Books in Brief: J. P. Morgan Jr., 1867-1943

J. P. Morgan Jr., 1867-1943, by John D. Forbes (University Press of Virginia, 262 pp., $20). “I had a note from father before he sailed! He ends by saying he ‘hates to go more and more every moment.’ I am more than sorry he felt he had to do it. But I suppose when a man reaches the point when he thinks nothing can move along without him a holiday becomes an impossible thing. I only hope it will never come to that with me. Probably it won’t owing to the fact that things always will move on without me.” Morgan Jr. wrote this to his mother when he was 32, and still serving his apprenticeship, which he would continue to do until his father died, 14 years later. He was, of course, right. Even when he succeeded to the post of senior partner of J. P. Morgan & Co., things tended to move along without him, a tribute to his own shrewd management, certainly, as much as to his father’s design and construction of the House of Morgan. This is the first biography of J. P. Morgan Jr., and it is a detailed, carefully documented, mainly objective, and strictly chronological tale, with the exception of a chapter on Morgan as bibliophile. The author, who has also written a biography of Edward Stettinius Sr., a partner of Morgan Sr., unfolds his subject’s life year by year, and at times deal by deal. He gives the itinerary of noted watering holes the banker visited each year, including Climax, North Carolina; Jekyll Island, Georgia; Matinicock Point, Long Island; Wall Hall, his estate in England; Bar Harbor, Maine; Camp Uncas in the Adirondacks; and Gannochy, Scotland, where he shot grouse. This was life lived in the grand style, but Morgan believed in his privacy, and so, until now, he has seemed as aloof and enigmatic as the Sphinx. There was, of course, a price to pay: “Throughout his life, he was subjected to intermittent harassment and abuse, less on personal grounds than because he was a convenient symbol and his persecutors hoped to gain some personal or ideological advantage from the attack,” the author notes. As a result, he was often embroiled in congressional hearings, investigations, and the politics of the day. Efforts to connect him with political skulduggery consistently failed to turn anything up. What Morgan believed in to the end was the capitalist freedom of Adam Smith, and if he was not articulate about it, at least he was not a phony pundit or a fraud.

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Joe Mysak

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J. P. Morgan Jr., 1867-1943, by John D. Forbes (University Press of Virginia, 262 pp., $20). “I had a note from father before he sailed! He ends by saying he ‘hates to go more and more every moment.’ I am more than sorry he felt he had to do it. But I suppose when a man reaches the point when he thinks nothing can move along without him a holiday becomes an impossible thing. I only hope it will never come to that with me. Probably it won’t owing to the fact that things always will move on without me.” Morgan Jr. wrote this to his mother when he was 32, and still serving his apprenticeship, which he would continue to do until his father died, 14 years later. He was, of course, right. Even when he succeeded to the post of senior partner of J. P. Morgan & Co., things tended to move along without him, a tribute to his own shrewd management, certainly, as much as to his father’s design and construction of the House of Morgan. This is the first biography of J. P. Morgan Jr., and it is a detailed, carefully documented, mainly objective, and strictly chronological tale, with the exception of a chapter on Morgan as bibliophile. The author, who has also written a biography of Edward Stettinius Sr., a partner of Morgan Sr., unfolds his subject’s life year by year, and at times deal by deal. He gives the itinerary of noted watering holes the banker visited each year, including Climax, North Carolina; Jekyll Island, Georgia; Matinicock Point, Long Island; Wall Hall, his estate in England; Bar Harbor, Maine; Camp Uncas in the Adirondacks; and Gannochy, Scotland, where he shot grouse. This was life lived in the grand style, but Morgan believed in his privacy, and so, until now, he has seemed as aloof and enigmatic as the Sphinx. There was, of course, a price to pay: “Throughout his life, he was subjected to intermittent harassment and abuse, less on personal grounds than because he was a convenient symbol and his persecutors hoped to gain some personal or ideological advantage from the attack,” the author notes. As a result, he was often embroiled in congressional hearings, investigations, and the politics of the day. Efforts to connect him with political skulduggery consistently failed to turn anything up. What Morgan believed in to the end was the capitalist freedom of Adam Smith, and if he was not articulate about it, at least he was not a phony pundit or a fraud.