America 1881: Legend of the West

The plunge in the stock prices of the two railroad companies, along with Carlyle's speech, caused a chain reaction on Wall Street.

Investors' worries, which have been building up for a long time, have finally burst out of control like a flood that has burst a dike.

They also began to sell their stocks.

For a time, the sky above Wall Street was filled with tremors.

After Secretary of State WQ Gresham read the news in the newspaper, he immediately cursed in a rare way.

He hurriedly broke into the office of the Minister of Finance and accused his colleague of not being able to speak wisely and having a mouth like a clepsydra. He told the public all the information that should not be disclosed without discussion. This is really not what a mature politician should do. things that come out.

However, the Finance Minister immediately retorted, saying that he was not a politician in the first place and was ashamed to be compared with some well-dressed beasts. The people had the right to know, especially when their property was in danger.

The two old men refused to give in to each other and eventually went to President Cleveland.

Cleveland leaned back in his chair, holding his forehead and watching the two fighting old men arguing, feeling physically and mentally exhausted.

The split of the Democratic Party seems inevitable.

Finally, Finance Minister Carlisle walked away.

"What a stubborn idiot!" Grayson looked at Carlisle's back and muttered privately.

He immediately turned to the president and said slightly anxiously:

"Cleveland, you should do something! Otherwise we are doomed!"

Cleveland looked at his partner with a tired look on his face.

How could he not know this?

The finance minister he elected must be responsible for any troubles he gets into.

So two days later, the president spoke to a crowd of reporters on Capitol Hill:

"Some media have made a big fuss about the motivations of the country's financial managers, claiming that the Ministry of Finance and the government have been considering deposing gold and finding another way to exchange paper currency. I have seriously refuted such rumors from time to time. Now It seems that refuting rumors is not unnecessary because the public is too easy to believe what the media says.”

Cleveland's original intention was to appease the public.

However, his speech and wording were as euphemistic and obscure as ever, and did not have much effect.

The New York Exchange disaster continues.

First the railroad industry, then other manufacturing industries, panicked the market.

Two weeks after the president's remarks, the stock market crashed.

The first unlucky guy who went bankrupt also appeared.

As one of the leading rope stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, the bankruptcy of National Rope Company, strictly speaking, has little to do with the stock market crash.

Its collapse was mainly due to the fact that it had expanded too quickly and was unable to repay its debts after the market supply changed drastically.

This company now has no ambition to dominate the country, but in the end it only ends up closing down.

But its collapse also sounded the clarion call for the collapse of many companies.

The short sellers rushed to tell each other and celebrated each other.

They have encountered a good time that they have not seen for many years. It is time to give the US government a shot in the arm and make a windfall.

However, Chen Jianqiu, who had stayed out of the incident at this time, felt relaxed.

He has already divested himself of the most risky railway industry, and both Sanjiang Bank and the arms industry are large businesses with low-risk operations, and are well prepared to face the next shock.

Chen Jianqiu told Silas, Dylan and Okafor:

People do not starve to death instantly. They first become emaciated and malnourished, and then gradually reach a critical point and die.

So, let the bullets fly for a while.

He now has something to do on another battlefield.

Edison is also a leader now.

Morgan had given him an ultimatum. If he couldn't make his direct current beat alternating current, investors would give up on direct current altogether, and Edison himself would have to get out of the newly formed General Electric Army.

Edison thought about it and decided to return to the performance he was best at.

And today is the day for his performance.

One or two hundred people were invited to the square in front of the New York State Penitentiary to watch the execution of a condemned man named Francis Kellum.

Among these people are journalists, lawyers, politicians, and of course ordinary citizens.

Whether it was Edison's intention or the negligence of his assistants, Chen Jianqiu was also among those invited.

When everyone rushed to the square one after another, they found that the gallows did not appear. Instead, there was a chair with a rather strange shape.

The chair was covered with exposed electric wires, and straps were installed on the back and handles of the chair to secure the prisoner's hands and neck.

There are three joysticks on the back of the chair, and a thick wire leads from the bottom of the chair to a transformer and generator not far away.

Chen Jianqiu looked at the generator set and felt it looked familiar.

This was a product of their Roswell Electric Company, and I don’t know why it fell into Edison’s hands.

He invented an electric chair that used alternating current, and then spent an unknown amount of money to bribe a New York judge to change the unfortunate murderer's execution method from hanging to electrocution.

He intended to use this to prove the dangers of alternating current, preferably by causing a psychological shadow on the citizens.

After a while, the prison guards escorted Kellum out of the prison door and fixed him on the electric chair.

Edison did not come forward in person this time, but asked one of his engineers, Harold Brown, who was even more perverted than himself, to carry out the smear work for him.

At this time, he was already standing at the switch, eager to try it.

The prison guards sealed Kellum's mouth, connected an iron ring-like thing to his head, and then put a sack on it.

When everything was ready, Brown pulled the switch.

A current with a voltage of 300V flows through the wire and toward the electric chair.

Kellum's whole body began to tremble, and his movements were so large that he almost fell to the ground along with the chair.

The electric shock lasted for more than ten seconds.

The death row prisoner seemed to have made no movement.

Brown walked from the switch to the electric chair.

He shouted to the people below: "This electric chair uses alternating current. As you can see, alternating current is very dangerous and can even kill people in just ten seconds."

His next sentence was originally: "Direct current is much safer than alternating current."

But before Brown could say anything, he was interrupted.

A man below pointed at Kellum’s “corpse” on the electric chair and exclaimed loudly:

"He's not dead yet!"

Brown was startled and looked at Kellum, who was not far from him.

This guy's body is still moving, and it's not twitching after being powered on.

"Damn it, start the motor!" a prison guard whispered to Brown, "We have to electrocute him immediately!"

Brown quickly ran to the switch and pulled it.

Kellum began to twitch again.

But this time, his exposed skin began to turn red, and smoke began to emit from all over his body.

An extremely pungent burnt smell wafted over from the electric chair.

The people watching in the front row covered their noses, turned around and ran away; some even started to vomit.

The second motor operation lasted for dozens of seconds.

Kellum was dead. He was completely electrocuted.

"As you can see, AC is extremely dangerous, it"

Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted again.

However, people’s focus is not on the AC ears, but directly on Brown himself:

"Oh my God! What have you done? It's so cruel!"

"You are simply a devil, how could you come up with such a cruel thing! This is against humanity!"

The gentlemen below the stage frowned and began to accuse Brown on the stage.

In their opinion, this is abuse! In such a civilized America, such a thing should not happen!

Chen Jianqiu did not join the curse.

His eyes were fixed on the electric chair.

"Maybe the voltage was low and there was no fatal blow." He thought of the fat man hanging on the Oklahoma barbed wire before and said to himself.

"If you have the chance, you can get one and send it to Elizabeth Mental Hospital."