Word: fiske
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Drew was soon joined on the Erie board by Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, a slippery pair of Civil War profiteers and stock-market riggers. In 1866, the trio tangled with Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who wanted to get control of the Erie because it competed with his New York Central, then pushing westward to Chicago. When Vanderbilt tried to buy up every Erie share on the market, the supply suddenly became endless. Reason: Jim Fisk had set up a press to turn out fake stock certificates. Vowed Fisk: "If this printing press don't break down...
When Commodore Vanderbilt, a smart railroad buccaneer himself, got a court injunction against the unholy three, they scooped $6,000,000 in cash out of the Erie treasury, scuttled across the Hudson to Jersey City. To keep Vanderbilt at bay, Fisk mounted three 12-lb. cannon on the docks outside the Erie's transplanted headquarters, donned an admiral's uniform to stage-dress his defiance. Meanwhile, foxy Jay Gould bribed the New York state legislature with $1,000,000 to legalize the fraudulent stock certificates...
Help at Last. This forced even doughty Commodore Vanderbilt to make peace. For $4,500,000 out of the Erie's treasury, he agreed to leave Gould, Fisk and Drew in control of the road. Gould soon double-crossed Drew and ruined him; Jim Fisk was murdered by a rival for the hand of Actress Josie Mansfield. By the time Gould was ousted from the Erie presidency in 1872, he had looted the treasury and wrecked the Erie's finances. Although it bravely extended its line to Chicago by 1875, it remained top-heavy with debt, repeatedly went...
...Governor Joseph Buell Ely, who represented Dumaine at the meeting (the old man's physician had told him to stay at home), this was "an embarrassing situation." But to dividend-hungry Stockholder Eugene Havas, the situation was far worse. "Nothing like this has happened since the days of Fisk and Gould!" he yelled. "This is shameful!" Havas wanted to know why the New Haven was paying $3,250,000 for the Boston & Providence bonds when the New Haven hadn't distributed a preferred dividend in two years. Ely explained that the New Haven needed the debentures...
Alec Bright was eleventh, Irv Fisk twelfth, Jim Lawson thirteenth, Rod Nordbloom fourteenth, Gordon Abbott fifteenth, Len Wilson seventeenth, and Dwight Black twentieth. Nineteen members of each team competed...