s much again, it was impossible to borrow thirty thousand
dollars in the city of New York. Bankers, personal friends of the
publisher, stated quite openly that word had gone out that any one who
loaned money to him would be "broken". I myself sent telegrams to
everyone I knew who might by any chance be able to help; but there was
no help, and Hampton retired without a dollar to his name, and the
magazine was sold under the hammer to a concern which immediately
wrecked it and discontinued publication.

#The Industrial Shelley#

Such was the fate of an editor who opposed the "New Haven". And now,
what of those editors who supported it? Turn to "The Outlook, a Weekly
Journal of Current Events," edited by Lyman Abbott--the issue of Dec.
25th, nineteen hundred and nine years after Christ came down to bring
peace on earth and good-will toward Wall Street. You will there find
an article by Sylvester Baxter entitled "The Upbuilding of a Great
Railroad." It is the familiar "slush" article which we professional
writers learn to know at a glance. "Prodigious", Mr. Baxter tells us,
has been the progress of the New Haven; this was "a masterstroke",
that was "characteristically sagacious". The road had made "prodigious
expenditures", and to a noble end: "Transportation efficiency
epitomizes the broad aim that animated these expenditures and other
constructive activities." There are photographs of bridges and
stations--"vast terminal improvements", "a masterpiece of modern
engineering", "the highest, greatest and most architectural of
bridges". Of the official under whom these miracles were being
wrought--President Mellen--we read: "Nervously organized, of delicate
sensibility, impulsive in utterance, yet with an extraordinarily
convincing power for vividly logical presentation." An industrial
Shelley, or a Milton, you perceive; and all this prodigious genius
poured out for the general welfare! "To study out the sort of
transportation service best adapted to these ends, and then to provide
it in the most efficient form possible, that is the life-task that
President Mellen has set himself."

There was no less than sixteen pages of these raptures--quite a
section of a small magazine like the "Outlook". "The New Haven
ramifies to every spot where industry flourishes, where business
thrives." "As a purveyor of transportation it supplies the public with
just the sort desired." "Here we have the new efficiency in a
nutshell." In short,