e.

Here in the Nineteenth Century Club was an arena, indeed. Able men and
women discussed the leading topics of the day in due form, addressing
the audience one after another. The gatherings soon became too large
for a private room. The monthly meetings were then held in the
American Art Galleries. I remember the first evening I took part as
one of the speakers the subject was "The Aristocracy of the Dollar."
Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson was the first speaker. This was my
introduction to a New York audience. Thereafter I spoke now and then.
It was excellent training, for one had to read and study for each
appearance.

I had lived long enough in Pittsburgh to acquire the manufacturing, as
distinguished from the speculative, spirit. My knowledge of affairs,
derived from my position as telegraph operator, had enabled me to know
the few Pittsburgh men or firms which then had dealings upon the New
York Stock Exchange, and I watched their careers with deep interest.
To me their operations seemed simply a species of gambling. I did not
then know that the credit of all these men or firms was seriously
impaired by the knowledge (which it is almost impossible to conceal)
that they were given to speculation. But the firms were then so few
that I could have counted them on the fingers of one hand. The Oil and
Stock Exchanges in Pittsburgh had not as yet been founded and brokers'
offices with wires in connection with the stock exchanges of the East
were unnecessary. Pittsburgh was emphatically a manufacturing town.

I was surprised to find how very different was the state of affairs in
New York. There were few even of the business men who had not their
ventures in Wall Street to a greater or less extent. I was besieged
with inquiries from all quarters in regard to the various railway
enterprises with which I was connected. Offers were made to me by
persons who were willing to furnish capital for investment and allow
me to manage it--the supposition being that from the inside view which
I was enabled to obtain I could invest for them successfully.
Invitations were extended to me to join parties who intended quietly
to buy up the control of certain properties. In fact the whole
speculative field was laid out before me in its most seductive guise.

All these allurements I declined. The most notable offer of this kind
I ever received was one morning in the Windsor Hotel soon after my
removal to New York. Jay Gould, then in th