CHAPTER XI

THE GOULD FORTUNE BOUNDS FORWARD

The "gold conspiracy" as plotted and consummated by Gould was in its day denounced as one of the most disgraceful events in American history. To adjudge it so was a typical exaggeration and perversion of a society caring only about what was passing in its upper spheres. The spectacular nature of this episode, and the ruin it wrought in the ranks of the money dealers and of the traders, caused its importance to be grossly misrepresented and overdrawn.

THE ABUSE OF GOULD OVERDONE

It was not nearly as discreditable as the gigantic and repulsive swindles that traders and bankers had carried on during the dark years of the Civil War. The very traders and financiers who beslimed Gould for his "gold conspiracy" were those who had built their fortunes on blood-soaked army contracts. Nor could the worst aspects of Gould's conspiracy, bad as they were, begin to vie in disastrous results with the open and insidious abominations of the factory and landlord system. To repeat, it was a system in which incredible numbers of working men, women and children were killed off by the perils of their trades, by disease superinduced and aggravated by the wretchedness of their work, and by the misery of their lot and habitations. Millions more died prematurely because of causes directly traceable to the withering influences of poverty.

But this unending havoc, taking place silently in the routine departments of industry, and in obscure alleyways, called forth little or no notice. What if they did suffer and perish? Society covered their wrongs and injustices and mortal throes with an inhibitive silence, for it was expected that they, being lowly, should not complain, obtrude grievances, or in any way make unpleasant demonstrations. Yet, if the prominent of society were disgruntled, or if a few capitalists were caught in the snare of ruin which they had laid for others, they at once bestirred themselves and made the whole nation ring with their outcries and lamentations. Their merest whispers became thunderous reverberations. The press, the pulpit, legislative chambers and the courts became their strident voices, and in all the influential avenues for directing public opinion ready advocates sprang forth to champion their plaints, and concentrate attention upon them. So it was in the "gold conspiracy."