of this was New York City land, but a considerable part was in railroad stocks and bonds, and miscellaneous aggregations of other securities to the purchase of which the surplus revenue had gone. Thus, like the Astors and other rich landholders, partly by investments made in trade, and largely by fraud, the Goelets finally became not only great landlords but sharers in the centralized ownership of the country's transportation systems and industries.
When Ogden Goelet died he left a fortune of at least $80,000,000, reckoning all of the complex forms of his property, and his brother, Robert, dying in 1899, left a fortune of about the same amount. Two children survived each of the brothers. Then was witnessed that characteristic so symptomatic of the American money aristocracy. A surfeit of money brings power, but it does not carry with it a recognized position among a titled aristocracy. The next step is marriage with title. The titled descendants of the predatory barons of the feudal ages having, generation after generation, squandered and mortgaged the estates gotten centuries ago by force and robbery, stand in need of funds. On the other hand, the feminine possessors of American millions, aided and abetted doubtless by the men of the family, who generally crave a "blooded" connection, lust for the superior social status insured by a title. The arrangement becomes easy. In marrying the Duke of Roxburghe in 1903, May Goelet, the daughter of Ogden, was but following the example set by a large number of other American women of multimillionaire families. It is an indulgence which, however great the superficial consequential money cost may be, is, in reality, inexpensive. As fast as millions are dissipated they are far more than replaced in these private coffers by the collective labor of the American people through the tributary media of rent, interest and profit. In the last ten years the value of the Goelet land holdings has enormously increased, until now it is almost too conservative an estimate to place the collective fortune at $200,000,000.