In Manhattan, Thursday, July 30, 1914 dawned chill and damp. Europe had whelped the first World War and the morning sun, hidden from Wall Street behind a grey overcast, stippled with afternoon gold the dusty packs of Austrian infantrymen marching down to Servia and Armageddon. After the Stock Exchange had closed for the day, Manhattan's top-flight bankers gathered in the office of young (46) J. P. Morgan who 16 months before on the death of his late great father had become head of the most powerful banking...
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