CHAPTER IV
THE ONRUSH OF THE VANDERBILT FORTUNE
With the outbreak of the Civil War, and the scouring of the seas by privateers, American ship owners found themselves with an assortment of superfluous vessels on their hands. Forced to withdraw from marine commerce, they looked about for two openings. One was how to dispose of their vessels, the other the seeking of a new and safe method of making millions.
Most of their vessels were of such scandalous construction that foreign capitalists would not buy them at any price. Hastily built in the brief period of ninety days, wholly with a view to immediate profit and with but a perfunctory regard for efficiency, many of these steamers were in a dangerous condition. That they survived voyages was perhaps due more to luck than anything else; year after year, vessel after vessel similarly built and owned had gone down to the bottom of the ocean. Collins had lost many of his ships; so had other steamship companies. The chronicles of sea travel were a long, grewsome succession of tragedies; every little while accounts would come in of ships sunk or mysteriously missing. Thousands of immigrants, inhumanly crowded in the enclosures of the steerage, were swept to death without even a fighting chance for life. Cabin passengers fared better; they were given the opportunity of taking to the life-boats in cases where there was sufficient warning, time and room. At best, sea travel is a hazard; the finest of ships are liable to meet with disaster. But over much of this sacrifice of life hung grim, ugly charges of mismanagement and corruption, of insufficient crews and incompetent officers; of defective machinery and rotting timber; of lack of proper inspection and safeguards.