CHAPTER XII 



FROM THE STREET TO THE WILDS 



The panic of 1873 was approaching, the panic 

 which will always be associated with the name of 

 Jay Cooke, because the succumbing to the inevi- 

 table of his great enterprise marked the culmi- 

 nation of a great inflation. 



I had warning of the coming calamity for my 

 own extended enterprises served as aerial con- 

 ductors bringing wireless messages of the inevi- 

 table disaster that drew nearer day by day. I 

 closed up Wall Street interests as far as possible, 

 reduced steamship expenses wherever it could be 

 done, and made desperate efforts to realize on 

 real estate. But it was dead, dead. On paper 

 I was rich again, but oh, the hollowness of it! 

 I offered dazzling terms to men with money to 

 come in and share my success. An offer of 

 property worth half a million dollars, at current 



232 



