YR

XVI

ES, I knew something of the richness of that country through which the Erie railroad was being built. So, when it was at last finished, I hankered to get it into my hands. I felt that I could make

money out of it. When you own the hen, you own the eggs also. And when you control a railroad - that's the same as owning it - you own what the road makes. I went about it like this. There was by this time a chain of railroads through the Mohawk Valley and the central part of York State. They coupled together, a little later, to form the "New York Central." This chain of railroads out of Albany could be made, in connection with my steamboats on the Hudson, a bad competitor of the Erie for the through western traffic. With my Hudson River boats I was in a position to favour this Central Line with rates on the through traffic and so make myself an enemy of the Erie whom it would stand them in hand to make terms with. To make doubly sure, I set my trap at the other end also. Out on Lake Erie was a line of boats connecting with the Erie Railroad and forming its

route to the far West. Softly I bought a controlling interest in this steamboat line. This gave me power over the Erie in that direction. I took still a third step. Out in western New York there was a line of railroad connecting both the Central Line and the Erie. It was known as the "Buffalo and State Line Railroad." Without letting anybody know what I was doing, I got enough stock in this dinkey little road to control it.

Now my trap was set. I let it be known that I was planning to give the railroad which ran through central New York a better through rate, both on the Hudson River steamboats and on the "Buffalo and State Line" connection with the West, than the Erie could meet. I also hinted to the Erie Company that it would very soon have to give me a bigger slice of the through rate, for the use of my Lake Erie line of steamers.

The Erie people got interested in me then almighty quick. For I had their line bottled up, corked at both ends good and tight. "What do you mean,' they asked, "by giving that New York Central crowd better rates than you do us?"

I answered, sort of cool-like, that I hadn't thought the Erie would care very much. They had never seemed to give much thought to Dan Drew one way or the other. I said I was kind of surprised that they even knew I was living.

"What do you mean by that?" they asked.

"Is it that you want to be a director of the Erie ?"

I hemmed and hawed, chewed my tobacco for a spell, and then said I'd think their offer over. Some time before the Erie's annual meeting I let it be known that, inasmuch as they had asked me to take a position as director, I might see my way clear to accept if I was elected. I put it kind of mild, like that. But I was just itching to get in on the inside. Like a dog around hot porridge, there was something good there, if I could only get to it. I could hardly wait. Finally the election took place, and they sent me word that I had been elected a member of the Board of Directors. I was at last on the inside.

But even this wasn't enough. To be a director is something. It gives you Wall Street tips ahead of the people who are on the outside. But I wanted something more (I always was ambitious, never contented, but always pushing on to something better). So I now took steps to get the road completely under my thumb. In order to do this, I saw I'd have to get her to borrow money of me. That's the sure way.

When a man is in your debt, he's your slave. You own him body and breeches. You are the cat, he is the mouse. You let him have a little space to run about in, and he thinks he's going to get away. But you are only playing with him. You can stick out your paw and claw him across the back

any time you wish. So I set about to make them borrow money, and to borrow it of me.

This was not so easy to do as one might think. Because the Company was prosperous. It didn't need any more money. The road was so wonderful an achievement that it was almost a mark of patriotism for the people in that region to patronize it and help it along. It was not only a York State thing, it was an American institution — the first great trunk-line railroad the world had ever seen. So money flowed in from all sides. Conductors, engineers, brakemen, track-walkers, proud to be working for such a fine and great enterprise, were honest and faithful. No wonder the road paid dividends. This was during the panic of '57 that I set about to get control of the road. Money everywhere else was tight - so much suffering, in fact, that the New York Common Council put labourers to work grading the new Central Park, in order to relieve the distress. And yet, with stocks everywhere else slumping, banks failing, great commercial houses toppling on every side, that very year the young and thrifty Erie Railroad paid no less than eight per cent. dividends. If a road could do that so soon after it was built and while it was getting onto its legs, so to speak, what wouldn't it do when it had settled down to real business? Yes, it did look like a hopeless task, to make a road. that was as flourishing as this borrow money of me.

But I was like a steer that smells the clover; he will either find a hole through the line fence, or make one.

This Erie enterprise in my life, let me say right here, got a lot of people to disliking me. "Because," they said, "before Dan Drew got hold of it, the Erie was one of the best and most thriving properties in the country America's pride — longest and finest railroad in the world - the bringer of blessings to all the southern tier of counties in the Empire State. Whereas, when he got through with it," so these enemies of mine said, "its treasury had been squeezed dry, the road brought to bankruptcy, its rolling stock run down, and the road-bed become a death trap and a taker of human life. And the evil didn't stop with him,” so they went on; "for when this Dan Drew finally let go his clutch on the finances of the road, he had set at work a chain of influences which were to make the road a by-word, and set back the development of a third part of York State for the space of fifty years."

Oh, they ripped it onto me good and hard. I suppose I have put up with such abuse during my life as have few other men that ever lived. But, being of a peaceable disposition, I have forgiven these enemies of mine all the hard things they said. I always turn the other cheek, as it were. A quiet cow can get along with short horns; and if, when enemies revile you and say all manner of evil against you, you don't answer back, but just go on your