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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
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