CHAPTER VIII
FURTHER ASPECTS OF THE VANDERBILT FORTUNE
The juggling of railroads and the virtual seizure of coal mines were by no means the only accomplishments of the Vanderbilt family in the years under consideration. Colorless as was the third generation, undistinguished by any marked characteristic, extremely commonplace in its conventions, it yet proved itself a worthy successor of Commodore Vanderbilt. The lessons he had taught of how to appropriate wealth were duly followed by his descendants, and all of the ancestral methods were closely adhered to by the third generation. Whatever might be its pretensions to a certain integrity and to a profound respectability, there was really no difference between its methods and those of the Commodore. Times had changed; that was all. What had once been regarded as outright theft and piracy were now cloaked under high-sounding phrases as "corporate extension" and "high finance" and other catchwords calculated to lull public suspicion and resentment. A refinement of phraseology had set in; and it served its purpose.
Concomitantly, while executing the transactions already described, the Vanderbilts of the third generation put through many others, both large and small, which were converted into further heaps of wealth. An enumeration of all of these diverse frauds would necessitate a tiresome presentation. A few examples will suffice.
The small frauds were but lesser in relation to the larger. At this period of the economic development of the country, when immense thefts were being consummated, a fraud had to rise to the dignity of at least fifty million dollars to be regarded a large one. The law, it is true, proscribed any theft involving more than $25 as grand larceny, but it was law applying to the poor only, and operative on them exclusively. The inordinately rich were beyond all law, seeing that they could either manufacture it, or its interpretation, at will. Among the conspicuous, audacious capitalists the fraud of a few paltry millions shrank to the modesty of a small, cursory, off-hand operation. Yet, in the aggregate, these petty frauds constituted great results, and for that reason were valued accordingly.