ly valuable exemptions to that railroad. John Jacob
Astor, Jr., never built a railroad in his life; he knew nothing about
railroads; but by virtue of the possession of large surplus wealth,
derived mainly from rents, he was enabled to buy enough of the stock to
make him rank as a large stockholder. And, then, he with the other
stockholders, bribed the Legislature for the passage of more laws which
enormously increased the value of their stock.

It is altogether clear from the investigations and records of the time
that the New York Central Railroad was one of the most industrious
corrupters of legislatures in the country, although this is not saying
much in dealing with a period when every State Legislature, none
excepted, was making gifts of public property and of laws in return for
bribes, and when Congress, as was proved in official investigations, was
prodigal in doing likewise.[144]

In the fourteen years up to 1867, the New York Central Railroad
had spent upward of a half million dollars in buying laws at Albany and
in "protecting its stockholders against injurious legislation." As one
of the largest stockholders in the road John Jacob Astor, Jr., certainly
must have been one of the masked parties to this continuous saturnalia
of corruption. But the corruption, bad as it was, that took place before
1867, was rather insignificant compared to the eruption in the years
1868 and 1869. And here is to be noted a significant episode which fully
reveals how the capitalist class is ever willing to turn over the
managing of its property to men of its own class who have proved
themselves masters of the art either of corrupting public bodies, or of
making that property yield still greater profits.

BRIBERY AND BUSINESS.

In control of the New York and Harlem Railroad, Cornelius Vanderbilt had
showed what a remarkably successful magnate he was in deluging
legislatures and common councils with bribe money and in getting corrupt
gifts of franchises and laws worth many hundreds of millions of dollars.
For a while the New York Central fought him; it bribed where he bribed;
when he intimidated, it intimidated. But Vanderbilt was, by far, the
abler of the two contending forces. Finally the stockholders decided
that he was the man to run their system; and on Nov. 12, 1867, John
Jacob Astor, Jr., Edward Cunard, John Steward and others, representing
more than thirteen million dollars of stock, turned the New York Central
over to