the world calls fair and shrewd.
human
Mr. Morgan, suddenly asked Margaret, who had been all the time an uneasy listener to the turn the talk had taken,
gpt
Oh, it is very simple, at least in some of its forms. The 'wreckers,' as they are called, fasten upon some railway that is prosperous, pays dividends, pays a liberal interest on its bonds, and has a surplus. They contrive to buy, no matter of what cost, a controlling interest in it, either in its stock or its management. Then they absorb its surplus; they let it run down so that it pays no dividends, and by-and-by cannot even pay its interest; then they squeeze the bondholders, who may be glad to accept anything that is offered out of the wreck, and perhaps then they throw the property into the hands of a receiver, or consolidate it with some other road at a value enormously greater than the cost to them in stealing it. Having in one way or another sucked it dry, they look round for another road.
human
And all the people who first invested lose their money, or the most of it?
gpt
Naturally, the little fish get swallowed.
human
It is infamous, said Margaret--
gpt
I don't know how cool, but it is in the way of business.
human
What is the difference between that and getting possession of a bank and robbing it?
gpt
Oh, one is an operation, and the other is embezzlement.
human
It is a shame. How can people permit it? Suppose, Mrs. Fletcher, a wrecker should steal your money that way?
gpt
I was thinking of that.
human
Do you think all men who are what you call operating around are like that?
gpt
Oh, no, I said.
human
Probably most men who are engaged in what is generally called speculation are doing what seems to them a perfectly legitimate business. It is a common way of making a fortune.
gpt
You see, Margaret, Morgan explained,
human
It seems to me, Margaret replied, more calmly,
gpt
Oh, that is keeping up the circulation, preventing stagnation.
human
And that is the use of brokers in grain and stocks?
gpt
Partly. They are commonly the agents that others use to keep themselves from stagnation.
human
I cannot see any good in it, Margaret persisted.
gpt
No one seems to have the things he buys or sells. I don't understand it.
human
That is because you are a woman, if you will pardon me for saying it. Men don't need to have things in hand; business is done on faith and credit, and when a transaction is over, they settle up and pay the difference, without the trouble of transporting things back and forth.
gpt
I know you are chaffing me, Mr. Morgan. But I should call that betting.
human
Oh, there is a risk in everything you do. But you see it is really paying for a difference of knowledge or opinion.
gpt
Would you buy stocks that way?
human
What way?
gpt
Why, agreeing to pay for your difference of opinion, as you call it, not really having any stock at all.
human
I never did. But I have bought stocks and sold them pretty soon, if I could make anything by the sale. All merchants act on that principle.
gpt
Well, said Margaret, dimly seeing the sophistry of this,
human
I don't understand business morality.
gpt
Nobody does, Margaret. Most men go by the law. The Golden Rule seems to be suspended by a more than two-thirds vote.