e height of his career,
approached me and said he had heard of me and he would purchase
control of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and give me one half of
all profits if I would agree to devote myself to its management. I
thanked him and said that, although Mr. Scott and I had parted company
in business matters, I would never raise my hand against him.
Subsequently Mr. Scott told me he had heard I had been selected by New
York interests to succeed him. I do not know how he had learned this,
as I had never mentioned it. I was able to reassure him by saying that
the only railroad company I would be president of would be one I
owned.

Strange what changes the whirligig of time brings in. It was my part
one morning in 1900, some thirty years afterwards, to tell the son of
Mr. Gould of his father's offer and to say to him:

"Your father offered me control of the great Pennsylvania system. Now
I offer his son in return the control of an international line from
ocean to ocean."

The son and I agreed upon the first step--that was the bringing of his
Wabash line to Pittsburgh. This was successfully done under a contract
given the Wabash of one third of the traffic of our steel company. We
were about to take up the eastern extension from Pittsburgh to the
Atlantic when Mr. Morgan approached me in March, 1901, through Mr.
Schwab, and asked if I really wished to retire from business. I
answered in the affirmative and that put an end to our railway
operations.

I have never bought or sold a share of stock speculatively in my life,
except one small lot of Pennsylvania Railroad shares that I bought
early in life for investment and for which I did not pay at the time
because bankers offered to carry it for me at a low rate. I have
adhered to the rule never to purchase what I did not pay for, and
never to sell what I did not own. In those early days, however, I had
several interests that were taken over in the course of business. They
included some stocks and securities that were quoted on the New York
Stock Exchange, and I found that when I opened my paper in the morning
I was tempted to look first at the quotations of the stock market. As
I had determined to sell all my interests in every outside concern and
concentrate my attention upon our manufacturing concerns in
Pittsburgh, I further resolved not even to own any stock that was
bought and sold upon any stock exchange. With the exception of
trifling amounts which came to me