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218 10 NortherN iNSeCUritieS John Pierpont Morgan had left New York thirty-two days earlier, on April 3, dreaming of rare art and thermal baths. Now he was stewing in Paris. While he was dozing under hot towels after massages in Aix, Harriman and Schiff were trying to steal “his” railroad. They would be in a real fix if it hadn’t been for Hill alertly remembering that a majority of the common stock could retire the preferred stock and thus keep Morgan’s board in control, Even now the outcome was uncertain. To make matters worse, Harriman had publicly embarrassed him, showing the world that Morgan didn’t control what he thought he controlled , unmasking him as a corporate imperialist, not as a champion of peace and “community of interest.” Schiff had crossed him by siding with Harriman. And Bacon, should Morgan have left him in charge? Now Hill and Harriman were trading insults in the newspapers. A fight had broken out in the schoolyard with the principal gone. Harper’s Weekly compared Morgan to the little girl in charge of the baby who had just been rescued from the cistern: “Oh! I just took my eye off her for one minute!” If they weren’t careful there would be a curse on all their houses. It wasn’t the corner that tarnished all their reputations . The public didn’t care who owned the Northern Pacific. It was the panic that ensued and the public fear and anxiety it caused. Morgan had to make sure the fighting stopped immediately. If it didn’t there would be more uncertainty and chaos in the market. There could be another, even worse, panic. And guess who would get the blame. A court test of the language of the 1896 Northern Pacific reorganization plan was out of the question; neither side wanted that. It would drag on for months of headlines and just prolong the fight. Morgan didn’t stay long in Paris. He needed to be in London where there could be trouble on Monday, May 13, the day scheduled for fortnightly settlement in American stocks on the London Stock Exchange. The British called it NORTHERN INSECURITIES 219 “delivery day,” when brokers under contract to deliver a stock must do so unless the buyer agrees to delay delivery or agrees to settle for cash. The New York arbitrage houses had picked London clean of Northern Pacific stock on May 9. A survey showed J. P. Morgan & Company or Kuhn, Loeb held every available Northern Pacific share in London; brokers there who sold calls on Northern Pacific for delivery in May apparently couldn’t find a single share. If Morgan and Kuhn, Loeb didn’t provide some relief, many of London’s leading brokerage firms could go bankrupt and it could be worse than the collapse of Baring Brothers in 1890. There also were lawyers advertising in the Sunday New York newspapers looking for speculators who felt brokerage firms had treated them unfairly by calling for more margin and then closing their accounts during the panic. In New York a flurry of meetings among the principals throughout the day made it appear compromise was in the air. Hill spent the morning and part of the afternoon at Morgan’s headquarters at Broad and Wall. Reporters were waiting for him outside his office and asked for his response to the Harriman–Schiff claims that they had control of the Northern Pacific. “I’ve got nothing more to say about that,” said Hill, “but if the gentlemen like their clothes they can wear them.” Harriman spent most of the day at Kuhn, Loeb. Schiff and Stillman knew he was tone deaf to public opinion. They feared the huge chip on his shoulder could cause more chaos and collateral damage to their customers, their business, and the market. He had to be reined in. Thus Harriman obediently strode to the Morgan headquarters at Broad and Wall and conferred with Morgan’s men, probably Bacon, Steele, and George W. Perkins. Harriman emerged “smiling contentedly,” trying to reassure reporters “things will come out all right.” Harriman and Schiff circulated a story that they had no desire to take control of the Northern Pacific from Morgan; their fight, they said, wasn’t with him but with Hill. They did nothing to stop stories on the street that Hill’s role in the Morgan properties soon would be diminished. Late in the afternoon Harriman took the elevator to the ninth...

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