J. P. Morgan

In February 1895 J. P. Morgan & Co. and August Belmont & Co. contracted to sell the U.S. Treasury 3,500,000 ounces of gold for four per cent bonds, with at least half of the gold to be obtained in Europe. In his 1904 account, President Grover Cleveland says the contract also bound the firms to use their financial influence against gold withdrawals, and that no gold left the Treasury for export while it ran.

On 2 March 1901 J. P. Morgan & Co. issued the circular announcing the United States Steel Corporation, which stated that the entire plan of organization and management would be determined by the firm. Ida Tarbell, drawing on Elbert Gary's recollections, writes that Morgan picked the first board of twenty-four directors and chose Gary to chair its executive committee.

During the October 1907 panic Morgan formed a $25,000,000 money pool, subscribed by leading banks and financiers, to keep the New York Stock Exchange from collapsing, and a similar pool was formed the next day, according to O. M. W. Sprague's 1910 report for the National Monetary Commission.

Questioned by counsel Samuel Untermyer before the Pujo committee on 19 December 1912, Morgan denied that credit rests primarily on money or property: 'the first thing is character... Before money or anything else. Money can not buy it.' He added that 'a man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom,' and said that if a stock-exchange borrower was not satisfactory to him he called the loan 'at once, personally.'

Holding to this account of credit across two days of adversarial questioning on voting trusts, control and lending is consistent with the profile's conflict-tolerance score; the transcript records his answers, not how they were received. Conflict Tolerance

On 21 October 1907, asked to help Knickerbocker Trust, Morgan had Benjamin Strong examine its books; Strong could not establish its solvency in the time available and Morgan refused aid (Moen and Tallman). Carl Hovey's 1911 biography has him telling Knickerbocker's new president, 'I've got to stop somewhere.' After Knickerbocker suspended on 22 October and the runs spread to the Trust Company of America, Moen and Tallman say Morgan 'changed his mind' and released aid.

Changing course once the runs spread is consistent with the profile's belief-updating score, though the sources do not say what changed his mind, and the Fed essay and Hovey differ slightly on the timing of the refusal. Belief Updating

Ida Tarbell, drawing on Elbert Gary's recollections, writes that through 1900 Morgan rejected Gary's urging to buy Andrew Carnegie's steel company ('I would not think of it... I don't believe I could raise the money'). After a December 1900 dinner at which Charles Schwab spoke, Morgan talked with Schwab and, a few days later, asked whether an option on the Carnegie properties could be had; Carnegie refused a written option but sent a penciled price. About three weeks after the dinner Morgan sent his partner Robert Bacon to ask Gary whether buying Carnegie out was practical.

Moving from repeated refusal to a concrete inquiry within days of Schwab's talk is consistent with the profile's decisiveness score; why Morgan changed his mind is Tarbell's reading rather than a reason he is recorded as stating. Decisiveness