aced; but the
State banks promptly took over that share of the exploitative process so
long carried on by the United States Bank and the people, as has already
been explained, were no better off than they were before. One set of
ruling capitalists had been put down only to make way for another.

Both parties received the greater part of their campaign funds from the
men of large property and from the vested corporations or other similar
interests. Astor, for example, was always a liberal contributor, now to
the Whig party and again to the Democratic. In return, the politicians
elected by those parties to the legislature, the courts or to
administrative offices usually considered themselves under obligations
to that element which financed its campaigns and which had the power of
defeating their reelection by the refusal of funds or by supporting the
opposite party. The masses of the people were simply pawns in these
political contests, yet few of them understood that all the excitement,
partisan activity and enthusiasm into which they threw themselves,
generally had no other significance than to enchain them still faster to
a system whose beneficiaries were continuously getting more and more
rights and privileges for themselves at the expense of the people, and
whose wealth was consequently increasing by precipitate bounds.

ASTOR BECOMES AMERICA'S RICHEST MAN.

Astor was now the richest man in America. In 1847 his fortune was
estimated at fully $20,000,000. In all the length and breadth of the
United States there was no man whose fortune was within even
approachable distance of his. With wonderment his contemporaries
regarded its magnitude. How great it ranked at that period may be seen
by a contrast with the wealth of other men who were considered very
rich.

In 1847 and 1852 a pamphlet listing the number of rich men in New York
was published under the direction of Moses Yale Beach, publisher of the
"New York Sun." The contents of this pamphlet were vouched for as
strictly accurate.[139] The pamphlet showed that there were at that time
perhaps twenty-five men in New York City who were ranked as
millionaires. The most prominent of these were Peter Cooper with an
accredited fortune of $1,000,000; the Goelets, $2,000,000; the
Lorillards, $1,000,000; Moses Taylor, $1,000,000; A. T. Stewart,
$2,000,000; Cornelius Vanderbilt, $1,500,000, and William B. Crosby,
$1,500,000. There were a few fortunes of $500,000 each, and