“Look back upon his wonderful career. As sometimes an assassin is tracked by his footsteps in the snow or by the drops of crimson that have fallen from his fingers, dripping with the life blood of his victim, so the life of Jay Gould can be traced by the dark, deep stains it has left on the records of his time. We see him leaving his father’s farm a penniless but determined lad, clerking in a country store by day and studying mathematics at night. We follow him as he becomes a map-maker and goes forth to survey his own and adjoining counties. We see him hungry and unable to purchase a meal, kneeling down by the roadside and repeating his sister’s prayer. We see him strike his first bargain. We see him win the confidence of Zadock Pratt, the tanner. We follow him into the forests of Pennsylvania and hear the sound of his ax as he fells the first tree for a great tannery. We see him scheming for the control of the property and finally forcing out of the concern the man who had set him up in the business. We follow him in his partnership with Leupp, the old-fashioned and honorable merchant, of New York, and see him again scheming to gain control of the entire business. We see him entering, even at this early day, into wild speculations that involved his partner and threatened him with ruin. We hear the click of the pistol with which Leupp in his despair shot himself. We see Gould still scheming and endeavoring to drive a sharp bargain with Leupp’s daughters and heirs. We see him leading a gang of ruffians to drive out of the tannery the men who were endeavoring to protect it in the interests of Leupp’s daughters. We hear the groans of those who were wounded in that battle. We follow the young adventurer to New York. We see him buy his first railroad on credit and clear a handsome fortune out of the operation. We follow him into Wall street, where for twenty years he was to reign as a king and master. We see him in Erie, first as a follower of Daniel Drew and afterward as president. We see him at Albany bribing senators. We see him in New York purchasing judges, defying the law, issuing millions of securities, not a dollar of which represented legitimate expenditures. We see him plundering the great property of which he was nominally the trustee. We see him and his companion, James Fisk, Jr., the gambler and defaulter in a series of wonderful stock operations, cornering even their former leader, Daniel Drew, and fighting with desperation Commodore Vanderbilt. We see him organizing the greatest and most dastardly financial conspiracy the world has ever seen, laying its foundation in the actual bribery of a member of the President’s family, and in an attempt to involve in the speculation the President himself--America’s greatest captain. We hear the awful crash of Black Friday’s earthquake, from which Gould, the arch conspirator, saved himself, but in which hundreds were involved in ruin and the nation in dishonor.