DEATH OF W,’ 11. VANDEB HILT,

Dunstan Times, Issue 1249, 5 February 1886, Page 3

DEATH OF W,’ 11. VANDEB HILT,

From the way in which America seems disposed to ureet the news of the deatli of Mr W. H. Vanderbilt, it might be imagined some great potentate hud left us. And, in his own line; he was among earth’s mighty ones. To possess, property reputedly worth forty or fifty millions sterling, and yielding aq immense revenue, must endow a man wPh power of a kind. His income alone represented the total earnings of thousands of men at a hundred a year, and the capital of the dead man’s fortune, unless highly magnified in amount, almost rivalled a year’s savings of the entire United States. Putting power, then, on its lowest, most sordid basis, William Vanderbilt was a man high above his fallows in the command he had over the fruits of men’s labor. None in his own country equalled him in this respect, and in other attributes hia match could hardly be found among the great Rifle-s of Europe. As a mere 'mortgagee of human industry ha was no mean man, and as the greatest of railroad kings he was a man of mark. In this country.it is now almost impossible to understand what a railway “ king” is. We have Corporations which may he despotic in their control of trade, but they are not, ostensibly at least, in the grasp of individuals. Power is hidden an I subdivided, so that the greatest railway ruler in England is forced to be in some degree circumspect in his attitude towards the people. No such necessity lay upon Mr Vanderbilt. When it became a question of winch should prevail his perso nal interest or that of the people at large—he fought for his own hand, and won. Tn that land of monopolies—the United States —he often in his struggles for self-aggran-disement, became the monopoly devourer, and ever since he, some eight or nine years ago, assumed full control of his railways, on the death of his rough, shrewd, ignorant father, hia lift has been spent in active conflict. Combination after combination has been formed against him by interests whom he weighed upon and threatened to ruin, or by speculators who thought they might profit by theqnarrels of greater rivals, but again ana again he has routed bis foes. His last great camoiign was fought against 'he New York, West Mfiore, and Buffalo Railway Company, and a long, bitter campaign it was. But it ended, as others had done, in victory for the Vanderbilt interest, and ere he died Mr Vanderbilt hart fho satisfaction at least of knowing that his family remain arbiters of the destinies of the only Trunk Railway running direelly into New York City, and so in some respects of that city’s fate. A less lomantic career than Vanderbilt’s could hardly be imagined. In all its aspects it appears sordid and mean. The dm aort smoke of the Stock-dealing pandemonium which attended every step in the wealth-, accumulating career of the Vanderbilt family form a poor substitute, to thoie of a sentimental turn, for the clang of battle and flow of blood by which the men enslavers of oil gained their ends. S- -raid ns they may be, however, the life and the position of Ihe"Vanderbilt family have an intense interest for the United States 1 people, and are not without signiicanee even , in countries like our own. That family today either owns or holds a controlling interest in soma ten thousand miles of railway—counting double tracks in the American fashion—stretching f-om New York City to the borders of Wyoming. Their hands are upon the traffic of Northern CanaJa, and according to their pleasure, for half the year at least, the fanners of the , great grain growing and cattle rearing half of j the Central and North-Western States find I their occupations profitable cr not. In same 1 essential ways they hold the trade of New i York in the hollow of their hind, and no business worth the name can be started anywhere a’ong the rail ways they command ' without Ih-ir support and sanction. They I can, within limits, bring the meat expo, ter { into great fortune or strip him bare ; it is 1 much a matter of favor whether a man flourishes or becomes bankrupt. As we have said, possessors of a great monopoly themselves, the Vanderbihs can become, and often have been, the dnvourers of 0 her monopolies. The struggles of successful rebellion alone modify theiryoke, but hitherto rebellion has never been successful for more than a few months. In the last great conflict, the New York Central Company got more severely handled thin ever it had been since its consolidation, but no one could doubt how the tight would end. The man whoso income was reckoned by millions a year, and who, besides, had had tho prudence and foraigbt to divest himselt of the Stock of his great Company to an ex tent which ma le its last dividends of no moment to him, must, in the long ran, be too much for any group of capitalists that could be formed against him. While tho waste and devastation of the conflict lasted producers might rejoice, farmers live, and brokers and exporters do a merry trade, and snatch at fortune with a trembling hand. For the space of a few mouths all comers might be welcome to railway facilities on terms ridiculously low or unusually equitable ; but tho rebel ones vanquished, and the ranks of the great monopoly Com panics close 1 up under the Vanderbilt lead, the man who had abetted rebellion, and who had not the means to propitiate tyrants, or the ear of their underlings, would fare worse, probably, than he had ever done in his life. The American railroad tyrant goes a step further than the English one, in the remote days of his power, ever dreamt of doing, and says, not merely what place, but what man shall prosper or whither, There is something strange, grotesque, yet fascinating in the pow.-r which a Democratic country, always glorying in its freedom, thus delegates, apparently voluntarily, to an individual, or group of individuals, leas responsible (or their acts than their greatest autocrat Russia ever saw.