THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 171 



know less than any man in Albany. This strange and 

 expensive hallucination lasted until about the middle of 

 April, when Mr. Gould was happily restored to his nor- 

 mal condition of a shrewd, acute, energetic man of busi- 

 ness ; nor is it known that he has since experienced any 

 relapse into financial idiocy. 



" About the period of Mr. Gould's arrival in Albany 

 the tide turned, and soon began to flow strongly in fa- 

 vor of Erie and against Vanderbilt. How much of this 

 was due to the skilful manipulations of Gould, and how 

 much to the rising popular feeling against the practical 

 consolidation of competing lines, cannot be decided. 

 The popular protests did indeed pour in by scores, but 

 then again the Erie secret-service money poured out 

 like water. Yet Mr. Gould's task was sufficiently diffi- 

 cult. After the adverse report of the Senate committee, 

 and the decisive defeat of the bill introduced into the 

 Assembly, any favorable legislation seemed almost 

 hopeless. Both Houses were committed. Vanderbilt 

 had but to prevent action, to keep things where they 

 were, and the return of his opponents to New York was 

 impracticable, unless with his consent ; he appeared, in 

 fact, to be absolute master of the situation. It seemed 

 almost impossible to introduce a bill in the face of his 

 great influence, and to navigate it through the many 

 stages of legislative action and executive approval, with- 

 out somewhere giving him an opportunity to defeat it. 

 This was the task Gould had before him, and he accom- 

 plished it. On the 13th of April a bill, which met the 

 approval of the Erie party, and which Judge Barnard 

 subsequently compared not inaptly to a bill legalizing 

 counterfeit money, was taken up in the Senate ; for 

 some days it was warmly debated, and on the 18th was 



