|
Silk-hatted New York railroad tycoon Jim Fisk personally drives a team of six
horses pulling a coach full of contributions headed for Chicago. This incident
was one of those that was repeatedly described, often accompanied by this
illustration, in many different published accounts. Fisk, as the story went,
immediately despatched a special seven-car "lightning train." This and several
subsequent emergency shipments carried everything from coats and vests to coffee
and flour, with an estimated value of $250,000. Barely two years earlier, the
notorious Erie Railroad stock manipulator and his partner Jay Gould precipitated
"Black Friday" in the world's financial exchanges when they tried to corner the
gold market. Fisk's charity seemed to substantiate the point, made again and
again in contemporary discussions of the fire, that the relief effort
transcended the materialism of the age and benefited the givers as much as it
did the recipients of assistance. Fisk was fatally shot by an angry business
associate the following January.
|
The Relief and Aid Society 