THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 163 



reasons for apprehending hostile legislation, Vanderbilt, 

 on his part, might have feared for the success of a bill 

 which was to legalize his new stock. But hardly a 

 voice was raised against the Erie men, and the bill of 

 the Central was safely carried through. This curious 

 absence of opposition did not stop here, and soon the 

 two parties were seen united in an active alliance. 

 Vanderbilt wanted to consolidate his roads ; the Erie 

 directors wanted to avoid the formality of annual elec- 

 tions. Thereupon two other bills went hastily through 

 this honest and patriotic Legislature, the one authoriz- 

 ing the Erie Board which had been elected for one 

 year to classify itself so that one-fifth only of its mem- 

 bers should vacate office during each succeeding year, 

 the other consolidating the Vanderbilt roads into one 

 colossal monopoly. Public interests and private rights 

 seem equally to have been the victims. It is impossi- 

 ble to say that the beautiful unity of interests which 

 led to such results was the fulfilment of the December 

 settlement ; but it is a curious fact that the same paper 

 which announced in one column that Vanderbilt's two 

 measures, known as the consolidation and Central scrip 

 bills, had gone to the Governor for signature, should, in 

 another, have reported the discontinuance of the Bel- 

 mont and "Whelpley suits by the consent of all inter- 

 ested.* It may be that public and private interests 

 were not thus balanced and traded away in a servile 

 Legislature, but the strong probabilities are that the 

 settlement of December made white even that of July. 

 Meanwhile the conquerors the men whose names had 

 been made notorious through the whole land in all these 



* See the New York Tribune of May 10, 1869. 



