ied, but that
may be due to the fact that he was contending with men who never had any
to be atrophied. He worked incessantly until 12 or 1 o'clock at night.
He took no pride in building up an enterprise. He was after money, and
money only. Whether the company was a success or a failure mattered not
to him. After he had hammered the Western Union through his opposition
company and had tired out Mr. Vanderbilt, the latter retired from
control, and Gould went in and consolidated his company and controlled
the Western Union. He then repudiated the contract with the Automatic
Telegraph people, and they never received a cent for their wires or
patents, and I lost three years of very hard labor. But I never had any
grudge against him, because he was so able in his line, and as long as
my part was successful the money with me was a secondary consideration.
When Gould got the Western Union I knew no further progress in
telegraphy was possible, and I went into other lines." The truth is
that General Eckert was a conservative--even a reactionary--and being
prejudiced like many other American telegraph managers against "machine
telegraphy," threw out all such improvements.

The course of electrical history has been variegated by some very
remarkable litigation; but none was ever more extraordinary than that
referred to here as arising from the transfer of the Automatic Telegraph
Company to Mr. Jay Gould and the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company.
The terms accepted by Colonel Reiff from Mr. Gould, on December 30,
1874, provided that the purchasing telegraph company should increase its
capital to $15,000,000, of which the Automatic interests were to receive
$4,000,000 for their patents, contracts, etc. The stock was then selling
at about 25, and in the later consolidation with the Western Union
"went in" at about 60; so that the real purchase price was not less than
$1,000,000 in cash. There was a private arrangement in writing with Mr.
Gould that he was to receive one-tenth of the "result" to the Automatic
group, and a tenth of the further results secured at home and abroad.
Mr. Gould personally bought up and gave money and bonds for one or two
individual interests on the above basis, including that of Harrington,
who in his representative capacity executed assignments to Mr. Gould.
But payments were then stopped, and the other owners were left without
any compensation, although all that belonged to them in the shape of
property