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Updated: May 19, 2025
Special freight trains were purposely delayed and run at snail's pace in order to force shippers to pay the extraordinary rates demanded for shipping over the Merchant's Dispatch, a fast freight line owned by the Vanderbilt family. These were but a few of the many schemes for their private graft that the Vanderbilts put in force.
So impregnably rich and powerful were the Vanderbilts, so profitable their railroads, and their command of resources, financial institutions and legislation so great, that the panic of 1893 instead of impairing their fortunes gave them extraordinary opportunities for getting hold of the properties of weaker railroads.
While for many years after the death of the Commodore the Vanderbilt family remained in direct financial and operating control of the New York Central and its myriad of subsidiary lines and their genius as railroad builders and operators was distinctly evident, yet the brains and resources of the Vanderbilts were not alone responsible for the brilliant career of the system down to recent times.
In the solemn spires of spreading cathedrals they saw the home of the Vanderbilts; in the busy bulk of the Grand Central depot they viewed, wonderingly, the frugal cot of Russell Sage. Bidden to observe the highlands of the Hudson, they gaped, unsuspecting, at the upturned mountains of a new-laid sewer.
It's only the fool or the ignoramus who underrates the strength of his opponent. It is going to be just plain, honest justice and the will of the people against the money of the Harrimans and the Goulds and the Vanderbilts and all the rest of 'em. But the law is mighty, and it will prevail.
Anyhow he'd feel that 'twas her that was doin' the favor, not John D. . . . And I guess he'd be right; I don't know any Vanderbilts, but I've known Maud since she was a baby. She's a " He paused, inspecting a nick in the chisel edge. Again Phillips shifted in his seat on the edge of the workbench. "Well?" he asked. "Eh?" Jed looked up in mild inquiry. "What is it?" he said.
Here, then is another important step in the acquisition of a large part of the country's resources by the Vanderbilts. A recapitulation will not be out of place. His first millions obtained by blackmailing, Commodore Vanderbilt then uses those millions to buy a railroad. By further fraudulent methods, based upon bribery of lawmaking bodies, he obtains more railroads and more wealth.
Railroads, street railways, electric lighting systems, mines, industrial plants, express companies, land, and Government, State and municipal bonds these are some of the forms. From one industrial plant alone the Pullman Company the Vanderbilts draw millions in revenue yearly. Formerly they owned their own palace car company, the Wagner, but it was merged with the Pullman.
There was the least little touch of pride in the last words. I blew in dere from Ioway in de days o' me youth an' innocence, an' I wuz grateful when dey boxed me fer N' York. You can't tell me anything about Kansas I don't wanter fergit. De Belt Line stables ain't no Hoffman House, but dey're Vanderbilts 'longside o' Kansas."
"Hardly it's just a hustling mountain town of about twenty-five thousand people." "Lot o' swells from around New York live down there, they tell me." "Yes, the Vanderbilts have a beautiful castle just outside." "Some mountains near Asheville?" "Hundreds of square miles." "Mountains in every direction?"
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