The Panic of 1907, 2nd Edition

Chapter 14Crisis on the Exchange

Why don’t you tell them what to do, Mr. Morgan?

—Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian

I don’t know what to do myself, but sometime, someone will come in with a plan that I know will work; and then I will tell them what to do.

—J. Pierpont Morgan¹

As Oakleigh Thorne was opening the doors to the Trust Company of America on Thursday morning, October 24, J. Pierpont Morgan boarded a Union Club brougham drawn by a white horse, which would take him to his offices at 23 Wall Street.² By this time people throughout the city had already seen Morgan’s picture on the front pages of many newspapers, which had proclaimed him the city’s savior. Herbert Satterlee, Morgan’s son‐in‐law, was traveling in the brougham with Pierpont, and he provided a vivid description of the atmosphere surrounding the titan that morning:

All the way downtown people who got a glimpse of him in the cab called the attention of passersby. Policemen and cabbies who knew him well by sight shouted, “There goes the Old Man!” or “There goes the Big Chief!” and the people who heard them understood to whom they referred and ran beside the cab to get a peep at him. Near Trinity Church a way through the crowd opened as soon as it was realized who was in the cab. The crowd moved with us. He might have been a general at the head of a column going to the relief of a beleaguered city such was the enthusiasm he created. All this time he looked straight ahead and gave no sign ...