The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (101 page)

The worst fears of the liberal reformers seemed to come true on November 10, 1869, when half-taught Caesar and the ignorant plebeians met in a ceremony that rather resembled a coronation. New York's newspapers had given notice of the event, and the public came by the thousands—men and women, jostling and squeezing, stepping over curbs and clods of horse manure, pressing down the narrow streets of lower Manhattan toward the Hudson River. On Hudson Street they collided with a cordon of 250 policemen. Beyond the constables, a rope line divided the crowd from the invited ticket holders arrayed in front of an extended dais, beneath the long, low arches and massive brick walls of the new Hudson River Railroad freight depot. As a military band drummed and blared, the eyes of the crowd went to a detachment of twenty-five sailors who held a large canvas cover that flapped across the peak of the building's facade.

On the dais sat the leading men of the city from Mayor A. Oakey Hall to Horace Greeley and August Belmont, along with two admirals, the U.S. district attorney, a bishop, Daniel Drew, and even Jim Fisk and Jay Gould. President Grant was expected, but sent his regrets. Vanderbilt occupied the center, smiling between the white shocks of his abundant sideburns, still a dominating presence at seventy-five.

The onlookers fell silent for a bishop's invocation. Then the sailors let go the cover and unveiled a twelve-foot bronze statue of the Commodore, which stood within the brackets of an enormous bronze relief depicting the icons of Vanderbilt's long career: sailboats, steamships, and trains. “At the same moment,” the
New York Tribune
reported, a navy vessel “ran up the Commodore's pennant to the flagstaff; the band struck up a lively tune, and the crowd cheered with enthusiasm.” Mayor Hall delivered a lengthy tribute. Vanderbilt was the richest man on the continent, Hall observed, but he did not fritter his wealth; he employed it “in public projects of startling conception that have kept employed almost armies of men.” Vanderbilt, the mayor proclaimed, “is a remarkable prototype of that rough-hewn American character which asks no greater original capital than is afforded by that independence of thought… that irresistible resolution in executing great projects, which can carve the way of every humbly born American boy to national eminence.” He was the equivalent of Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln. William Rose Wallace—the poet who wrote “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World”—then read an original, if abysmal, verse, beginning, “Mighty Monument to Conquest—so the Great Republic cries / Power orbed on her vast forehead, earnestness burning in her eyes.”
⁶⁶

High praise indeed. Unfortunately, Mayor Hall was on his way to two indictments for corruption, ensuing public disgrace, and self-imposed exile abroad. “But there is something essentially laughable,” E. L. Godkin noted in the
Nation
, “in the spectacle of a man's putting out his own cash to pay for civic honors to himself.” He found it reminiscent of the decaying days of the Roman republic, in particular the story of how a group of citizens approached a nobleman with the news that the Senate had voted to erect a statue of him. The nobleman gravely replied that honor alone was enough—in fact, it was too much, so he would put up his own monument.
⁶⁷

Democracy must have its discontents, or it would not be democracy. Indeed, the liberal reformers formed only one channel of dissent against Vanderbilt and the corporate power he represented. The other would be a populist current that lifted up government regulation to counter the railroad monarchy. It would take longer to emerge, in large part because of the liberals' influence in intellectual circles and with the leadership of both political parties. The cynicism and social disdain of Godkin, Twain, and the Adams brothers created confusion, then and now, over the problems facing American society in 1869. Their attacks on corruption went beyond the Tweed ring, to the point of undermining black-elected governments in the South and giving credence to white supremacy. Their economic theories led them to lambast business practices that eventually would become standard. Most important, their distrust of popular government discredited regulatory measures that offered the only means of placing political limits on the power of large corporations.

They were right about many things, of course: political corruption was a real problem; the spoils system needed to be replaced by a professional, nonpartisan civil service; insider trading and other abuses wracked corporations; and no one could accuse Vanderbilt of being well educated. But prejudice cannot replace investigation. Vanderbilt, for example, did not pay for his monument, as Godkin believed. It was the brainchild of Albert De Groot, who once had worked on Vanderbilt's steamboats, enjoyed his patronage, and felt he “owed a debt of gratitude.” He had planned the statue and relief, designed by Ernst Plassmann, and raised $500,000 from Vanderbilt's wealthy friends. De Groot claimed that the Commodore knew nothing about it until it was well under way
⁶⁸

Even corrupt Mayor Hall had a point: Vanderbilt did devote his energy to constructing works of immense benefit to the public, building transportation infrastructure that would serve the city of New York for centuries. The St. John's Park freight depot was one example. Two historians of New York write, “The new terminal revolutionized the Lower West Side. An enormous complex of grain depots, stockyards, and stables arose along the waterfront.” Like a “gigantic magnet,” the confluence of rail and sea access at St. John's Park attracted “wholesalers, express companies, packing-box firms, and dry-goods commission merchants” from their old locations near the East River. More than two hundred new warehouses went up in the district in the late 1860s and early 1870s, leaving a mark that would last into the twenty-first century. And this was far from the only piece of Manhattan on which Vanderbilt would stamp his name. On November 15, the Harlem Railroad broke ground on Forty-second Street for what would be the largest railroad station in North America. They called it the Grand Central Depot.
⁶⁹

THE COMMODORE'S CRITICS
would cluck their tongues once more on January 22, 1870. That day the
New York Herald
announced a sensation: Victoria Woodhull and Tennie C. Claflin had set themselves up as brokers and bankers on Wall Street. In doing so, the two sisters defied social expectations. “Were I to notice what is said by what they call ‘society’ I could never leave my apartments except in fantastic walking dress or in ballroom costume,” Claflin told a
Herald
reporter, “but I despise what squeamy, crying girls or powdered counter-jumping dandies say of me. I think a woman is just as capable of making a living as a man.” She added, “I know as much of the world as men who are older. Besides, we have a strong back [i.e., backer].”

The reporter noticed a picture of Vanderbilt on the wall. “I have been told that Commodore Vanderbilt is working in the interest of your firm. It is stated that you frequently call at his office in Fourth street about business.” Tennie replied, “I know the Commodore and frequently call to see him on business, but I am not prepared to state anything as to whether he is working with us.”
⁷⁰

On February 4, the women formally opened Woodhull, Claflin & Co. at 44 Broad Street. Thousands of Wall Street men came calling, including Richard Schell, William R. Travers, Daniel Drew, and even the esteemed Jay Cooke, who admitted he was frankly curious. Edward H. Van Schaick visited several times, with a fresh haircut, hat, or coat on each occasion. They all found the women self-assured and forceful to a degree that surprised and unsettled them. Claflin said, “If I had engaged a little fancy store upon Broadway and sold ribbons and thread, it would have been perfectly proper.… No one would have remarked it. But because I have brains sufficient to carry on a banking house people are astonished.”
⁷¹

The reporters, brokers, and operators all asked, Who was the Co. in Woodhull, Claflin & Co.? A broker remarked that there was “something back of the movement.” Claflin sharply responded: “Yes, there is something back of it. Commodore Vanderbilt is back of it.” The sisters spoke his name more frequently with each passing day. On January 26, Wood-hull had thanked journalist Whitelaw Reid for a favorable editorial. It “was entirely satisfactory to our best friend, the Commodore, who first called our attention to it as we were dining with him,” she wrote. (Claflin sent Reid a note rife with sexual innuendo soon after.) “A rather free use has been made of the name of the veteran Commodore Vanderbilt as the aider and abettor, if not the full partner, of the firm,” the
Herald
noted on February 9.
⁷²

Vanderbilt routinely alerted the press when his name was mistakenly attached to any operation. In this case, he kept silent—at first. As one broker asked, “What does Vanderbilt mean?”
⁷³
The answer remains mysterious. One hint comes from the memoirs of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, who married William K. Vanderbilt in 1875, and vividly recalled her first meeting with her husband's grandfather. “His manner was most overbearing, and the family more or less stood in great awe of him,” she wrote. “I had never known what it was to be awed by anybody, and I think that for that reason he had a great deal of respect for me, and we became quite friendly”
⁷⁴
He did not tolerate fools and had little respect for weak personalities. But a woman who stood her ground—in an age that idealized feminine frailty—impressed him. It was strength where he expected none. Woodhull and Claflin were nothing if not strong.

Then, too, there was his contrarian streak. If he relished his wife's outspoken loyalty to the Confederacy, he found far more controversial views in Woodhull and Claflin. They championed the cause of gender equality at a time when the twenty-two-year-old women's movement had won new prominence, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others turned the debate over Reconstruction toward the question of women's rights. Woodhull and Claflin skillfully used the publicity of their Wall Street firm to promote the cause, and propel themselves into its leadership. More and more in the coming months, they would weave together various radical strands in American intellectual life, including Spiritualism, women's rights, workers' rights, and (most controversial of all) free love, that catchall phrase for any unconventional sexuality In May 1870, the sisters began to publish
Woodhull
if
Claflin's Weekly
, which gave space to the ideas of such figures as Stephen Pearl Andrews, who would go on to join Karl Marx's International Workingmen's Association.
⁷⁵

Woodhull and Claflin hinted at other motivations that the Commodore might have had for supporting them. “At times I know and feel that I am under a spirit influence that I do not understand; and when in that condition I do see visions of future events,” Claflin told a reporter later in 1870. “If you doubt it go and ask Commodore Vanderbilt!… Victoria and I both see visions.” Years later, in the great trial over Vanderbilt's will, Susan A. King would testify that Claflin introduced her to the Commodore in 1870. He urged her to follow their advice to buy New York Central stock, for it would go up 22 percent in three months. “He said that Mrs. Woodhull was a spiritual medium, and while in a clairvoyant state, had told him so.” Marie Antoinette Pollard would testify that she also called on him in 1870 to ask advice about the stock market. He replied, “Why don't you do as I do, and consult the spirits?”
⁷⁶

Claflin's sexual allure, it was said, was the most powerful motivation of all. A story would be put out that Vanderbilt was seen throwing his arm around Claflin; that he vainly boasted to her that women bought New York Central stock because his picture was on it; that he promised her a fortune in his will. It would be said that she asked Vanderbilt if he had not promised to marry her before he married Frank, and that he replied, “Certainly, but the family prevented it and otherwise arranged it.” Joseph Treat, an acolyte of Woodhull and Claflin who turned against them, later wrote that he had heard from a friend of another sister of Claflin's that she had asked Vanderbilt how many sexual partners he had had, “and he said a thousand, to which she responded… that then she was only half as big a whore as he.” Claflin, Treat wrote, suffered from a sexual disease, implying that Vanderbilt might have contracted it as well.
⁷⁷

This is scandalous stuff—irresistible to many writers over the years, who would abandon all skepticism to embrace or even inflate it with conjecture and outright invention. In reality, solid evidence of Vanderbilt's relationship with the sisters is lacking. The tales of Vanderbilt promising money to Claflin, boasting about his stock-certificate portrait, and having been forced to marry Frank, all came at the trial over his will, from the mouth of a lawyer who was paid to prove that Vanderbilt was not in his right mind.
⁷⁸
The stories did not even come from a witness. They were merely declarations of what the counsel hoped to prove, and no such testimony was actually made. Even if Vanderbilt did say these things, they come across mostly as sexually charged banter with a woman who cultivated sensuality. The idea that he was forced to marry Frank at all, let alone by a family that had barely met her, flies in the face of direct documentation.

As for Treat's explosive account, it is hearsay of hearsay of hearsay, originating with Claflin herself, the most untrustworthy source of all. In 1871, she would proclaim her clairvoyant power in court—in order to soften an admission that she was a confidence artist. “To support this family I had to humbug people sometimes,” she would say. Indeed, both Claflin and Woodhull proved to be accomplished liars who filled their interviews with the press with complete fabrications. Claflin claimed that she had studied law with her father. Woodhull said that they had made a fortune in real estate, and had operated quietly on Wall Street for years. They found themselves caught out in their lies in March, when creditors in Chicago, Claflin's most recent home, sued her for numerous unpaid debts. That led the
New York Sun
to report, “Commodore Vanderbilt, whom Miss Tennie claims to be her financial backer, denies all knowledge of her or her partner, Mrs. Woodhull.”
⁷⁹