And while on this phase, we should not overlook another salient fact which thrusts itself out for notice. We have seen how John Jacob Astor of the third generation very eagerly in 1867 invited Cornelius Vanderbilt to take over the management of the New York Central Railroad, after Vanderbilt had proved himself not less an able executive than an indefatigable and effective briber and corrupter. So long as Vanderbilt produced the profits, Astor and his fellow-directors did not care what means he used, however criminal in law and whatever their turpitude in morals. John Jacob Astor of the fourth generation repeats this performance in aligning himself, as does Goelet, with that master-hand Harriman, against whom the most specific charges of colossal looting have been brought.[166] But it would be both idle and prejudicial in the highest degree to single out for condemnation a brace of capitalists for following out a line of action so strikingly characteristic of the entire capitalist class--a class which, in the pursuit of profits, dismisses nicety of ethics and morals, and which ordains its own laws. THE RHINELANDERS. The wealth of the Rhinelander family is commonly placed at about $100,000,000. But this, there is excellent reason to believe, is an absurdly low approximation. Nearly a century and a half ago William and Frederick Rhinelander kept a bakeshop on William street, New York City, and during the Revolution operated a sugar factory. They also built ships and did a large commission business. It is usually set forth, in the plenitude of eulogistic biographies, that their thrift and ability were the foundation of the family's immense fortune. Little research is necessary to shatter this error. That they conducted their business in the accepted methods of the day and exercised great astuteness and frugality, is true enough, but so did a host of other merchants whose descendants are even now living in poverty. Some other explanation must be found to account for the phenomenal increase of the original small fortune and its unshaken retention.