Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 25, 2025
"You are one of those still rarer persons who would adorn wealth," Mr. Hubbard retorted, ignoring the latter part of the artist's remark. "Only that you are so astonishingly outspoken, that you might cause a revolution if you had Vanderbilt's millions to add weight to your words. It doesn't do to be too honest."
This unusual conduct attracted the attention of his cronies, and a number of newsboys gathered about him trying to find out the reason of his strange idleness. "I say, Tode," called one, "why ain't ye gettin' yer papers?" "Aw, he's come into a fortune, he has," put in another. "His rich uncle's come home an' 'dopted him." "Naw, he's married Vanderbilt's daughter," sneered a third.
Worn out with her long life of drudgery, Vanderbilt's wife died in 1868; about a year later the old magnate eloped with a young cousin, Frank A. Crawford, and returning from Canada, announced his marriage, to the unbounded surprise and utter disfavor of his children. An end, however, was soon coming to his prolonged life.
After having bribed legislatures to legalize his enormous issue of watered stock, what was Vanderbilt's next move? The usual fraudulent one of securing exemption from taxation. He and other railroad owners sneaked through law after law by which many of their issues of stock were made non-taxable. So now old shaggy Vanderbilt loomed up the richest magnate in the United States.
It is said that in the vicinity of George Vanderbilt's game preserves at Biltmore, North Carolina, deer, when started by dogs even fifteen or twenty miles away, will seek shelter within the limits of that protected forest, knowing perfectly well that once within its bounds they will not be disturbed.
The Erie had its own approach to New York City, but the New York Central was connected with the metropolis only by the river and the two independent roads the Harlem Railroad and the Hudson River Railroad. To get the latter two roads under his complete control was Vanderbilt's first object. He would then have unimpeded access to New York and so become independent of the river.
Consequently, Vanderbilt's brokers were busily buying in this load of stock in million-dollar bunches; other persons were likewise purchasing. As fast as the checks came in, Drew and his partners converted them into cash. It was not until the day's activity was over that Vanderbilt, amazed and furious, realized that he had been gouged out of $7,000,000.
Moreover, the Erie was likely at any time to become a dangerous competitor of his railroads. Vanderbilt secretly began buying stock; by 1866 he had obtained enough to get control. Drew and his dummy directors were ejected, Vanderbilt superseding them with his own. The change was worked with Vanderbilt's habitual brusque rapidity. Drew apparently was crushed.
So great were the profits, both open and concealed, of the consolidated railroads that notwithstanding, as Charles Francis Adams computed, "$50,000 of absolute water had been poured out for each mile of road between New York and Buffalo," the market price of the stock at once shot up in 1869 from $75 a share to $120 and then to $200. And what was Vanderbilt's share of the $44,000,000?
The Legislature passed an act giving Law the franchise. Vanderbilt countered by getting Tweed, the all-powerful political ruler of New York City and New York State, to order his tool, Governor Seymour, to veto the measure. As was anticipated by the aldermen, the courts pronounced that the Common Council had no power to grant franchises. Vanderbilt's franchise was, therefore, annulled.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking