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A Disposition to Be Rich: How a Small-Town Pastor's Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash, and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States (2012)
Ferdinand Ward was the Bernie Madoff of his generation-a supposed genius at making big money fast on Wall Street, who turned out to have been running a giant pyramid scheme that ultimately collapsed in one of the greatest financial scandals in American history. The son of a Protestant missionary and small-town pastor with secrets of his own to keep, Ward came to New York at twenty-one and in less than a decade, armed only with charm, energy, and a total lack of conscience, made himself the business partner of a former president of the United States and was widely hailed as the "Young Napoleon of Finance." In truth, he turned out to be a complete fraud, his entire life marked by dishonesty, cowardice, and contempt for anything but his own interests.Drawing from thousands of never-before-examined family documents, Geoffrey C. Ward traces his great-grandfather's rapid rise to riches and fame, and his even more dizzying fall from grace. There are mistresses and mansions along the way; fast horses, crooked bankers, and corrupt New York officials; courtroom confrontations and six years in Sing Sing; and Ferdinand's desperate scheme to kidnap his own son to get his hands on the estate his late wife had left the boy. A Disposition to Be Rich is a great story about a classic American con artist, told with boundless charm and dry wit by one of our finest historians.… (mais)
Very well written, but I found the narcissism and irresponsible behavior of Ferdinand Ward and his missionary parents was too unbearable (and reminiscent of Donald Trump) to finish reading this book. Even skipping the middle section of the book to reach his imprisonment offered to relief; he continued to ruin the lives of those around him.
A fascinating true story of a sociopath and how greed can be manipulated by one. Also, Wall Street does not seem to have changed much in over 100 years. And . . . Our economy is still too influenced by the casino we call "investing in securities". A good read which makes me think and feel about family dynamics, religion, community, and "doing business". ( )
The title is a great summary of this book. The swindler was Ferdinand Ward. The president swindled was Ulysses S. Grant. The crash came in 1884. Son of poor missionaries, Ward cared for nothing but money and lying was his method to obtain it. His plan was to marry a rich woman and use her money to further his schemes. Time and again he was found out before it was too late for the lady. Finally, it worked on one family; they married, to her family’s eternal regret. Shortly thereafter, her father died, and Ward got his hands on his wife’s portion of the inheritance and then his mother-in-law’s portion. With the help of a willing (at first) and then ignorant bank president, his little investment company made large profits for their investors. However, there were no investments. It was a Ponzi scheme to rake in more gullible investors. Finally, his bad checks brought down the bank, the banker, his own firm, and all the people who hadn’t gotten out in time, including Grant. As he admitted in his trial, he was robbing Peter to pay Paul. He got his wife to give him her family jewels in order to live a cushy life while in prison. When she died she left the dregs of her estate which hadn’t already been plundered to their son in trust. When he got out, he kidnapped his own son for the trust money. Ward was a despicable narcissist, ruining every life he touched.
The author is Ward’s great-grandson. He worked from letters and court transcripts and did a remarkable job of painting his forbear’s character with his own words. ( )
Geoffrey Ward wrote this book about his ancestor Ferdinand Ward, a thorough scoundrel, one of whose mayor claims to "fame" is that he caused U. S. Grant to lose all his fortune. It is a marvelously researched work, full of information about the times as well as the life of the subject. ( )
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Family is what counts. Everything else is a side-show.
-- F. Champion Ward
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
-- George Bernard Shaw
Dedicatória
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
For my grandfather, Clarence Ward, my father, F. Champion Ward -- and for my brother, Andrew, who might have made a better story out of this material but was kind enough not to try
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
On the afternoon of August 8, 1885, the streets of Manhattan were given over to grief. (Prologue)
Shortly after dawn on March 20, 1837, at the end of a four-month voyage from Boston, the captain of the American merchant ship Saracen sighted the green Coromandel coast of South India and set his course northward along it, headed for the British port city of Madras.
Citações
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Fred and Nellie Green took Clarence home with them to Thompson.
Ferdinand Ward was the Bernie Madoff of his generation-a supposed genius at making big money fast on Wall Street, who turned out to have been running a giant pyramid scheme that ultimately collapsed in one of the greatest financial scandals in American history. The son of a Protestant missionary and small-town pastor with secrets of his own to keep, Ward came to New York at twenty-one and in less than a decade, armed only with charm, energy, and a total lack of conscience, made himself the business partner of a former president of the United States and was widely hailed as the "Young Napoleon of Finance." In truth, he turned out to be a complete fraud, his entire life marked by dishonesty, cowardice, and contempt for anything but his own interests.Drawing from thousands of never-before-examined family documents, Geoffrey C. Ward traces his great-grandfather's rapid rise to riches and fame, and his even more dizzying fall from grace. There are mistresses and mansions along the way; fast horses, crooked bankers, and corrupt New York officials; courtroom confrontations and six years in Sing Sing; and Ferdinand's desperate scheme to kidnap his own son to get his hands on the estate his late wife had left the boy. A Disposition to Be Rich is a great story about a classic American con artist, told with boundless charm and dry wit by one of our finest historians.
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