MARKETS: Memories

Last year in Manhattan a little old man of 77 gave an interview: “The best bank in the world, if you put the right things in it, is the bank of memories. . . . I’ve had fun.”

The oldster was Pliny Fisk and his fun began in 1881 when he graduated from Princeton to the investment banking house of his father, Harvey Fisk, who had made a fortune helping the Union finance the Civil War. Four years later Pliny Fisk became the firm’s trader on the floor of the Exchange, was there christened by his bearded fellow-members the”apple-cheeked boy of Wall Street.” But Broker Fisk soon cut a man-size figure. In a few minutes one afternoon he sold $2,000,000 worth of securities to Hetty Green—after the doorman had tried to eject her because of her shabby clothes. By the turn of the century he was head of Harvey Fisk & Sons, which was known in Wall Street as one of “The Big Four” (with Morgans, First National and National City Banks).

In 1901 Pliny Fisk had pegged the Government bond market at 110. One day, he happened to be standing behind the late Edward H. Harriman on the floor of the Exchange when Harriman, who had gone heavily short, attempted to break the market by a sudden offer to sell $500,000 worth at 90. Fisk promptly accepted, offered to take all others at 110.

When Harriman admitted he couldn’t deliver, Fisk let him off for $50,000 but blandly extracted a promise that Harriman would try to compose his battle with J. P. Morgan Sr. over the Northern Pacific R.R., which was then depressing the market. Harriman was soon closeted with Morgan, and Pliny Fisk thereupon put every available dollar into the market. When peace was announced next morning, he had an overnight profit of $800,000.

Although Fisk helped finance such projects as Bethlehem Steel and the Hudson Tubes, his most famed deal was the creation of American Locomotive Co. in 1901. Baldwin Locomotive Co. controlled two-fifths of the industry and Fisk obtained the necessary options to consolidate the rest into one firm.

An ardent yachtsman like his idol, J. P. Morgan Sr., Pliny Fisk in 1919 visited Tangier on his 33-ft. Riviera. He always believed afterwards that it was there he caught sleeping sickness. He eventually recovered, but not before he “lost control of things.” He quit Harvey Fisk & Sons, sold his Exchange seat for $55,000. Faulty judgment slowly took his millions. In 1924 he sold the Riviera and his $500,000 house in Rye. He dropped out of his clubs—the Union League, Metropolitan, University, New York Yacht.

Lately all he had left were his memories. Last week he no longer needed the $100 a month which the estate of J. P. Morgan Sr. had been sending him: at the Home for Incurables, cancer of the throat brought death to 78-year-old Pliny Fisk.