except the
Manhattan, had limited charters; measures for the renewal of these were
practically all put through by bribery.[116] Thus, in 1818, the charter
of the Merchants' Bank was renewed until 1832, and renewed after that.
The chartering of the Chemical Bank (that staid and most eminently
respectable and solid New York institution of to-day) was accomplished
by bribery. The Chemical Bank was an outgrowth of the Chemical
Manufacturing Company, the plant and business of which were bought
expressly as an excuse to get a banking auxiliary. The Goelet brothers
were among the founders of this bank. In fact, many of the great landed
fortunes were inseparably associated with the frauds of the banking
system; money from land was used to bribe legislatures, and money made
from the banks was employed in buying more land. The promoters of the
Chemical Bank set aside a considerable sum of money and $50,000 in stock
for the bribery fund.[117] No sooner had it received its charter than it
began to turn out reams of paper money, based upon no value, which paper
was paid as wages to its employees as well as circulated generally. So
year after year the bribery went on industriously, without cessation.

BRIBERY A CRIME IN NAME ONLY.

Were the bribers ever punished, their illicitly gotten charters declared
forfeited, and themselves placed under the ban of virtuous society?
Far, very far, from it! The men who did the bribing were of the very
pinnacle of social power, elegance and position, or quickly leaped to
that height by reason of their wealth. They were among the foremost
landholders and traders of the day. By these and a wide radius of
similar means, they amassed wealth or greatly increased wealth already
accumulated. The ancestors of some of the most conspicuous
multimillionaire families of the present were deeply involved in the
perpetration of all of those continuous frauds and crimes--Peter Goelet
and his sons, Peter P. and Robert, for instance, and Jacob Lorillard,
who, for many years, was president of the Mechanics' Bank. No stigma
attached to these wealth-graspers. Their success as possessors of riches
at once, by the automatic processes of a society which enthroned wealth,
elevated them to be commanding personages in trade, politics, orthodoxy
and the highest social spheres. The cropped convict, released from
prison, was followed everywhere by the jeers and branding of a society
which gloated over his downfall and which