L.B. Woolfolk

Space will not admit of a full narration of the manner in which the Money Power is devouring industry and trade and wealth, throughout the world .  While the head and the den of the Serpent are in England, its coils extend all over the earth .  It is everywhere ruining business men, and taking possession of their business and property .  In Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in South America, in Mexico, in Canada, in Australia, and in the Islands of the sea, it is constantly pursuing its deadly business of monopolizing the industry, trade and wealth of the world, by ruining people engaged in independent enterprise .  But space will only admit of a statement, in part, of its devouring the industries of the United States .

This Knot of London Jew Capitalists is having its way in the United States more completely than anywhere else in the world, except India .  In England, the Landed Aristocracy holds its own against the Money Power, in part, by the law of primogeniture, which enables it to maintain possession of the land, and much city property ;  and by the marriages of the sons of the landed aristocracy with the daughters of rich Englishmen associated with the Jew Money Kings and sharing their profits .

But, in America, the Money Power has had free course to ravage and devour .

I . The Money Power Has Kept Our Currency Constricted

The Money Kings have always had to have American products, as the basis of their trade with the population of Britain, and with the whole earth .  They needed our cotton for their English manufactures :  our wheat and pork, and beef, to feed their British operatives :  our hops, and barley, for the manufacture of malt liquors, for British and foreign consumption :  our fats, for the manufacture of soaps ;  and our tobacco, for the British and foreign markets .  Great Britain afforded them only coal, and iron and labor .  American productions have constituted the grand basis of their world-wide manufactures and commerce .

It was, therefore, their interest to buy our products cheap ;  and, to that end, it was their interest to have in this country as low a scale of prices as possible .  An effectual means of securing a low rate of prices for cotton tobacco, wheat, cotton, cheese, and all our products, was to keep money scarce in this country, and its purchasing value very high .

And during almost our entire existence as a nation, the scarcity of money, which the Money Kings have caused, has enabled them to keep down prices to the lowest point, and cause our people to suffer from chronic hard times .

1st.  The Crash of 1837 .

Our people once carried the idea that industry should be left to take care of itself, to the extreme of holding that the general Government should not supply currency to the country, but should leave it to be supplied by the states, and by individuals .  Our currency was on a specie basis ;  and it was held that the proper proportion between specie and currency was, specie to the amount of one-third of the paper circulating medium, to be kept in the vaults of banks .

This Abominable Currency System placed our currency, and the price of our products, completely under the control of the London Money Kings .  For the Money Kings always had the balance of trade against us ;  and they always purposely kept us drained of specie, so that, on a specie basis of one-third of the circulation, we could maintain only a sparse currency .

But, in 1836, our system of paper money was expanded to a point in some measure adequate to meet the business wants of the country .  For the first time, our produce went up to a fair price, sufficient to give us prosperity .  We then had a paper circulation of $136,000,000 ;  certainly not an inflated currency for the amount of our population and trade, being less than half the amount of currency per capita we had in 1870 .

But, we did not have Specie enough to maintain the one-third specie basis .  The Money Kings had no idea of paying a fair price for the American produce they were obliged to have .  It was increasing the value of our exports ;  and would soon enable us to pay with our products for the imports we bought of them ;  and we should soon have been able to secure specie enough for a safe basis for our circulating medium .  They wished to keep money scarce, and prices low ;  so as to compel us to sell them our products so cheap as to keep the balance of trade against us .  By thus keeping us in debt to them, they could keep us drained of specie, and keep money scarce and prices low, perpetually .

To this end, money must be made scarce, and times hard .  The state banks were banking on a specie basis, and had not nearly specie enough to redeem their issues .  It was only necessary for one prominent bank to fail, in order to cause a run on all the banks, and a suspension of specie payments ;  with a consequent contraction of the currency, scarcity of money and low prices, again .

The Money Kings made a heavy draft for specie on New York .  A prominent bank in New York failed, and the state banks all over the country went down like a house of cards .  Contraction of the currency followed at once .  In 1842, five years after the panic, we had in the whole country only $64,000,000 of currency, being only a little over three dollars per capita of the population !  It was horrible .  A tide of bankruptcy without a precedent overswept the country .  For thirteen years, from 1837 to 1850, scarcity of money continued, keeping our prosperity depressed, and making our prices low enough to satisfy the avarice of the London Money Kings, who got our wheat, and cotton, and pork and beef at any price they chose to offer .

The astonishing folly of our people in allowing the Money Kings to put down prices in this country by means of a scarcity of currency will excite the wonder of a later and wiser age .  These Money Kings never buy anything of us they can do without .  They have always had to have a certain amount of our cotton, pork and beef and wheat and barley and hops .  They can not do without them .  If we sustain the price at a fair rate they will have to pay it .  And yet, from 1837 to 1850, we allowed them, by draining us of specie, to contract our currency to three dollars per capita, and put our prices down to starvation rates !  What lamentable ignorance of the principles of political economy !  By allowing the Money Kings to keep our currency contracted, we allowed them to cheat us out of about $100,000,000 a year in the value of our exportsto get us deeper into debt to them every year, and to keep our people oppressed with direful poverty .  Our fathers showed great unwisdom .  Are their children wiser ?

Our produce had an actual value, which the Money Kings would have had to pay .  But by basing our currency on specie, of which they could drain us, we kept our produce at an artificially low price .  We thus lost every year a hundred million dollars by putting our products at an artificial price below their real value .  The Money Kings are wise :  they no doubt laughed in their sleeve at our simplicity in thus allowing a price to be fixed upon our products below their real value .

The London Money Kings organized the crash of 1837 .  They drew on New York heavily for specie, just before the panic .  The balance of trade is always against us and in their favor, and they could draw for specie as long and as heavily as they pleased .  And they continued to draw specie, till the end they aimed at was accomplished, and the panic began .  There can be no doubt that they did it with full intent to bring about the panic that followed .

2nd.  The Crash of 1857 .

There was no expansion of the currency after 1837, till after the discovery of the gold mines of California .  In 1850, the state banks again began to expand, and once more we had fair prices for produce, and prosperous times .  The expansion continued till 1857 .  There was no undue inflation .  The currency was not in excess of the legitimate needs of business, and prices were not too high .

But the currency was in excess of our capability of redeeming it in specie .  All the gold taken out of the mines in California was sent direct to London, to pay, in part, the balance of trade against us .  The London Money Kings took care that we should not have specie enough to constitute a one-third basis for a currency adequate to the business wants of the country .  They, having the power to regulate the amount of specie we were allowed to keep, did not choose to leave in the United States specie enough to furnish a basis for an amount of currency adequate to give us fair prices .

The fall of a Trust Company Bank in Ohio started a panic and brought on a general crash of the state banks, with the natural result of hard times, and a cheap market, in which the Money Kings could buy our produce at their own price .

The Panic of 1857 Was, Beyond Question, Engineered by the London Money Kings .  They took especial pains to get possession of the circulation of the Ohio Trust Company Bank, whose fall caused the panic, and they made extraordinary drafts upon it for specie, amounting to $5,000,000, so as to insure its fall .  Of two things one is certain :  Either the Money Kings owned the Trust Company Bank, so that they could get possession of its circulation at any time, and start the panic ;  or else they took especial pains to gather up its circulation, so that they might drain it of specie .  From the name of the institution,—“Trust Company,”—in the light of our own times, when these Money Kings are starting “Trusts” all over the world, it seems most probable that the Trust Company Bank was established by the London Money Power for the express purpose of using it as an instrument to start the panic .

In either case, they are pilloried before the eyes of our people, as making secret war upon our prosperity .  It is like the secret underhanded methods of the Money Kings to start a bani in this country, in order to have it ready, at any moment they chose, to start a panic by its fall ;  on purpose to break down our prosperity, and give them a cheap market in which to purchase our products, necessary to their commercial system .

The Boa Constrictor thus Kept Itself Coiled about our currency system, and it has constricted our currency every time it expanded sufficiently to give us fair prices .  They have thus been able to buy our products at little more than half their value, cheating us in this manner out of hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and keeping us in poverty .  By the low prices thus maintained, the Money Power has kept the balance of trade hundreds of millions against us every year ;  and this adverse balance of trade has been kept even, by lending us money to build railroads, and to use in every form of public improvement ;  thus by its loans coiling around our industry and our property, and constantly devouring it .

The Money Kings are public enemies, all the more dangerous because they work by such sly, secret undermining methods .

For forty years, from 1820 to 1860, prices were kept down and times hard .  Twice we were about to become prosperous, in 1836, and in 1856 ;  when both times, the Money Kings promptly crushed our rising prosperity .  In the forty years, from 1820 to 1860, they cheated us, by these low prices, out of at least four billions of dollars—enough to have made us the richest and most prosperous people on the globe .

One great Benefit of the Late War was, that it caused the Federal Government to furnish a currency that was not subject to collapse by the Money Kings withdrawing specie from the country .  The Money Kings brought on the crash of 1873 .  But they could not do it by withdrawing specie .  They were under the necessity of resorting to other means .  Before presenting the means by which the crash of 1873 was brought about, it will be better to bring up the account of their working in the country to that date, so that their operations upon the currency in 1873 may be better understood .

II . The Money Power Devoured Our Commercial Marine

The War afforded the Money Power the opportunity to strike us a deadly blow, in taking possession of our merchant shipping .  The means by which they accomplished this was in perfect accord with their watchful craft and cunning .  One of their ship building establishments built the steam cruisers which swept the seas, capturing many American vessels .  Their depredations so raised the cost of marine insurance, that American vessels could no longer compete with those of Great Britain .  Under such circumstances, American ship owners became willing to sell their ships .  The Money Kings had gained so much money by their world-wide operations that, as soon as the vessels were offered for sale, they were ready to purchase them .  In a few months the American ships were all purchased by the Money Kings, and transferred from the American to the British flag .  At one grand gulp the Boa Constrictor swallowed down the American navy .

While we had our commercial marine, we received for our produce the ruling price in the foreign port ;  and the profits were divided between the American producer, the American merchant who exported the produce, and the American ship owner who carried it .  But thenceforth, we only received the New York price :  the Money Kings realized all the profits beyond our own shores .

But this was too much for them to be willing for us to receive .  They wished to get closer to the producer, and leave to our people as small a part of the price of our products as possible .  Having driven us off the ocean, they now invaded our frontiers, resolved upon conquering and taking possession of every branch of industry in the country .  The history of the encroachments of the Money Power upon our industries is one long tragedy .

III . The Money Power Destroyed our New York Merchants

I Only Found It Out in 1880, when I spent some time in New York city .  The man at whose house I boarded told me one day in conversation that he had been rich, but had failed in business :  he then obtained a support by taking boarders .

“Misery loves company,” said he ;  “and the only consolation I have is that all the tall trees of the forest fell, when I went down .  Why sir,” he continued, “not more than three or four business men in New York, who were prominent in business before the War, are in business now .  They all failed .  Nobody knew what hurt them ;  but, from some cause, nobody knows what, business took new channels ;  their business left them ;  and they broke .  How business changed in New York since the War,” he continued meditatively, “is incomprehensible to everybody .”

Here was a grand effect ;  and I began to search out the cause .  I was then familiar with the methods of the Money Kings .  I had been watching their course for years in this country, and it was not difficult to find and follow their trail, on the war path against the New York merchants .

A Still Hunt was started against the New York wholesale merchants .  The London Money Kings owned the English manufactures and the mercantile shipping houses .  They started branch houses in New Yorkfilled them with splendid stocks of goods—and then they started the English Drummer System in this country .  The Drummer System was originated in England, over half a century ago, to accomplish the same purpose there against the old merchants of Great Britain, that was now wrought out by it in the United States .  The Money Kings, by means of it, drew all the trade of the country to their own New York branch houses .

The Western and Southern merchants had been in the habit of visiting New York City, once or twice a year, to buy new stocks of goods .  But now, the drummers of the Money King branch houses offered the Southern and Western merchants goods, by sample, of better quality, and at lower prices, than they could get them in New York .  The old New York merchants waited for their customers to come .  When, supplied by drummers, they quit coming, the old merchants, suppressed by English branch houses, failed, and retired from business .

It would be an interesting investigation to discover to what extent the Money Kings subsidized the old mercantile houses of New York City in their campaign .  It is usually their custom to get some of the business interests already established on their side—reorganize them with a vast capital—take a controlling interest of the stock of the new companies to themselves—but leave them under the old name, and the old management .  It seems that they adopted this policy toward only a few of the mercantile houses of New York City .  The few old houses that remained standing doubtless became the allies of the Money Power .  But they seem to have made almost a clean sweep substituting new houses for the old .

In their conquest of the New York merchants, the Money Kings employed the tactics which they always use .  As they availed themselves of their immense capital to put down prices on the New York merchants, so their method always is to put down prices on every business interest they assail .  The unfailing sign of their assault on a business, is a putting down of prices in the business .

The Money Kings Always Operate Through Joint Stock Corporations in order to conceal their operations .  A company is started in mercantile or other business by three or four persons associated in a joint stock corporation .  It can not be known but that those persons constitute the entire company .  There is nothing to indicate that the stockholders are the London Money Kings, and that the company is operated on British capital .  It seems to the public that it is an American firm .  But if the Company books of one of these conquering Companies that break down old business interests could be inspected, it would be found that the stockholders who furnish its unlimited capital are in London .

IV .  The Money Power Devoured our Railroads

The secretive methods of the Money Power are nowhere more fully displayed than in the manner in which it got possession of our railroads .

The advantages of owning our railroads were so vast and so obvious, that the Money Power, having boundless wealth could not fail to purchase them .

1st .  The Foundation of their Ownership of our Railroads was laid with consummate skill and craft .  They took their first steps at the time of their construction .

1 .  Many Lines, like the Illinois Central, were avowedly built and run by London capitalists .  — Many lines of railroad were built by them in the West in consideration of land grants .  —And many lines have been pushed by large railroad companies through new districts of country, for the sake of the trade to be obtained .

2 .  The Money Kings got the Other Roads by means of mortgages .  The great Trunk Lines, and indeed, almost all the railroads east of the Mississippi, were built by the issue of bonds, and were ironed by the Money Kings for first mortgage bonds .  The Money Kings always got possession of the roads under an arrangement of the mortgage .

Some of us recollect, along in the 50's, what hard work we had to build our railroads .  We had no wealth :  we had to build them with our poverty .  We had no capital :  we had to build them with debt .  When two cities wished to link themselves with an iron girdle, they issued bonds to the extent of their credit :  they induced all the counties along the line to issue bonds ;  and these bonds were always sold in London—the only place in the world where there was any cash capital—in order to get money to build the road-bed .  Sometimes it required several issues of bonds, with intervals of despondency, and even despair, before the road-bed was completed .  When the road-bed, or a considerable part of it, was completed, it was well known that the London Money Kings would furnish the iron and rolling stock, at the rate of $10,000 a mile, secured on first mortgage bonds .

I recollect that in 1855 to 1857, one of our cities was making tremendous efforts to build a railroad reaching toward a great business center .  After two or three efforts made with intervals of deep despondency, over one hundred miles of the road-bed was at last completed ;  and one of the most distinguished citizens of the state was sent to London, to negotiate for the iron for the road .  He succeeded in his object ;  but, being a man of enlarged views, he came back astounded .  He said he found men from all over the world in London on the same business as himself :  all wishing to get iron for railroads, at $10,000 a mile, secured on first mortgage bonds :  and they all got the iron .  He said, “ These London capitalists are sure to get the railroads for the first mortgage bonds ;  and no man can foresee the consequences .  It will certainly work a mighty change in the condition of the earth, when these capitalists get possession of all the land transportation of the world .  No man can tell what the result will be .”

We are now seeing some of the evils which this statesman of a generation ago dimly foreshadowed .

In this railroad financiering we have a fair specimen of the management of these Jew capitalists .  When the railroads were first started, they made but little money .  The system of operating them was as yet crude and imperfect and the business that has since grown up along them, and made them profitable, was as yet in its infancy .  As a rule, the Money Kings got possession of the railroads under some arrangement of the first mortgage bonds .

The Money Kings are the owners of our railroads .  It is known that the Erie railroad is owned by the great house of John Bidall Martin, in Lombard street, London .  A mortgage was placed upon the Milwaukee and St. Paul, last July, for $150,000,000, which was taken in Lombard street, London .  John Bidall Martin was the head of a syndicate which foreclosed the mortgage on the Wabash railroad system, two years ago .

A favorite method with these capitalists of holding railroads, is to have them bonded to them on mortgage security .  They never pay for these bonds more than about forty-five per cent. of their face value .  Whatever else goes unpaid, the interest on these bonds must be met, or the mortgage is foreclosed .  The Roads are thus mortgaged for their full value, and the owners of the bonds are really the owners of the railroads .  The mortgage, together with some preferred stock on which interest is sometimes paid, absorbs the earnings of the road .  The rest of the stock receives no dividends, and is of no actual value .  The bond holders are practically the owners of the roads .  It is only a question of time when the bond holders will take possession of their prey .  They would do it at any time if the management of those who may hold the stock does not suit them .  But the probability is that they keep in their hands a controlling interest of the stock, so as to secure the present control of the roads .

In the second place, it is certain that

2nd .  If the Money Kings were ever in Possession of the Railroads, they own them still .

1 .  The Laws of Political Economy Prove that, if the London Money Kings ever got possession of the Railroads, they have them still .  We could never have bought them back by any possibility, unless the Balance of Trade were in our favor .  For, without such a favorable Balance of Trade, our people could never possibly have the means to buy the railroads back .  But the Balance of Trade has been steadily against us all the while .  Hence, it is perfectly manifest that the railroads are still in the hands of the Money Power .  This is as certain as any fact in the world of nature .  For the laws of political economy are as fixed as the laws of nature .

2 .  The History of the Money Power Proves that no Americans have ever bought back Railroads once in possession of the Money Kings .  It is a fixed rule with the Money Kings never to take an interest in any business, without having a controlling interest in the stock ;  and having got a controlling interest in any enterprise, they work it, and never sell it .  They are always buying property :  They never sell ;  except indeed, batches of stock, to gulls, in Wall street operations !  If the Money Power ever got a controlling interest in American railroads, they never sold it out again, and no Americans ever had in their own ownership the controlling interest in such American railroads .

3 .  an objection may be presented here, that many American railroads, and those the most valuable, are notoriously owned by Americans :  that the Vanderbilts own the New York Central system—that Jay Gould owns a large system in his own right—that Tom Scott owned the Pennsylvania Central—that Garrett owns the Baltimore and Ohio—and that Huntingdon owns the Chesapeake and Ohio and its connections .

This is a matter of such importance to the American people that it ought to be thoroughly sifted .  These men have claimed to be the owners of these grand railroad systems ; —but are they ?  Or are they merely the agents of the London Money Kings, holding the railroads in trust for them ?

3rd .  circumstantial evidence that amounts to scientific demonstration proves that these men are the agents of the London Money Kings .

It is remarkable that very many peculiar facts have come to light about these railroad magnates, which prove at our American "railroad kings," so-called, are only the agents of the London Money Kings .  The proof is stronger than could be expected, when the Money Kings everything in their power to conceal their ownership .  They have always systematically concealed their trace, so that no direct evidence of their ownership can be found .  Their actions are always in the dark .—But a midnight murderer or a burglar can be convicted on circumstantial evidence .  So, if the ownership of the railroads by the London Money Kings were a felony, there is sufficient proof to send them to state prison .

1 .  Jay Gould an Agent for British Capitalist's

A large number of facts prove this : —

1) In 1873, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk were full partners in the ownership of the New York and Erie R.R. Holding $23,000,000 of railroad stocks, they were thought to be worth over $10,000,000 each .  They were full partners, and were supposed to be worth about the same amount .  It is perfectly evident that Fisk and Gould were not the real owners of the Erie railroad .  As the trail of a serpent can only be seen when the snake crosses a dusty road, so the track of the Money Kings can usually be seen only when it runs across the grave of an agent .  The settlements made at death frequently show that the reputed millionaire was only an agent of the Money Kings .

When Fisk was killed, in 1873, he, as has been stated, was thought to be worth $11,000,000, as he was holding that amount of railroad stock .  But when his estate was wound up, his family received only a few thousand dollars .  Thus the settlement of his estate after his death, showed conclusively that Fisk was only an agent, holding, in connection with Gould, the Erie railroad for the real stockholders in Great Britain .  There can be no doubt that Jay Gould, his partner, was their agent also .

Once finding Mr. Gould acting as the agent of the Money Kings, creates a strong presumption, that, in his subsequent operations, he is also the agent of European capitalists .  But the case does not rest on mere presumption .  It is perfectly certain that, in all his subsequent operations, Jay Gould has been only an agent of the London Money Kings, holding the railroads ostensively owned by him in trust for them .

2) Jay Gould's Railroad System belongs to the Money Kings .  In 1873, Jay Gould could hardly have been worth more than his partner, Jim Fisk .  In the hard times that followed 1873, nobody in America could make much money .  Yet, in 1878, Jay Gould came out West with forty million dollars, as it was given out through the newspapers, and bought ten thousand miles of railroad ;  and the American people were made to believe that it was his money, and that he himself owned, in his own right, the railroads of the Gould system .  His wealth was regarded as enormous .  He was reputed the richest man in America .  His wealth has been estimated as high as two hundred million dollars .

But of late years, facts have transpired, which show conclusively that Jay Gould is only the agent of the Money Power, to hold and operate their railroads :—

The Wabash System is one-half of the ten thousand miles of railroad in the Gould System .  Some years ago, the Wabash System became embarrassed, and was placed in the hands of a receiver .  Mr. Gould no doubt supposed that it might affect his credit for the American people to suppose that he could not sustain the credit of his roads ;  so he had an interview with a New York reporter, which fell under my eye, in which he said that much the greater number of the stockholders of the Wabash System were in Great Britain, and only a few in the United States : —and Jay Gould is one of the few ! —It is evident that Jay Gould is not the owner of the Wabash System !

The rest of the ten thousand miles of the Gould System consists of the Missouri Pacific, the Missouri Kansas and Texas, the Texas Pacific, and the Iron Mountain Railroads .  The Texas Pacific did not belong to may Gould, for its stockholders have had it taken out of the Gould System by process of law .—The Missouri Kansas and Texas did not belong to him ;  for its stockholders also, have brought suit and withdrawn the Road out of the Gould System .

Indeed, a short time since, Mr. Gould had an interview with a reporter, which I saw, in which he stated that he held more stock in the Missouri Pacific than all his other investments put together .  The Missouri Pacific is a Road three hundred miles long, running from St .  Louis to Kansas City .  And Mr. Gould's stock in that road amounts to more than all his other investments put together ! And he does not even own all of that three hundred miles of railroad .—And yet Mr. Gould was the ostensible owner of ten thousand miles of railroad and worth two hundred million dollars ! !

When we find one of the ostensible great owners of a grand railroad system to be merely an agent of the Money Power, it gives rise to a strong presumption that the other reputed owners of great railroad systems are also agents of the Money Power .

2 .  Vanderbilt an Agent of the Money Power

There is a large amount of cumulative evidence to prove that Commodore Vanderbilt was an agent of the Money Kings : —

I) Commodore Vanderbilt was originally a poor man .  He first rose into prominence as the manager of a line of steamers, running in the Isthmus route from New York to San Francisco .  But when he quit the ship line and went into Wall street speculation in railroad stocks, he was worth only one million dollars .  Manifestly, therefore, he was not the owner of the steamship line, but was holding and operating it as the agent for the stockholders, who were largely English .

If Commodore Vanderbilt was the agent of the Money Kings in operating the steamship line, and was afterwards transferred by them to Wall street, to operate for them there, it will explain many things otherwise unaccountable .

2) Vanderbilt always operated in Wall street as a bull .  In other words, he was always buying railroad stocks .  I recollect reading a work written when his operations were the wonder of the whole country, in which the author said that Vanderbilt had an unlimited purse back of him .  Nobody knew where he got his money, but the money at his command was practically without limit .  Frequently he had the whole street against him, but he was always able to put down any combination that was formed against him .  He had more money at his command than could be brought against him in all America .

It is idle to suppose that Vanderbilt was able to carry his vast operations through, with the one million dollars he was worth when he went into Wall street .  Many of the operators there who combined against him were each far richer than he .  We can only account for his immense operations, which required the command of unlimited capital to carry them to the successful issue he always attained, on the hypothesis that he was the agent of the London Money Kings to buy up railroad stocks for them .

I recollect that when Vanderbilt bought out Harlem, a little railroad some twenty odd miles long, the whole world was astonished that one man was able to buy and own an entire railroad .  He soon afterwards bought the Hudson River railroad, and the New York Central ;  and he continued to purchase railroads, until he owned a grand system extending far into the Northwest .  It was impossible for Commodore Vanderbilt to have conducted his immense operations with his own limited capital .  If he was the agent of the Money Kings, all is explained .

3) At his death, Commodore Vanderbilt was reputed to be worth one hundred million dollars .  When, in his will, he divided out only three and one half millions among his children, that fact confirmed me in my belief that he was an agent of the Money Power, and that the three and one half million dollars was all he was really worth ;  and that, in giving the rest of the property, including the railroads, to his son Wm. H. Vanderbilt, he simply transferred the agency to him .  This view was confirmed by the fact that Wm. H. Vanderbilt, immediately after his father's death, went to London, as I believed, to see his principals, and have his agency confirmed .

4) A fact which occurred in 1880, was, to my mind, conclusive evidence that Wm. H. Vanderbilt was only an agent .  He then transferred a controlling interest in the New York Central System to a syndicate of New York capitalists, avowedly representing English capitalists, for $50,000,000 ;  which he at once invested in four per cent United States bonds.  Now, I do not think that Mr. Vanderbilt would have done that, if the property had been his.  The transaction is contrary to all the laws of human motive .

I] The stock made him a Railroad King—one of the most influential men in America .  And it was paying him far more than four per cent .

2] A man owning a grand railroad system under his own absolute control would not jeopardize his interests, by selling a controlling interest to foreign capitalists .  Nor would an astute financier like Vanderbilt have sold a controlling interest in a grand railroad system which must have been paying much more than four per cent., to invest the money in four per cent. bonds .  It is not in human nature to make so bad a bargain .

3] Nor does it accord with the pride of a railroad magnate thus to abdicate power, and step down and out .  If Mr. Vanderbilt was a free agent, his action is inexplicable by all the laws of human motive .

4] But if he was an agent of the London Money Kings, and an order came from headquarters to make the transfer, he would have to "obey orders ."

5] And this was probably the fact .  Mr. Vanderbilt was a haughty irritable man, and exceedingly indiscreet in his utterances .  If an agent, he was not the best man to keep in such a responsible position .  His utterances, "d__ the people," and "I do not run my roads for the benefit of the people", exposed him to popular odium, and would not commend him to his principals .

6] At the next election after his transfer of stock Mr. Vanderbilt was elected a director in all the roads of the system ;  but he was made president of only a subordinate road .  He was evidently very much humiliated, and made a meek speech in which he said he had no doubt the new arrangement would be more agreeable to the stockholders .

7] He did with the United States bonds bought by him just what he would have done if he were an agent acting under orders from his superiors in London .  What did he do with them ?  Did he keep them in New York, as he would naturally have done if they had been his own ?  No :  he at once deposited them in London, in the banking house of John Bidall Martin, in Lombard street .

5) The provisions of the will of Wm. H. Vanderbilt bear out the idea that he was an agent of the London Money Kings .  He divided his property among his children more equally than his father had done ;  but he gave to one son $56,000,000, a controlling interest in the railroad system ;  and he provided that all the property should remain together .  This arrangement would secure the control of the railroad system to the Money Kings, as effectually as the arrangement made by his father .

I do not doubt, however, that Gould and the Vanderbilts are rich in their own right .  The Money Kings pay their agents well .  Their rule is to give them a large, though minority interest, in the property they manage .  And then, the position of Commodore Vanderbilt, and later, of Jay Gould, and Wm. H. Vanderbilt, would give them vast opportunities of making a great deal of money for themselves in operations in Wall street .  But all the cumulative facts prove that Commodore Vanderbilt was an agent of the Money Kings—facts which are wholly inconsistent with the idea that the Vanderbilt family really owns the railroads it holds in possession .

If the grand so called "Railroad King" in America, is only an agent of the London Money Kings, what a commentary upon the grandeur of those imperial capitalists !

3 .  Tom Scott was the reputed owner of the Pennsylvania Central ;—but, since his death, we hear nothing of his heirs being the owners of that railroad system .

4 .  C. P. Huntingdon has been the reputed owner of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and connections .  Where did he make the money to buy it ?

(I) At the time the Central Pacific Railroad was projected, Huntingdon was a grocer with limited means in San Francisco .  He and his coadjutors built the Central Pacific Railroad .  Many facts indicate that they were merely the agents of the Money Power in that enterprise .  The United States government aid was only paid when a stipulated number of miles of railway had been completed :  the men in the construction company had not the means to do so much work before receiving the government subsidy .  All Americans who have a grand enterprise in hand go to London to get the money to accomplish it .  Now, the Money Kings would not have suffered Huntingdon and company to remain principals in the ownership of the road for the construction of which the Money Kings furnished the money .  They would certainly demand, as the only condition on which they would furnish the money for construction, that the franchise should be transferred to them, and that Huntingdon and his friends should become their agents to build and operate the road .

(2) When Huntingdon appeared before a Congressional Committee, he insisted that the Central Pacific road was in very straitened circumstances .  When a member of the Committee asked him if he shared the depressed financial condition of the road, he paused for a considerable time before replying ;  and finally answered with extreme caution,—"No :  I am said to be rich ."—He insisted that he had made no money out of the Central Pacific ;  but that everything he was worth had been realized from other enterprises .

I take all this to be a reserved statement of the actual truth .  The Money Kings would get the lion's share of the profits of constructing and operating the Central Pacific ;  to Huntingdon and the others would be allowed the jackal's portion .

(3) But, if Huntingdon made no money out of the Central Pacific Railroad, where did he get the money to buy the Chesapeake and Ohio, and the other railroads of the system ?  We are forced to the conclusion that Huntingdon does not own those railroads at allthat he is the agent of the Money Kings, and holds his roads, as Gould does his system, in trust for the real owners .

His answer to the Congressional Committee indicates such a state of facts .  He said "I am said to be rich ." Such would be the cautious language of a man who was thought to be the owner of a great railroad system, when he knew himself to be the agent of the Money Power .

5 .  In the case of Garrett, the facts fully comport with the idea that he is the agent of the Money Kings ;  but not at all with the idea of a man owning a vast railroad system in his own right .  But as it would be necessary to comment on his personal misfortunes, in order to make out the case, it is passed without further notice .  It is sufficient to say that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is fully mortgaged to London bond holders .

The whole question of the ownership of the American railroads is veiled in mystery .  But, however carefully it is hidden, the Money Kings have the property securely in their hands .

Everything proves that the Money Kings are the owners of our railroads .  The author of a pamphlet given me in London, in 1864, told the truth when he said of the Money Kings, as will be hereafter quoted,—“We are the railway builders of the world, and the actual owners of the greater part of the railways .”  They have had plenty of time since then, to have purchased what they did not then own ;  and they have been very busy in Wall street, during the entire interval .