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約翰·皮爾蓬·摩根

約翰·皮爾蓬·摩根（John Pierpont Morgan，1837年4月17日—1913年3月31日），美國銀行家，亦是一位藝術收藏家。1892年，他撮合了愛迪生通用電力公司（Edison General Electric）與湯姆遜-休士頓電力公司（Thompson Houston Electric）合併成為奇異公司。在出資成立了聯邦鋼鐵公司（Federal Steel Company）後，他又陸續合併了卡內基鋼鐵公司（Carnegie Steel Corporation）及幾家鋼鐵公司，並在1901年組成美國鋼鐵公司（United States Steel Corportation）。

值得一提的是，他於1912年曾訂購當時最大的郵輪鐵達尼號處女航的頭等套房，後因故沒有上船，逃過一劫（鐵達尼號於啟航後四天撞冰山沉沒，造成1500人死亡，史上最著名海難之一）。該房間在行程中一直沒有人入住，1997年電影《鐵達尼號》中，女主角露絲所住的頭等套房便是以此為藍本。

1913年3月31日於義大利羅馬過世，其後遺體送回紐約，華爾街降半旗以示敬意。

生平

他出生在美國康乃狄克州首府哈特福的一個富有的商人家庭。其父親是朱尼厄斯·斯潘塞·摩根（Junius Spencer Morgan），母親是 Juliet Pierpont。1848年，摩根先後入讀哈特福公立學校及美國聖公會學院（Cheshire Academy）。1851年他成功通過波士頓英格蘭高校（English High School of Boston）的入學考試。該校專門教授年輕人數學以作商業人才。

1852年，摩根患上了嚴重的疾病，他的風濕熱已經發展到了不能走路的地步。父親將其送至亞速爾群島做療養，過了近一年時間他才逐漸恢復，回國後進入波士頓的高等英文學校恢復學業。畢業後被父親送到瑞士的學習法語，之後又來到德國的哥廷根大學鍛鍊德語。經過六個月的學習，摩根掌握了基本的德語技能並獲得藝術史學位。然後他經由威斯巴登返回倫敦，由此完成了其教育生涯。

J·P·摩根早年的照片

1857年，他進入了他父親所接管的倫敦皮伯第商號的分行。翌年，他遠赴紐約市加入鄧肯舍曼商號。1860年至1864年期間他又為父親的紐約皮伯第商號做中間商，1864年後加入達布尼·摩根公司（Dabney,Morgan）,1871年他夥同費城的德雷克塞爾（Drexel）組建了紐約的德雷克塞爾·摩根公司。安東尼·j·德雷克塞爾也因此成為了摩根的良師益友。

南北戰爭開始後不久爆發了卡賓槍事件，市政府以3.5美元的單價出售了5000支劣質的報廢卡賓槍，這批槍稍事加工轉了一圈之後又以22美元的價格重新賣給了政府，而幕後提供資金的正是摩根。

J.P. Morgan & Company

主條目：J.P. Morgan & Co.

1893年德雷克塞爾去世，兩年後公司更名為J·P·摩根公司，並且同費城的德雷克塞爾公司依舊保持著精密的聯繫。

從19世紀70年代開始，摩根就致力於掌控鐵路行業，通過收購和重組鐵路公司他開始逐漸增加自己的控制力，截止到1900年他已經掌握了全美六分之一的鐵路系統。

1890年，摩根收購併重組了多家小型的鋼鐵公司，組成一家名為聯邦鋼鐵（Federal Steel）公司的托拉斯式鋼鐵企業。隨後他又說服了安德魯·卡耐基，成功收購了後者的卡耐基鋼鐵公司。1901年，在聯邦鋼鐵和卡耐基鋼鐵公司的基礎上摩根組建了美國鋼鐵公司，其總資本達到了14億美元，是當時第一家資產突破十億美元的公司，在其成立後的第一年，美國鋼鐵公司生產了全美三分之二的鋼鐵。

報紙

1896年，查塔努加時報的擁有者阿道夫·奧克斯向摩根尋求財政支持以購買資金困難的紐約時報。奧克斯通過削減價格、加強新聞來源、提高報導質量等一系列手段使得紐約時報成為了行業標準。

國庫黃金

由於1893年恐慌的影響，至1895年時美國國庫中已經沒有多少黃金儲備了。Grover Cleveland 總統找到摩根，希望他能在華爾街組織一個辛迪加以向美國國庫提供黃金。最終發行了一億美元的債券，籌措到了六千五百萬美元的黃金，這其中有一半來自歐洲。 此舉雖然拯救了國庫，但是but hurt Cleveland with the agrarian wing of his Democratic party and became an issue in the election of 1896, when banks came under withering attack from William Jennings Bryan. Morgan and Wall Street bankers donated heavily to Republican William McKinley, who was elected in 1896 and reelected in 1900.

在這幅政治漫畫中，左邊的矮子象徵美國，右邊的則象徵摩根。

1907年恐慌

The Panic of 1907是一場幾乎摧毀美國經濟的財政危機。紐約的主要銀行處在破產的邊緣，直到摩根採取個人行動才拯救了它們. Major New York banks were on the verge of bankruptcy and there was no mechanism to rescue them until Morgan stepped in personally and took charge, resolving the crisis. 財政部長George B. Cortelyou 撥出三千五百美元平息這場風暴，但苦於沒有合適的途徑。 $35 million of federal money to quell the storm but had no easy way to use it. 摩根在他位於紐約的豪宅中會見了美國的金融領袖，要他們提供一個計劃來解決這次危機。Morgan now took personal charge, meeting with the nation's leading financiers in his New York mansion; he forced them to devise a plan to meet the crisis. 國民城市銀行的行長James Stillman, president of the National City Bank, also played a central role也扮演了一個重要的角色. 摩根組織了一隊銀行與信託基金經理Morgan organized a team of bank and trust executives which redirected money between banks, secured further international lines of credit, and bought plummeting stocks of healthy corporations. A delicate political issue arose regarding the brokerage firm of Moore and Schley, which was deeply involved in a speculative pool in the stock of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. Moore and Schley had pledged over $6 million of the Tennessee Coal and Iron (TCI) stock for loans among the Wall Street banks. The banks had called the loans, and the firm could not pay. If Moore and Schley should fail, a hundred more failures would follow and then all Wall Street might go to pieces. Morgan decided they had to save Moore and Schley. TCI was one of the chief competitors of U.S. Steel and it owned valuable iron and coal deposits. Morgan controlled U.S. Steel and he decided it had to buy the TCI stock from Moore and Schley. Judge Gary, head of US Steel, agreed, but would there be antitrust implications that could cause grave trouble for US Steel, which was already dominant in the steel industry. Morgan sent Gary to see President Theodore Roosevelt, who promised legal immunity for the deal. U.S. Steel thereupon paid $30 million for the TCI stock and Moore and Schley was saved. The announcement had an immediate effect; by November 7, 1907, the panic was over. Vowing to never let it happen again, and realizing that in a future crisis there was not likely to be another Morgan, banking and political leaders, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich devised a plan that became the Federal Reserve System in 1913. The crisis underscored the need for a powerful mechanism, and Morgan supported the move to create the Federal Reserve System.

Critics

While conservatives in the Progressive Era hailed Morgan for his civic responsibility, his strengthening of the national economy, and his devotion to the arts and religion, the left wing felt threatened by his enormous economic power.

Enemies of banking attacked Morgan for the terms of his loan of gold to the federal government in the 1895 crisis, for his financial resolution of the Panic of 1907, and for bringing on the financial ills of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. In December 1912, Morgan testified before the Pujo Committee, a subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency committee. The committee ultimately found that a cabal of financial leaders were abusing their public trust to consolidate control over many industries: the partners of J.P. Morgan & Co. along with the directors of First National and National City Bank controlled aggregate resources of $22.245 billion. Louis Brandeis, later a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, compared this sum to the value of all the property in the twenty-two states west of the Mississippi River.

Unsuccessful ventures

Morgan did not always invest well, as failures with energy, subways and shipping demonstrated.

Energy

In 1900, Morgan financed inventor Nikola Tesla and his Wardenclyffe Tower with $150,000 for experiments in transmitting energy. However, in 1903, when the tower structure was near completion, it was still not yet functional due to last-minute design changes that introduced an unintentional defect. When Morgan wanted to know "Where can I put the meter?" Tesla had no answer. By July 1904, Morgan (and the other investors) finally decided they would not provide any additional financing. Morgan also advised other investors to avoid the project.

Subways

Morgan suffered a rare business defeat in 1902 when he attempted to enter the London Underground field. The notorious transit magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes thwarted Morgan's effort to obtain parliamentary authority to build an underground road that would have competed with "Tube" lines controlled by Yerkes. Morgan called Yerkes' coup "the greatest rascality and conspiracy I ever heard of."

Shipping

In 1902, J. P. Morgan & Co. financed the formation of International Mercantile Marine Company, an Atlantic shipping combine which absorbed several major American and British lines. IMM a holding company that controlled subsidiary corporations that had their own operating subsidiaries. Morgan hoped to dominate transatlantic shipping through interlocking directorates and contractual arrangements with the railroads, but that proved impossible because of the unscheduled nature of sea transport, American antitrust legislation, and an agreement with the British government. One of IMM's subsidiaries was the White Star Line, which owned the "RMS Titanic". The ship's famous sinking in 1912, the year before Morgan's death, was a financial disaster for IMM, which was forced to apply for bankruptcy protection in 1915. Analysis of financial records shows that IMM was overleveraged and suffered from inadequate cash flow that caused it to default on bond interest payments. Saved by World War I, IMM eventually reemerged as the United States Lines, which itself went bankrupt in 1986. Morgan lost heavily on the deal.

Morgan corporations

In 1890-1913, 42 major corporations were organized or their securities were underwritten, in whole or part, by J. P. Morgan and Company.

Industrials

• American Bridge Co.
• American Telephone & Telegraph Co.
• Associated Merchants Co.
• Atlas Portland Cement Co.
• Boomer Coal & Coke Co.
• Federal Steel Co.
• General Electric Co.
• Hartford Carpet Corporation
• Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co.
• International Harvester Co.
• International Mercantile Marine
• J. I. Case Threshing Machine Co.
• National Tube Co.
• United Dry Goods Cos.

Railroads

• Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe
• Atlantic Coast Line
• Central of Georgia R.R. Co.
• Chesapeake & Ohio
• Chicago & Western Indiana R.R. Co.
• Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
• Chicago Great Western
• Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville R.R. CO.
• Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Ry. Co.
• Erie Railroad System
• Florida East Coast Ry.
• Hocking Valley Ry. System
• Lehigh Valley R.R. Co.
• Louisville & Nashville
• New York Central System
• New York, New Haven & Hartford System
• New York, Ontario & Western R.R. Co.
• Northern Pacific Ry. System
• Pennsylvania
• Pere Marquette R.R. Co.
• Reading
• St. Louis & San Francisco R.R. Co.
• Southern Ry.
• Terminal R.R. Association of St. Louis

Later years

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J.P. Morgan, photographed by Edward Steichen in 1903

Self-conscious about his rosacea, Morgan hated being photographed.

After the death of his father in 1890, Morgan gained control of J. S. Morgan & Co (re-named Morgan, Grenfell & Company in 1910). Morgan began conversations with Charles M. Schwab, president of Carnegie Co., and businessman Andrew Carnegie in 1900 with the intention of buying Carnegie's business and several other steel and iron businesses to consolidate them to create the United States Steel Corporation. Carnegie agreed to sell the business to Morgan for $487 million. The deal was closed without lawyers and without a written contract. News of the industrial consolidation arrived to newspapers in mid-January 1901. U.S. Steel was founded later that year and was the first billion-dollar company in the world with an authorized capitalization of $1.4 billion.

Morgan was the founder of the Metropolitan Club of New York and its president from 1891 to 1900. When his friend, Frank King, whom he had proposed, was black-balled by the Union Club because he had done manual labor in his youth, Morgan resigned from the Union Club, and then organized the Metropolitan Club. He donated the land on 5th Avenue and 60th Street at a cost of $125,000, and commanded Stanford White, "Build me a club fit for gentlemen. Forget the expense." Of course he invited King as a charter member.

Personal life

Morgan was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church, and by 1890 was one of its most influential leaders.

In 1861, he married Amelia Sturges, a.k.a Mimi (1835–1862). After her death the next year, he married Frances Louisa Tracy, known as Fanny (1842–1924) on May 31, 1865. They had four children:

• John Pierpont Morgan (1867–1943),
• Louisa Pierpont Morgan (1866–1946) who married Herbert L. Satterlee,
• Juliet Pierpont Morgan (1870–1952), and William Pierson Hamilton (1869–1950)
• Anne Morgan (1873–1952).

He often had a tremendous physical effect on people; one man said that a visit from Morgan left him feeling "as if a gale had blown through the house." Morgan was physically large with massive shoulders, piercing eyes and a purple nose, because of a chronic skin disease, rosacea. His deformed nose was due to a disease called rhinophyma, which can result from rosacea. As the deformity worsens, pits, nodules, fissures, lobulations, and pedunculation contort the nose. This condition inspired the crude taunt "Johnny Morgan's nasal organ has a purple hue." Surgeons could have shaved away the rhinophymous growth of sebaceous tissue during Morgan's lifetime, but as a child Morgan suffered from infantile seizures, and it is suspected that he did not seek surgery for his nose because he feared the seizures would return. His social and professional self-confidence were too well established to be undermined by this affliction. It appeared as if he dared people to meet him squarely and not shrink from the sight, asserting the force of his character over the ugliness of his face. He was known to dislike publicity and hated being photographed; as a result of his self-consciousness of his rosacea, all of his professional portraits were retouched.

Morgan smoked dozens of cigars per day and favored large Havana cigars dubbed Hercules' Clubs by observers.

His house on Madison Avenue was the first electrically lit private residence in New York. His interest in the new technology was a result of his financing Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Illuminating Company in 1878. J. P. Morgan also owned East Island in Glen Cove, NY where he had a large summer house.

J. P. Morgan's yacht Corsair, later bought by the U.S. Government and renamed the USS Gloucester to serve in the Spanish-American War. Photograph by J. S. Johnston.

An avid yachtsman, Morgan owned several sizable yachts. The well-known quote, "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it" is commonly attributed to Morgan in response to a question about the cost of maintaining a yacht, but the actual wording of the original statement is a bit obscure.

Morgan was scheduled to travel on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, but canceled at the last minute.White Star Line, Titanic's operator, was part of Morgan's International Mercantile Marine Company, and Morgan was to have his own private suite and promenade deck on the ship.

Morgan died while traveling abroad on March 31, 1913, just shy of his seventy-sixth birthday. He died in his sleep at the Grand Hotel in Rome, Italy. Flags on Wall Street flew at half-staff; the stock market closed for two hours when his body passed through.

At the time of his death, he had an estate worth $68.3 million ($1.39 billion in today's dollars based on CPI, or $25.2 billion based on 'relative share of GDP'), of which about $30 million represented his share in the New York and Philadelphia banks. The value of his art collection was estimated at $50 million.

His remains were interred in the Cedar Hill Cemetery in his birthplace of Hartford, Connecticut. His son, J. P. Morgan, Jr., inherited the banking business.

The Cragston Dependencies, associated with his estate Cragston at Highlands, New York, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Collector of art, books, and gemstones

Morgan was a notable collector of books, pictures, paintings, clocks and other art objects, many loaned or given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (of which he was president and was a major force in its establishment), and many housed in his London house and in his private library on 36th Street, near Madison Avenue in New York City. His son, J. P. Morgan, Jr., made the Pierpont Morgan Library a public institution in 1924 as a memorial to his father and kept Belle da Costa Greene, his father's private librarian, as its first director. Morgan was painted by many artists including the Peruvian Carlos Baca-Flor and the Swiss-born American Adolfo Müller-Ury, who also painted a double portrait of Morgan with his favorite grandchild Mabel Satterlee that for some years stood on an easel in the Satterlee mansion but has now disappeared.

Morgan was a benefactor of the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Groton School, Harvard University (especially its medical school), Trinity College, the Lying-in Hospital of the City of New York, and the New York trade schools.

The J.P. Morgan Library and Art Museum

Gem collector

By the turn of the century JP Morgan had become one of America's most important collectors of gems and had assembled the most important gem collection in the U.S. as well as of American gemstones (over 1000 pieces). Tiffany & Co. assembled his first collection under their Chief Gemologist George Frederick Kunz. The collection was exhibited at the World's Fair in Paris in 1889. The exhibit won two golden awards and drew the attention of important scholars, lapidaries and the general public.

George Frederick Kunz then continued to build a second, even finer, collection which was exhibited in Paris in 1900. Collections have been donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York where they were known as the Morgan-Tiffany and the Morgan-Bement collections. In 1911 Kunz named a newly found gem after his biggest customer: morganite.

U.S. gemstones from the Morgan collection

Photography

Morgan was also a patron to photographer Edward S. Curtis, offering Curtis $75,000 in 1906, for a series on the Native Americans. Curtis eventually published a 20-volume work entitled "The North American Indian." Curtis went on to produce a motion picture In The Land Of The Head Hunters (1914), which was later restored in 1974 and re-released as In The Land Of The War Canoes. Curtis was also famous for a 1911 Magic Lantern slide show The Indian Picture Opera which used his photos and original musical compositions by composer Henry F. Gilbert.

Legacy

His son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. took over the business at his father's death, but was never as influential. As required by the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act, the "House of Morgan" became three entities: J.P. Morgan & Co., which later became Morgan Guaranty Trust; Morgan Stanley, an investment house; and Morgan Grenfell in London, an overseas securities house.

The gemstone Morganite was named in his honor.

參見

• 摩根大通

[[Category:美國企業家|M]] [[Category:銀行家|M]] [[Category:金融家|M]] [[Category:收藏家|M]] [[Category:英格蘭裔美國人|M]] [[Category:威爾斯裔美國人|M]] [[Category:康乃狄克州人|M]] [[Category:紐約市人|M]]