MORGAN: American Financier.

• Author: Weissman, Robert
• Position: Review

MORGAN: American Financier by Jean Strouse Random House, $34.95

The prospect that in a hundred years' time another Jean Strouse may write a book called Gates must put a huge smile on the face of the nation's leading contemporary Robber Baron.

Strouse's extraordinarily detailed narrative of Morgan's life contains one overriding theme: Throughout his career, J.P. Morgan operated with the firm conviction that what he was doing was in the best interest of America. To be sure, Strouse explains that Morgan sought to make money, but she emphasizes that he always acted to advance his class' interests, which he viewed as identical with the nation's.

"Morgan himself had been `unchangeably pledged' to what he regarded as `efforts for the public welfare'--supplying capital to U.S. markets--all his professional life," writes Strouse in one illustrative passage. Morgan was convinced that "the country's economic welfare was in the hands of his own generations leading financiers, and that he had a mandate to consolidate control of its industrial and capital resources."

This is an important conclusion, and one that certainly merits inclusion in a Morgan biography, but it is not sufficiently insightful, interesting, or significant to be the organizing theme of a book of this ambition. After all, virtually every person, and especially those in power, believes they are doing the right thing--and is capable of spinning justifying tales to rationalize, to others and to themselves, activities that others judge harshly.

Throughout his career, Morgan was the target of serious, hard-hitting, and sophisticated criticism from both Populists and Progressives. They charged Morgan and the empire over which he ruled with political corruption, violation of antitrust proscriptions, price gouging, and other abuses of economic power to advance narrow Wall Street aims at the expense of the broader public interest. Strouse acknowledges these charges, but she never fully explains them.

It should be noted, however, that Strouse includes much anecdotal information supporting some of the popular criticism of the Robber Barons and the Money Trust. She provides clear evidence of Morgan engaging in bribery to forestall railroad and other regulations in Minnesota, for example. Morgan also made massive campaign contributions--$150,000 just to Roosevelt in 1904. And especially towards the end of his career, Strouse recounts, Morgan's operations began a concerted effort to buy up the...