For the purpose of arresting that process and checking the speculation in gold, I detained the comptroller of the currency and three competent clerks after the close of business on the 22d of September. The clerks received commissions as bank examiners, and were instructed to go to New York that night and to take possession of the Tenth National Bank, at the opening of business in the morning, and to give directions that the habit of certifying checks in excess of the balances due must be suspended. It was my expectation that the enforcement of that rule would, or might, end the speculation, inasmuch as the purchasers of gold would be unable to meet their obligations, and therefore it would be out of their power to create them. This expectation was not realized. Whether the certification went on at the Tenth National Bak in defiance of the order, or whether other banks were so connected with the speculation that checks were certified elsewhere, was not known to me.
I called upon the President after business on the 23d of September, and made a statement of the condition of the gold market in the city of New York, as far as it had been communicated to me during the day. I then said that a sale of gold should be made for the purpose of breaking the market and ending the excitement. He asked me what sum I proposed to sell. I said: "Three million dollars will be sufficient to break the combination."
He said in reply: "I think you had better make it $5,000,000."
Without assenting to his proposition or dissenting from it, I returned to the department, and sent an order for the sale of $4,000,000 of gold the next day. The order was to the assistant treasurer in these words: "Sell $4,000,000 gold to-morrow, and buy $4,000,000 bonds." The message was not in cipher, and there was no attempt to keep it secret. It was duplicated and sent by each of the rival telegraph lines to New York. Within the space of fifteen minutes after the receipt of the despatch, the price of gold fell from 160 to 133, and in the language of one of the witnesses, "half of Wall Street was involved in ruin."
For the moment, the condition of Wall Street and the Gold Exchange seemed to justify the statement of the person whose language has just been quoted. As a matter of fact, however, many of the people involved recovered from the panic, and were able to meet their obligations. Some were gainers, probably, by the proceedings of the month of September, and some were losers. As I have already said, I had no purpose to help anybody or to hurt anybody, and I interfered in Wall Street only when the operations that were going on there involved innocent parties who were engaged in legitimate business, and also imposed upon the Government a sacrifice in the loss of revenue.