Financial History Issue 122 (Summer 2017) | Page 28
wrote of an episode when Morgan sent
a message to Kiernan asking how he was
able to get earnings for a railroad company
ahead of public distribution.
Kiernan went to Morgan’s office,
prepared to apologize if the report was
wrong. Morgan replied, “The figures are
right — but ahead of time. What’s hap-
pened to you?” Kiernan responded he
hired a new reporter. Morgan replied,
“Well, John, maybe he’s got a brother. If I
were you, I’d hire him too. Anyhow, send
an extra set of the bulletins along hereafter
for my personal desk.”
Lloyd Wendt, author of a well-regarded
history of Dow Jones and The Wall Street
Journal, described Kiernan’s eye for tal-
ent. He would hire reporters “to cover
the stock exchanges who could obtain
the earnings statements early, who knew
traders, callers, brokers and customers,
and who could provide relatively accurate
reports on the condition of the markets
and transactions at any time.”
Railroad mogul Jay Gould and Kier-
nan tangled on at least one occasion. The
Brooklyn Daily Eagle describes a market
“pandemonium” in June 1887 when one of
Gould’s companies, Manhattan Elevated
Railroad, fell 36.5 points amid rumors that
Gould had a falling out with his business
partners and was seeking loans. Gould
issued a statement to Kiernan:
The bulletin you are putting out that
my Manhattan stock is in loans is a
malicious falsehood. Not a share of my
Manhattan is in loans or has had my
name on the back, nor do I owe a dol-
lar in the world. You should promptly
contradict.
The Ticker
A headline from The Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, May 25, 1892.
Development of new printing and engrav-
ing technology, as well as the telegraph,
advanced business journalism in this era.
News agencies moved to adopt the tele-
graph shortly after its commercial devel-
opment in the 1830s, and it fit well in
the growing market for financial news in
Europe and the United States. By the end
of the 1860s, there was general demand
by brokers and others in the investment
community for a stock ticker service. This
marked a critical time in the history of
global communications: in 1866, a transat-
lantic telegraph cable first became opera-
tional, ushering in an era of transnational
26 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Summer 2017 | www.MoAF.org
information transmission. Kiernan struck
an arrangement with an early pioneer in
transmission of financial news, Gold and
Stock Telegraph, to supply Wall Street
with news about foreign markets. Kiernan
had a redistribution agreement where he
would transmit foreign financial news
gathered by the Associated Press exclu-
sively to his customers over telegraph lines
a half hour before its general transmission.
Kiernan operated during a period of
intense competition between rival tele-
graph services. Even in this horse-and-
buggy era, minutes mattered in news
distribution. Kiernan successfully sued
rivals for breaking a 15-minute exclu-
sive embargo on his telegraphed news
bulletins. Another Kiernan legal victory
against Manhattan Quotation Company
established a notable legal precedent of a
property right and the time value of wire
service reporting. The 1876 decision in
New York State Supreme Court said that
despite the information being generally
in the public domain, “There is a right
of property in telegraphic news collected
in Europe and forwarded here by wire,
because of the labor and expense thereon
bestowed.”
Dow, Jones and Bergstresser
Kiernan’s office was a gathering point
for roving financial reporters of the daily
newspapers, and it is likely that Charles
Dow joined these gatherings at “Kier-
nan’s Corner” when he moved to New
York from Providence, RI, in 1879. Wendt
describes some details of the relation-
ship between Kiernan, Dow, Jones and
Bergstresser. Kiernan hired Dow, then an
expert in mining companies, as an editor.
“Whether his mining knowledge was of
much benefit in his new job is doubtful, for
Kiernan’s bulletins generally were entirely
confined to crisp news developments and
factual statements. Few clients at the time
were looking for financial guidance from a
messenger service,” wrote Wendt. Edward
Jones joined Kiernan around this same
period of time. Jones covered the New
York Stock Exchange, “quickly becoming
a favorite with traders, bankers and cus-
tomers.” Jones was also popular at the bar
at the Windsor Hotel on 5th Ave and 46th
Street, a watering hole known as the “All
Night Wall Street.”
Wendt described Jones as having a
drinking problem. “There were hints from