The history of our steamship lines is similar. In 1807, Robert Fulton, with the financial aid of Robert R. Livingston, a judge and statesman--not a banker--demonstrated with the _Claremont_, that it was practicable to propel boats by steam. In 1833 the three Cunard brothers of Halifax and 232 other persons--stockholders of the Quebec and Halifax Steam Navigation Company--joined in supplying about $80,000 to build the _Royal William_,--the first steamer to cross the Atlantic. In 1902, many years after individual enterprises had developed practically all the great ocean lines, J. P. Morgan & Co. floated the International Mercantile Marine with its $52,744,000 of 4 1/2 bonds, now selling at about 60, and $100,000,000 of stock (preferred and common) on which no dividend has ever been paid. It was just sixty-two years after the first regular line of transatlantic steamers--The Cunard--was founded that Mr. Morgan organized the Shipping Trust. TELEGRAPH The story of the telegraph is similar. The money for developing Morse’s invention was supplied by his partner and co-worker, Alfred Vail. The initial line (from Washington to Baltimore) was built with an appropriation of $30,000 made by Congress in 1843. Sixty-six years later J. P. Morgan & Co. became bankers for the Western Union through financing its purchase by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. HARVESTING MACHINERY Next to railroads and steamships, harvesting machinery has probably been the most potent factor in the development of America; and most important of the harvesting machines was Cyrus H. McCormick’s reaper. That made it possible to increase the grain harvest twenty- or thirty-fold. No investment banker had any part in introducing this great business man’s invention. McCormick was without means; but William Butler Ogden, a railroad builder, ex-Mayor and leading citizen of Chicago, supplied $25,000 with which the first factory was built there in 1847. Fifty-five years later, J. P. Morgan & Co. performed the service of combining the five great harvester companies, and received a commission of $3,000,000. The concerns then consolidated as the International Harvester Company, with a capital stock of $120,000,000, had, despite their huge assets and earning power, been previously capitalized, in the aggregate, at only $10,500,000--strong evidence that in all the preceding years no investment banker had financed them. Indeed, McCormick was as able in business as in mechanical invention. Two years after Ogden paid him $25,000 for a half interest in the business, McCormick bought it back for $50,000; and thereafter, until his death in 1884, no one but members of the McCormick family had any interest in the business. THE BANKER ERA