Mr. James Hazen Hyde

Public interest was aroused when such names as J. Pierpont Morgan, E.H. Harriman and Thomas Fortune Ryan became linked with James Hazen Hyde and James W. Alexander of the Equitable; with John A. McCall and George W. Perkins of the New York Life and Richard A. McCurdy of Mutual Life.
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Prominent among the life officers who had invested heavily in such ventures was the young James Hazen Hyde, son of Henry Baldwin Hyde, founder of the Equitable Society.This cultured young man was known for his great personal charm, intelligence, good looks,and considerable wealth.Following the death of his father in 1895, the younger Hyde had risen rapidly in the company, becoming second vice president in 1899 when he was only twenty-three years old.In 1902 he became chairman of the Executive Committee and the Finance Committee of the Society's board of directors, and commanded a salary of $100,000.His rapid rise to prominence cause bitter resentment among the Equitable's older executives.

Apart form the sizable fortune he had inherited from his father, along with 502 shares of Equitable stock, Hyde also benefited financially from his connections on Wall Street in various ways.As vice president of the Mercantile Trust Company, he received an annual salary of $12,500 and as vice president of the Equitable Trust Company, $12,000.Of course, he owned stock in these companies, as well.Dr. Buley comments:

By 1905 he had become a Director of 48 corporations,mostly banks, trust companies, and railroads,and the Conried Metropolitan Opera Company and the Federation of French Alliances in the United States.

Mr. James Hazen Hyde, vice-president of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the control of whose surplus funds in the interests of the policyholders was lately the subject of widespread interest, is named as a party to the underwriting of the Shipbuilding Company.

Also, the main actor in this drama, James Hazen Hyde, seems like such a pampered, spoiled child.Although Beard doesn't convert most of the sums involved into today's dollars, the one or two times that she does provides a basic formula; by that account, poor Mr. Hyde was worth approximately $50 million BEFORE his inheritance.Even if that figure is wrong by half, the letters he wrote to his mother wanting her to foot some of his bills are pretty pathetic.
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His son, James Hazen Hyde, had none of his father's characteristics and had not been schooled by his doting parent in the arts that would be necessary to run the Equitable when it was his turn.When Henry died, James, in his early twenties, was the product of money and society -- finishing schools in Paris, the best clubs, debutante balls, and the kingly sport of coach riding.
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Beard weaves this corporate intrigue with a biography of James Hazen Hyde.
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James Hyde, the main character in Patricia Beard's "After the Ball," a fascinating chronicle of the Gilded Age, conceded, "I got too much power when I was young."
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Shortly after the turn of the century, Hyde appeared to be coasting to glory in charmed young adulthood affluence.In his twenties he owned a brownstone in New York, a house in Paris, a private railroad car, and a four hundred acre estate, The Oaks, on Long Island.Add to the aforementioned that he was Harvard-educated with all the right social connections, was matinee idol handsome, and was a vice president in the Equitable Life Assurance Society, and it becomes easy to see why many sought his company and others were just plain jealous.
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In the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, in which James Hyde's father Henry flourished after founding the billion dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society, commercial triumph resulted from truly being in the right place at the right time with the right product.