New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [316]
It took two weeks for Morgan to rescue the financial system. Along the way, when New York City declared it was also going broke, he rescued that too. In his final act, he called all the biggest bankers and trust men of Wall Street to meet him in his princely library, locked the doors, and refused to let them out until they did what was needed.
But the abiding image that remained in the mind of William Master came from Wall Street itself. It was on that first Friday. He was walking westward as he came to the street’s main intersection. On his left, on the corner, number 23, the House of Morgan. Across from it, the splendid facade of the New York Stock Exchange. On his right, Federal Hall and, a short way up Nassau Street, the Clearing House. Ahead, only a hundred yards or so, was Broadway and Trinity Church. Here was the very center of American finance. This week, at least, it was the cockpit of the world.
And just at that moment the doors of number 23 opened, and out strode Morgan. The street was crowded. Millionaires and managers, clerks and messenger boys, they were all there milling about between the Stock Exchange and Federal Hall. There were brokers, whom Morgan considered too vulgar to mix with, but who had cheered his name to the roof of the Exchange when he saved them. There were trust men, whom he despised, but who camped outside his door to beg for favors. All manner of Wall Street fellows filled the narrow financial forum as the tall, burly banker in his high top hat strode out of his temple.
Jupiter looked neither right nor left. His eyes glowered as though lit by volcanic fires. His swollen, bulbous nose bulged from his face like a mountain from which his mustaches spread down like silver lava flows. Did Vulcan fashion his thunderbolts in there? Quite likely.
As he strode rapidly down the street, the crowds parted in front of him, as mortals before a deity. And so they should, thought William. Morgan might support his church, and like to sit with bishops, but when he descended into Wall Street from banking’s Mount Olympus, he was above mortal men. Then, truly, Morgan was Jupiter, king of all the gods.
But alas, he was still a man. In the months that followed, one question was often asked: “Morgan will not always be with us. What’ll we do then?”
Some argued that more regulation was needed, to stop the abuses that had led to the crisis. But William Master was sure this was a bad idea.
“Things got a little out of hand,” he agreed. “But we don’t need socialism. The banks can regulate themselves, as they do in London.”
It would take six years before a Federal Reserve system with limited powers was instituted.
For William, however, life soon returned to normal. When his wife asked him, “Did we nearly lose everything?” he reassured her.
“I suppose if all the trusts had failed, Rose, then we should have failed too. But we were never really in trouble.” It seemed to comfort her so much that, after a while, he almost believed it himself.
The first weekend in November, he took the Rolls-Royce out alone, for a fifty-mile drive. He thought of taking young Keller, too, but decided not to. If Rose had found out, it would only have annoyed her.
If the panic of 1907 was to change the life of young Salvatore Caruso, it was a small event the month before that he always remembered.
He had already dressed up. He was wearing the suit with long trousers that his older brother had worn before him. His white shirt was spotless. He might be going to