Wall Street: America's Dream Palace (Icons of America)

209 Pages·2008·0.84 MB·English

by  Steve Fraser

Wall Street
Wall
yale university press new haven & london
Street
America’s
Dream Palace
Steve Fraser
Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this
book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.
Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Philip
Hamilton McMillan of the Class of 1894, Yale College.
Copyright © 2008by Steve Fraser.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in
any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107and 108of the U.S.
Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publishers.
Set in Janson by Integrated Publishing Solutions.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fraser, Steve, 1945–
Wall Street : America’s dream palace / Steve Fraser.
p. cm.—(Icons of America series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-11755-4(alk. paper)
1. Capitalists and financiers—United States—Biography. 2. Wall Street
(New York, N.Y.)—History. I. Title.
HG172.A2F72 2008
332.64(cid:2)273—dc22 2007035453
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Illustration credits: p. viii: New York Stock Exchange © 2007 Jupiterimages
Corporation; p. 10: KING © Art Parts; p. 54: SHAKDOWN © Art Parts; p. 96:
WOW_019 © Image Club/Getty Images; p. 134: EXEC_DVL© Art Parts; p. 174:
EASY_MNY© Art Parts
For the Fraser family, past and present
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Contents
Introduction 1
one
The Aristocrat 11
two
The Confidence Man 55
three
The Hero 97
four
The Immoralist 135
Epilogue 175
Notes 181
Acknowledgments 193
Index 195

Introduction
It seems like a dream to me.
daniel drew
Wall Street. No other place on earth is so singularly identified
with money and the power of money. Wall Street is not a street;
it is “the Street.” To invoke its name is to conjure up capitalism
in all its imperial grandeur. It stands as an unbreachable bul-
wark defending a commercial order that began when the nation
was born. The Street gives off an incandescent glow fired not
simply by wealth but by wealth burnished with a patina of pru-
dential sobriety and social preeminence. Deliberation and cau-
tion mark its weighty proceedings. Inside its monumental piles
of granite, steel, and glass, the equations of economic fitness are
calculated with mathematical rigor. Like its very name—the street
of streets—it exudes a certain quintessential purity. It hovers
above and at some remove from the messiness of the workaday
world, distilling its numerical truth, compelling obedience to a
1