A Disposition to Be Rich by Geoffrey C. Ward

Author:Geoffrey C. Ward [Ward, Geoffrey C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-95944-7
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

† Much later, Buck would claim that in early May 1883, he told Ferd expressly that the firm should have nothing to do with the contract business for fear his father’s name might be dragged into it. “Mr. Ward almost shed tears when he thought I would believe he would do anything to the injury of my father,” Buck testified. “He said my father’s honor was as dear to him as it was to me, and he intended to make the firm … a great success and never have any scandal attached to it in anyway.” Ferd sounds very like himself in this recollection. But the letters from Buck and his brothers show that they, at least, were knowing and enthusiastic investors in contracts of all kinds. Chicago Daily Tribune, November 11, 1887.

‡ At least one big investor, Captain Elihu Spicer Jr., testified that both Buck Grant and Ferd had personally promised that he would profit handsomely from government contracts. Spicer would lose a quarter of a million dollars when the firm collapsed. New York Herald, October 8, 1885.

§ Others told similar stories about Grant’s faith in Ferd. General Horace Porter, an old friend of the general’s who now headed the Pullman Company, dropped by his home one afternoon, intending to warn Grant that the revenues from his investments simply seemed too good to be true. But just then Ferd wandered in to report that profits were continuing to rise. The general beamed with pleasure at his prospects. Porter retreated without saying anything. New York World, July 2, 1886; Jean Edward Smith, Grant, pp. 619–20.

‖ Grace had proved himself a more demanding investor than most. Missed deadlines and bright promises of bigger profits just around the corner did not satisfy the ex-mayor. “I want to wind up that loan made [to Grant & Ward] a year ago …,” he told Ferd in June 1882. “ ’Tis six months since we were to have wound this up, and now I am desirous of positively closing it out.” Ferd did as he was told. Marquis James, Merchant Adventurer, pp. 206–07.

a Chaffee himself sometimes worried about how his son-in-law’s firm could be doing so well. “I can’t imagine how you can make so much and do it safely,” he told him, and again, “I am afraid there must be a bad end of this cash business, because I don’t see how anybody or anything can pay such interest for the use of money and end well.” But the former senator did not ask for his securities back. New York Times, December 28, 1884, February 1, 1885.

b Now and again, Ferd’s exaggerated sense of himself got in his way. One of his early investors, a broker named W. H. Bingham, once challenged him. “See here, Ward, what is there in these contracts?” he asked. How much money was in them? How did it all work? “The relations of General Grant and the firm to the government are of a very delicate nature,” Ferd answered.

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