In probably no other country of the world would one man be permitted to control its telegraph system. But Gould became the absolute dictator of the Western Union and successfully overcame every competitor that arose. His record in Western Union, like that in his other properties, is that of a tremendous increase of securities. Like the wicked milkman, Gould always skimmed off the cream and poured water into all his properties. The comic papers delighted to picture him with a watering-pot in his hand. The mainspring of the Western Union is monopoly. Its condition is such that it cannot exist with profit to its stockholders with a strong competition in the field. Thus it is a grand aggregation of small companies. It has absorbed and will probably continue to absorb every rival in the field. Gould himself rode into control on the back of a competing company. This was early in 1881. His version of the story is given in his testimony to the Senate Committee on Labor and Education. “I am interested in the telegraph,” he told the committee, “for the railroad and telegraph systems go hand in hand, as it were, integral parts of a great civilization. I naturally became acquainted with the telegraph business and gradually became interested in it. I thought well of it as an investment, and I kept increasing my interests. When the Union Pacific was built I had an interest in a company called the Atlantic and Pacific, and I endeavored to make that a rival to the Western Union. We extended it considerably, but found it rather uphill work. We saw that our interest lay more with the Western Union. Through that we could reach every part of the country, and through a small company we could not; so we made an offer to sell to Western Union the control of the Atlantic and Pacific. At that time a very dear friend of mine was the manager, and I supposed that he would be made the manager of the Western Union; but after the consolidation was perfected it was not done, and I made up my mind that he should be at the head of as good a company as I had taken him from. The friend was Gen. Eckert, and for him I started another company, the American Union--and we carried it forward until a proposition was made to merge it also into the Western Union. As the stock of the latter went down, I bought a large interest in it, and found that the only way out was to put the two companies together. Gen. Eckert became general manager of the whole system. Meantime, I bought so much of its property and its earning power that I have kept increasing my interest. I thought it better to let my income go into the things that I was in myself, and I have never sold any of my interests, but have devoted my income to increasing them. This is the whole history of it.”