the actual figures of the cost, although a number of the members of
the different groups, including Marcus Daly, the silent partner, were
sure they were in the secret.
As soon as the properties were secured, they were capitalized for
$75,000,000 as the Amalgamated Copper Company and were immediately
offered for sale to the public. It will thus be seen that the profit on
this section alone was $36,000,000, probably the largest actual profit
ever made by one body of men in a single corporation deal, yet so nicely
does "Standard Oil" discriminate in dispensing its generosity that in
this case those who received the $36,000,000 profit refused to deduct
from it $77,000 of expenses connected with the formation of the company,
thereby compelling it to start $77,000 in debt. This was something
Marcus Daly never forgave and to the day of his death he repeatedly
referred to the act as the personification of corporation meanness.
In the organization of the Amalgamated Corporation certain individuals
and institutions, for various considerations, were entitled to some
share in the profits of the deal. First there was Marcus Daly who knew
what the major portion of the property had cost and was a silent partner
in the winnings as he knew them. The Amalgamated Company was organized
in and floated on the public from the National City Bank, and so James
Stillman, its president and head, who is also one of the inner circle of
"Standard Oil" chiefs, should participate. Something was due also to J.
Pierpont Morgan & Co., and to Frederick Olcott, president of the Central
Trust Company of New York, who were on the board of directors. On the
board of directors, too, was Governor Flower, of the banking and
brokerage house of Flower & Co., who had acted as fiscal agents for the
corporation at its formation. Nor must I forget the Lewisohn Brothers,
who had been compelled to turn in all their copper business at a
fraction of its worth--or at just the aggregate of its cost and raw
material--to be incorporated in the United Metals Selling Company, a
part of the Amalgamated scheme, but not included in the corporation.
Every one of these men had elaborate assurances that he was in on the
cellar floor.
This is what actually occurred. Before Mr. Rogers and William
Rockefeller let any one at all in, they built a superbly designed
water-, air-, and light-proof structure (particularly light-proof),
consisting of five floors, each one being the exact d
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