flâneur

Founders: #142 Teddy Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan

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What I learned from reading The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield. ---- [0:17] Morgan was the most influential of these businessmen. He wasn’t the richest but that didn’t matter; he was commanding in a way none could match. [0:38] Morgan had an aristocrat’s disdain for public sentiment and the conviction that his actions were to the country’s advantage, no explanations necessary. [0:50] Roosevelt thought big business was not only inevitable but essential. He also believed it had to be accountable to the public, and Roosevelt considered himself the public. [1:04] Each [Morgan and Roosevelt] presumed he could use his authority to determine the nation’s course. Each expected deference from the other along the way. [2:18] “I’m afraid of Mr. Roosevelt because I don’t know what he’ll do,” Morgan said. “He’s afraid of me because he does know what I’ll do,” Roosevelt replied. [5:24] Morgan had trusted his father to set him on the right path and steer his career, even when his father was overbearing, Morgan never mounted a challenge. The creator of the biggest companies the world had ever known was very much the

[00:00:00] These industrialists accumulated their wealth in ways most Americans could understand. They dug up something. They discovered something. They built something. But the financiers backing these industrialists, as Americans were just learning, found their riches in the flow of money itself. Morgan was the most influential of these businessmen. He wasn't the richest, by most counts John rockefeller and andrew carnegie were but that didn't matter he was commanding in ways none could match wherever he sat he became the head of the table he was comfortable in his dominion though never…

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