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Old Waldorf Bar Days
the time that Joe discovered Morgan's identity, he con–
stituted himself a bodyguard for the financier whenever
he saw the latter entering the hotel. It may have been
that Joe had concluded that Morgan was in continual
danger of assassination.
If
J. P. came to a festivity in
the grand ballroom, Joe would make it a point to see
that his progress to the dais of honor was made safe ·for
finance, and more than once he was known to station
himself behind Morgan's chair as a Cerberus
o1f
watch–
fulness and protection. After such occasions, Joe knew
exactly what the Market was going to do, and some of
his friends might hear a hot tip.
This began the "Southern Pacific incident." The stock
of that railroad was hovering a little above
50,
and cer–
tain speculators were wondering whether it would prove
a good thing to buy for a rise, or to sell short. Joe, after
one of his Cerberic, if not cerebric, sessions with Mor–
gan, had to spill what was on his mind.
According to Alfred S. Amer, then an assistant man–
ager of the hotel, Joe quoted Morgan as saying that he
"would never let .Southern Pacific go below
50."
That
was all any listener needed. Almost every employee of
the front office, envisioning quick and easy wealth,
bought "S. P." Those who had savings, plunged; some
who had no money in the bank, borrowed where and as
heavily as they could and, in the lingo of The Street,
loaded up. The stock. reports in the newspapers and the
financial news now claimed earnest students, and clerks
and managers began stealing off duty to crowd the
stock-brokers' offices ·in the hotel. They followed the
quotation board; they hung over the ticker.
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