Part 27

Standing behind him, I made a signal for cheers, which was heartily responded to, and the governor, turning around, saw the joke, grasped me cordially by the hand, and the whole crowd, including the veteran and hardened Democrats on the car, joined in the hilarity of the occasion.

He came to me when he was running for the second time for Congress, and said that some of the people of his district were anxious for me to deliver an address for one of their pet charities, and that the meeting would be held in Harlem, naming the evening. I told him I would go. He came for me in his carriage, and I said: "Governor, please do not talk to me on the way up. I was so busy that I have had no time since I left my office this afternoon to prepare this address, and I want every minute while we are riding to the meeting."

The meeting was a large one. The governor took the chair and introduced me in this original way: "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I want to say about Chauncey Depew, whom I am now going to introduce to you as the lecturer of the evening, that he is no Demosthenes, because he can beat Demosthenes out of sight. He prepared his speech in the carriage in which I was bringing him up here, and he don't have, like the old Greek, to chew pebble-stones in order to make a speech."

Governor Flower in a conservative way was a successful trader in the stock market. When he felt he had a sure point he would share it with a few friends. He took special delight in helping in this way men who had little means and no knowledge of the art of moneymaking. There were a great many benefited by his bounty.

I was dining one night with the Gridiron Club at Washington, and before me was a plate of radishes. The newspaper man next to me asked if I would object to having the radishes removed.

I said: "There is no odor or perfume from them. What is the matter with the radishes?"

After they were taken away he told me his story. "Governor Flower," he said, "was very kind to me, as he invariably was to all newspaper men. He asked me one day how much I had saved in my twenty years in journalism. I told him ten thousand dollars. He said: 'That is not enough for so long a period. Let me have the money.' So I handed over to him my bank-account. In a few weeks he told me that my ten thousand dollars had become twenty, and I could have them if I wished. I said: 'No, you are doing far better than I could. Keep it.' In about a month or more my account had grown to thirty thousand dollars. Then the governor on a very hot day went fishing somewhere off the Long Island coast. He was a very large, heavy man, became overheated, and on his return drank a lot of ice-water and ate a bunch of radishes. He died that afternoon. There was a panic in the stocks which were his favorites the next day, and they fell out of sight. The result was that I lost my fortune of ten thousand dollars and also my profit of twenty. Since then the sight of a radish makes me sick."

XVIII. FIFTY-SIX YEARS WITH THE NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY

Heredity has much to do with a man's career. The village of Peekskill-on-the-Hudson, about forty miles from New York, was in the early days the market-town of a large section of the surrounding country, extending over to the State of Connecticut. It was a farming region, and its products destined for New York City were shipped by sloops on the Hudson from the wharfs at Peekskill, and the return voyage brought back the merchandise required by the country.

My father and his brother owned the majority of the sloops engaged in this, at that time, almost the only transportation. The sloops were succeeded by steamboats in which my people were also interested. When Commodore Vanderbilt entered into active rivalry with the other steamboat lines between New York and Albany, the competition became very serious. Newer and faster boats were rapidly built. These racers would reach the Bay of Peekskill in the late afternoon, and the younger population of the village would be on the banks of the river, enthusiastically applauding their favorites. Among well-known boats whose names and achievements excited as much interest and aroused as much partisanship and sporting spirit as do now famous race-horses or baseball champions, were the following: Mary Powell, Dean Richmond, The Alida, and The Hendrick Hudson.

I remember as if it were yesterday when the Hudson River Railroad had reached Peekskill, and the event was locally celebrated. The people came in as to a county fair from fifty miles around. When the locomotive steamed into the station many of those present had never seen one. The engineer was continuously blowing his whistle to emphasize the great event. This produced much consternation and confusion among the horses, as all farmers were there with their families in carriages or wagons.

I recall one team of young horses which were driven to frenzy; their owner was unable to control them, but he kept them on the road while they ran away with a wild dash over the hills. In telling this story, as illustrating how recent is railway development in the United States, at a dinner abroad, I stated that as far as I knew and believed, those horses were so frightened that they could not be stopped and were still running. A very successful and serious-minded captain of industry among the guests sternly rebuked me by saying: "Sir, that is impossible; horses were never born that could run for twenty-five years without stopping." American exaggeration was not so well known among our friends on the other side then as it is now.

As we boys of the village were gathered on the banks of the Hudson cheering our favorite steamers, or watching with eager interest the movements of the trains, a frequent discussion would be about our ambitions in life. Every young fellow would state a dream which he hoped but never expected to be realized. I was charged by my companions with having the greatest imagination and with painting more pictures in the skies than any of them. This was because I stated that in politics, for I was a great admirer of William H. Seward, then senator from New York, I expected to be a United States senator, and in business, because then the largest figure in the business world was Commodore Vanderbilt, I hoped to become president of the Hudson River Railroad. It is one of the strangest incidents of what seemed the wild imaginings of a village boy that in the course of long years both these expectations were realized.

When I entered the service of the railroad on the first of January, 1866, the Vanderbilt system consisted of the Hudson River and Harlem Railroads, the Harlem ending at Chatham, 128 miles, and the Hudson River at Albany, 140 miles long. The Vanderbilt system now covers 20,000 miles. The total railway mileage of the whole United States at that time was 36,000, and now it is 261,000 miles.

My connection with the New York Central Railroad covers practically the whole period of railway construction, expansion, and development in the United States. It is a singular evidence of the rapidity of our country's growth and of the way which that growth has steadily followed the rails, that all this development of States, of villages growing into cities, of scattered communities becoming great manufacturing centres, of an internal commerce reaching proportions where it has greater volume than the foreign interchanges of the whole world, has come about during a period covered by the official career of a railroad man who is still in the service: an attorney in 1866, a vice-president in 1882, president in 1885, chairman of the board of directors in 1899, and still holds that office.

There is no such record in the country for continuous service with one company, which during the whole period has been controlled by one family. This service of more than half a century has been in every way satisfactory. It is a pleasure to see the fourth generation, inheriting the ability of the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, still active in the management.

I want to say that in thus linking my long relationship with the railroads to this marvellous development, I do not claim to have been better than the railway officers who during this time have performed their duties to the best of their ability. I wish also to pay tribute to the men of original genius, of vision and daring, to whom so much is due in the expansion and improvement of the American railway systems.

Commodore Vanderbilt was one of the most remarkable men our country has produced. He was endowed with wonderful foresight, grasp of difficult situations, ability to see opportunities before others, to solve serious problems, and the courage of his convictions. He had little education or early advantages, but was eminently successful in everything he undertook. As a boy on Staten Island he foresaw that upon transportation depended the settlement, growth, and prosperity of this nation. He began with a small boat running across the harbor from Staten Island to New York. Very early in his career he acquired a steamboat and in a few years was master of Long Island Sound. He then extended his operations to the Hudson River and speedily acquired the dominating ownership in boats competing between New York and Albany.

When gold was discovered in California he started a line on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Darien and secured from the government of Nicaragua the privilege of crossing the Isthmus for a transportation system through its territory, and then established a line of steamers on the Pacific to San Francisco. In a short time the old-established lines, both on the Atlantic and the Pacific, were compelled to sell out to him. Then he entered the transatlantic trade, with steamers to Europe.

With that vision which is a gift and cannot be accounted for, he decided that the transportation work of the future was on land and in railroads. He abandoned the sea, and his first enterprise was the purchase of the New York and Harlem Railroad, which was only one hundred and twenty-eight miles long. The road was bankrupt and its road-bed and equipment going from bad to worse. The commodore reconstructed the line, re-equipped it, and by making it serviceable to its territory increased its traffic and turned its business from deficiency into profit. This was in 1864. The commodore became president, and his son, William H. Vanderbilt, vice-president. He saw that the extension of the Harlem was not advisable, and so secured the Hudson River Railroad, running from New York to Albany, and became its president in 1865. It was a few months after this when he and his son invited me to become a member of their staff.

The station of the Harlem Railroad in the city of New York was at that time at Fourth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, and that of the Hudson River Railroad at Chambers Street, near the North River.

In a few years William H. Vanderbilt purchased the ground for the Harlem Railroad Company, where is now located the Grand Central Terminal, and by the acquisition by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad of the Harlem Railroad the trains of the New York Central were brought around into the Grand Central Station.

In 1867, two years after Mr. Vanderbilt had acquired the Hudson River Railroad, he secured the control of the New York Central, which ran from Albany to Buffalo. This control was continued through the Lake Shore on one side of the lakes and the Michigan Central on the other to Chicago. Subsequently the Vanderbilt System was extended to Cincinnati and St. Louis. It was thus in immediate connection with the West and Northwest centering in Chicago, and the Southwest at Cincinnati and St. Louis. By close connection and affiliation with the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company, the Vanderbilt system was extended beyond to Mississippi. I became director in the New York Central in 1874 and in the Chicago and Northwestern in 1877.

It has been my good fortune to meet with more or less intimacy many of the remarkable men in every department of life, but I think Commodore Vanderbilt was the most original. I had been well acquainted for some years both with the commodore and his son, William H. When I became attorney my relations were more intimate than those usually existing. I was in daily consultation with the commodore during the ten years prior to his death, and with his son from 1866 to 1885, when he died.

The commodore was constantly, because of his wealth and power, importuned by people who wished to interest him in their schemes. Most of the great and progressive enterprises of his time were presented to him. He would listen patiently, ask a few questions, and in a short time grasp the whole subject. Then with wonderful quickness and unerring judgment he would render his decision. No one knew by what process he arrived at these conclusions. They seemed to be the results as much of inspiration as of insight.

The Civil War closed in 1865, and one of its lessons had been the necessity for more railroads. The country had discovered that without transportation its vast and fertile territories could neither be populated nor made productive. Every mile of railroad carried settlers, opened farms and increased the national resources and wealth. The economical and critical conditions of the country, owing to the expansion of the currency and banking conditions, facilitated and encouraged vast schemes of railroad construction. This and a wild speculation resulted in the panic of 1873. Nearly the whole country went bankrupt. The recovery was rapid, and the constructive talent of the Republic saw that the restoration of credit and prosperity must be led by railway solvency. In August, 1874, Commodore Vanderbilt invited the representatives of the other and competitive lines to a conference at Saratoga. Owing, however, to the jealousies and hostilities of the period, only the New York Central, the Pennsylvania, and the Erie railways were represented.

The eastern railway situation was then dominated by Commodore Vanderbilt, Colonel Thomas A. Scott, of the Pennsylvania, and John W. Garrett, of the Baltimore and Ohio. Both Scott and Garrett were original men and empire builders. There was neither governmental nor State regulation. The head of a railway system had practically unlimited power in the operation of his road. The people were so anxious for the construction of railways that they offered every possible inducement to capital. The result was a great deal of unprofitable construction and immense losses to the promoters.

These able men saw that there was no possibility of railway construction, operation, and efficiency, with a continuance of unrestricted competition. It has taken from 1874 until 1920 to educate the railway men, the shippers, and the government to a realization of the fact that transportation facilities required for the public necessities can only be had by the freest operations and the strictest government regulations; that the solution of the problem is a system so automatic that public arbitration shall decide the justice of the demands of labor, and rates be advanced to meet the decision, and that public authority also shall take into consideration the other factors of increased expenses and adequate facilities for the railroads, and that maintenance and the highest efficiency must be preserved and also necessary extensions. To satisfy and attract capital there must be the assurance of a reasonable return upon the investment.