"protecting its stockholders against injurious legislation." As one of the largest stockholders in the road John Jacob Astor, Jr., certainly must have been one of the masked parties to this continuous saturnalia of corruption. But the corruption, bad as it was, that took place before 1867, was rather insignificant compared to the eruption in the years 1868 and 1869. And here is to be noted a significant episode which fully reveals how the capitalist class is ever willing to turn over the managing of its property to men of its own class who have proved themselves masters of the art either of corrupting public bodies, or of making that property yield still greater profits.
BRIBERY AND BUSINESS.
In control of the New York and Harlem Railroad, Cornelius Vanderbilt had showed what a remarkably successful magnate he was in deluging legislatures and common councils with bribe money and in getting corrupt gifts of franchises and laws worth many hundreds of millions of dollars. For a while the New York Central fought him; it bribed where he bribed; when he intimidated, it intimidated. But Vanderbilt was, by far, the abler of the two contending forces. Finally the stockholders decided that he was the man to run their system; and on Nov. 12, 1867, John Jacob Astor, Jr., Edward Cunard, John Steward and others, representing more than thirteen million dollars of stock, turned the New York Central over to Vanderbilt's management on the ground, as their letter set forth, that the change would result in larger dividends to the stockholders and (this bit of cant was gratuitously thrown in) "greatly promote the interests of the public." In closing, they wrote to Vanderbilt of "your great and acknowledged abilities." No sooner had Vanderbilt been put in control than these abilities were preëminently displayed by such an amazing reign of corruption and exaction, that even a public cynically habituated to bribery and arbitrary methods, was profoundly stirred.3