h
investors at approximately its current market price of about $130 per
share. The sale was promptly accomplished; the stock went into the hands
of unknown interests abroad; Vanderbilt received more than $25,000,000
in cash, which he largely reinvested in United States government bonds,
and the Morgan syndicate reaped a profit of about $3,000,000. Five
months after the closing of the syndicate public announcement was made
of the sale and of the syndicate profit. The striking success of this
transaction naturally added greatly to the prestige of. J. P. Morgan as
a financier of very large caliber, and it had the satisfactory effect of
curtailing the legislative attacks on Vanderbilt.

From that date forward, the history of the Vanderbilt railroads has
been closely identified with the House of Morgan. J.P. Morgan and
his business associates became the company's financial agents, and
thereafter all plans of expansion or consolidation were handled directly
by them. In the board of directors Morgan banking interests had full
representation, which they have held until this day.

The subsequent history of the Vanderbilt lines is chiefly a story of
business expansion and growth. From 1885 to 1893, the great panic year,
the New York Central each year added to its mileage, either by merger of
smaller lines or by construction. All this time it was consolidating the
system, eliminating the weaker links, and strengthening the stronger.
Its lines penetrated all the best Eastern railroad territory outside of
New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and no other railroad system
in the country, with the single exception of the Pennsylvania, covered
anything like the same amount of rich and settled territory, or reached
so many cities and towns of importance. New York, Buffalo, Cleveland,
Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Indianapolis--these are a
few of the great traffic centers which were included in the Vanderbilt
preserves. The population of all these cities, as well as that of the
hundreds of smaller places and the countryside in general, was growing
by leaps and bounds. Furthermore the Northwest, beyond the Great Lakes
and through to the Pacific coast, saw the beginnings of its great
development at this time; and the wheat fields of the far western
country became a factor of profound importance in the national
development. Consequently when the period of depression arrived with the
panic of 1893, the Vanderbilt properties