y in installments. Thus, an
entry, on January 26, 1807, in the municipal records, reads: "On
receiving the report of the Street Commissioner, Ordered that warrants
issue to Messrs. Anderson and Allen for the three installments due to
them from Mr. Goelet for the Whitehall and Exchange Piers."--MSS.
Minutes of the [New York City] Common Council, 1807, xvi:286.

[163] "Prominent Families of New York":231. Another notable example of
this glorifying was Nicholas Biddle, long president of the United States
Bank. Yet the court records show that, after a career of bribery, he
stole $400,000 of that bank's funds.

[164] At this very time his wealth, judged by the standard of the times,
was prodigious. "His wealth is vast--not less than five or six
millions," wrote Barrett in 1862--"The Old Merchants of New York City,"
1:349.

[165] "The Railways, the Trusts and the People":104.

[166] See Part III, "Great Fortunes From Railroads."

[167] "Kings of Fortune":172.

[168] Census of 1900.

[169] Eighth Annual Report, Illinois Labor Bureau:104-253.

[170] In those parts of this work relating to great fortunes from
railroads and from industries, this phase of commercial life is
specifically dealt with. The enormities brazenly committed during the
Spanish-American War of 1898 are sufficiently remembered. Napoleon had
the same experience with French contractors, and the testimony of all
wars is to the same effect.

[171] So valuable was a partnership in this firm that a writer says that
Field paid Leiter "an unknown number of millions" when he bought out
Leiter's interest.

CHAPTER IX

THE FIELD FORTUNE IN EXTENSO

In close similarity to the start of the Astors and many other founders
of great land fortunes, commerce was the original means by which
Marshall Field obtained the money which he invested in land.
Consecutively came a ramification of other revenue-producing properties.
Once in motion, the process worked in the same admixed, interconnected
way as it did in the amassing of contemporary large fortunes. It may be
literally compared to hundreds of golden streams flowing from as many
sources to one central point. From land, business, railroads, street
railways, public utility and industrial corporations--from these and
many other channels, prodigious profits kept, and still keep, pouring in
ceaselessly. In turn, these formed ever newer and widening distributing
radii of investments. The process, by its own r