triticale - the wheat / rye guy

The Hall Carbine Affair

As part of my exploration of the Psilocybe Cubensis mushroom, I have been reading the works of R. Gordon Wasson, who introduced the Anglosphere to the 'shroom back in the mid-Fifties. The Milwaukee Public Library has in their collection an early book by him, an exploration of the folklore and documentary evidence regarding JP Morgan's role in the purchase and resale of obsolete surplus firearms at the start of the American Civil War. The deal itself was somewhat shady, but Wasson provides documentary evidence that Morgan's only role was lending money to one of the principals based on the impression that it was a legitimate transaction. Altho the legend that Morgan got his start as a financier by selling defective arms to the US military has largely disappeared, a websearch produces several instances of an essay which presumes it to be true but uses it only as a lead-in to a description of how John D Rockefeller financed the Communist takeover of Russia.