244 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



the public. His ambition is a great one. It seems tc 

 be nothing less than to make himself master in his own 

 right of the great channels of communication which 

 connect the city of New York with the interior of the 

 continent, and to control them as his private property. 

 Drew sought to carry to a mean perfection the old sys- 

 tem of operating successfully from the confidential posi- 

 tion of director, neither knowing anything nor caring 

 anything for the railroad system, except in its connection 

 with the movements of the Stock Exchange, and he suc- 

 ceeded in his object. Vanderbilt, on the other hand, 

 as selfish, harder, and more dangerous, though less 

 subtle, has by instinct, rather than by intellectual effort, 

 seen the full magnitude of the system, and through it 

 has sought to make himself a dictator in modern civili- 

 zation, moving forward to this end step by step with a 

 sort of pitiless energy which has seemed to have in it 

 an element of fate. As trade now dominates the world, 

 and railways dominate trade, his object has been to 

 make himself the virtual master of all by making him- 

 self absolute lord of the railways. Had he begun his 

 railroad operations with this end in view, complete 

 failure would have been almost certainly his reward. 

 Commencing as he did, however, with a comparatively 

 insignificant objective point the cheap purchase of a 

 bankrupt stock and developing his ideas as he ad- 

 vanced, his power and his reputation grew, until an end 

 which at first it would have seemed madness to enter- 

 tain, became at last both natural and feasible." 



Not long since, the Presidency of the Lake Shore 

 & Michigan Southern Railroad became vacant by 

 reason of the death of the president, Plorace F. .Clark. 

 Mr. Clark was the son-in-law and a valuable ally of 



