242 HISTORY OP THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



suddenly find that our institutions had disappeared, 

 and that we had riveted round our necks the chains of 

 a worse despotism than any we ever lamented for our 

 fellow-creatures. This is really no imaginary picture, 

 as any one will admit who recollects the stronghold, ab- 

 solutely inaccessible to the law, which Fisk and Gould 

 erected and for a time maintained in New York, or the 

 military operations of the employes of the Erie and 

 the Susquehanna railroads during the * Susquehanna 

 War/ and who has followed with any attention the 

 helpless struggles of the Government of the United 

 States formerly supposed to be quite able to take care 

 of itself in the foul toils of the Union Pacific Rail- 

 road." 



Mr. Thomas Scott, the vice-president of the Pennsyl- 

 vania Railway, is credited with the remark that he 

 preferred his position to the Presidency of the United 

 States, as it was a post of more real power, and offered 

 greater opportunities to a man of ambition and talent. 

 This was no idle boast. Colonel Scott has shown, upon 

 more occasions than one, that he feels that his road is 

 the master of the vast communities dependent upon it. 



Few monarchs enjoy as much substantial power as is 

 vested in the hands of Cornelius Vanderbilt, of New 

 York, who is often called the " Railroad King." A man 

 of unbounded ambition, and with every quality for the 

 successful organization and management of great 

 monopolies, he has, by his genius and daring, placed 

 himself at the head of the railroad interest of the 

 United States. Naturally arrogant, his continued suc- 

 cess has made him a true king of the absolute school, 

 in the execution of his plans. Mr. Adams draws the 

 following contrast between Vanderbilt and his rival, 



