These brothers had set out with an iron determination to build up the largest fortune they could, and they allowed no obstacles to hinder them. When fraud was necessary they, like the bulk of their class, unhesitatingly used it. In getting their charter for the notorious Chemical Bank, they bribed members of the Legislature with the same phlegmatic serenity that they would put through an ordinary business transaction. This bank, as we have brought out previously, was chartered after a sufficient number of members of the Legislature had been bribed with $50,000 in stock and a large sum of money. Yet now that this bank is one of the richest and most powerful institutions in the United States, and especially as the criminal nature of its origin is unknown except to the historic delver, the Goelets mention the connection of their ancestors with it as a matter of great and just pride. In a voluminous biography giving the genealogies of the rich families of New York--material which was supplied and perhaps written by the families themselves--this boast occurs in the chapter devoted to the Goelets: "They were also numbered among the founders of that famous New York financial institution, the Chemical Bank."[163] Thus do the crimes of one generation become transformed into the glories of another! The stock of the Chemical Bank, quoted at a fabulous sum, so to speak, is still held by a small, compact group in which the Goelets are conspicuous. From the frauds of this bank the Goelets reaped large profits which systematically were invested in New York City real estate. And progressively their rentals from this land increased. Their policy was much the same as that of the Astors--constantly increasing their land possessions. This they could easily do for two reasons. One was that almost consecutively they, along with other landholders, corrupted city governments to give them successive grants, and the other was their enormous surplus revenue which kept piling up. ONCE A FARM; NOW OF VAST VALUE.