The rapidity and ease with which their fortunes have been acquired, the magnitude of their fortunes, their freedom from personal relations, and consequent freedom from sense of obligation to those from whom they derive their incomes, make them a class favored above any other that has ever existed.
And yet the spirit of much of our society is that there is no opposing power to draw upon; it is a case of laissez faire; the evil, if it be an evil, and in so far as it is an evil, will work itself out in time.
A representative of the class has drawn a parallel between himself and his class and the highest representatives of the political power of the people. The New York "Sun," of December 14, 1885, gives an account of an interview, between its reporter and Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, concerning the late Mr. Vanderbilt. "The Sun's" interviews, as is well known, are approved before publication by the person interviewed. Said Mr. Depew: "He had a poor opinion of politicians of all kinds. 'He said to me: What is there in politics to be desired? There is no money in it, and by going into it a man breaks up his business and is generally unable to resume it afterward. It lays him open to endless abuse and gives him no end of trouble. There is very little honor in it. Politicians never impressed me at all. I had three United States Senators in my office the other day, and I paid no more attention to them than if they were so many clerks. If they had been great shippers, great railroad men, or great business men of any kind, I should have been interested in them, but as it was I did not understand them. They do not impress me at all. Whenever I go to Washington they want to sell me a patent, or ask for a place on some of my roads, saying that they want to get out of politics.'"
Does not this reflect correctly the opinion of railroad magnates themselves, and in great degree popular opinion, that these magnates are greater than the highest representatives of the people—that there is no law to which, from the pinnacles of their greatness, they are amenable?
I have claimed consolidation as the special and remarkable feature of transportation, whether it be of railroads in any of their forms, telegraph-lines, gas-lines, and still other forms of transportation developed and developing. These consolidations are national and municipal in their character, tending to the bringing any one system, however extensive it may be, under a single management. Instances are almost too trite to be worthy of mention. In the greatest examples, we have the Western Union Telegraph Company; the Huntington, the Garrett, the Gould, the Vanderbilt, and other railroad systems; in municipal affairs, the consolidation of the elevated railroads of New York; in less degree, the consolidation of the ordinary street-lines, and the consolidation of the gas interests. How far do we have to look into futurity to see, judging by the past, the management of the railroads of the United States emanating from a single office?
