Other People's Money, and How the Bankers Use ItBrandeis, Louis Dembitz
History
Other People's Money, and How the Bankers Use It
Brandeis, Louis Dembitz
Banks and banking -- United States; Finance -- United States
On September 9, 1909, less than twelve years after Mr. Harriman
first became a director in the Union Pacific, he died from overwork
at the age of 61. But it was not death only that had set a limit to
his achievements. The multiplicity of his interests prevented him
from performing for his other railroads the great services that had
won him a world-wide reputation as manager and rehabilitator of the
Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific. Within a few months after
Mr. Harriman’s death the serious equipment scandal on the Illinois
Central became public, culminating in the probable suicide of one
of the vice-presidents of that company. The Chicago & Alton (in the
management of which Mr. Harriman was prominent from 1899 to 1907, as
President, Chairman of the Board, or Executive Committeeman), has
never regained the prosperity it enjoyed before he and his associates
acquired control. The Père Marquette has passed again into receiver’s
hands. Long before Mr. Harriman’s death the Union Pacific had disposed
of its Northern Pacific stock, because the Supreme Court of the
United States declared the Northern Securities Company illegal, and
dissolved the Northern Pacific-Great Northern merger. Three years
after his death, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered the
Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger dissolved. By a strange irony,
the law has permitted the Union Pacific to reap large profits from its
illegal transactions in Northern Pacific and Southern Pacific stocks.
But many other stocks held “as investments” have entailed large losses.
Stocks in the Illinois Central and other companies which cost the Union
Pacific $129,894,991.72, had on November 15, 1913, a market value of
only $87,851,500; showing a shrinkage of $42,043,491.72 and the average
income from them, while held, was only about 4.30 per cent. on their
cost.
A BANKERS’ PARADISE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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