PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN 245 
was diluting its stock by issuing a large proportion of new 
shares. Despite Field’s known probity, this tended to weaken 
the confidence of the public in these securities. Later there 
came a false rumor that the company’s charter was to be 
canceled. ‘The shares that had been quoted around seventy- 
five dollars dropped to less than a quarter of that figure. Af- 
ter remaining at a low price for a time, they began rising to 
their former levels, as the Manhattan Company absorbed its 
two parent companies in one of the mergers so common then. 
All these fluctuations and complications in the finances of the 
elevated railways were part of the new technique of Ameri- 
can business that developed so markedly after the Civil War, 
when financiers “ran wild” in Wall Street. 
When Field advocated a reduction in the fare on the ele- 
vated system from ten cents to five cents for all hours of the 
day, Gould objected, but Field’s faction still controlled a 
majority of the shares. So bitterly did the opposing faction 
fight this reduction that a bill had to be passed at Albany to 
legalize the action. Governor Grover Cleveland (later Presi- 
dent) vetoed the bill. There were high feelings and lingering 
resentment from this precedent-setting fight, but the fare was 
finally reduced despite all the opposition. 
